Ian Foulkes was exposed to the deadly nerve agent Sarin in 1983 at the  Porton Down Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment., one of the UK's most secretive and controversial military research facilities. Ian describes in detail the process and the ill effects this caused him and shares details of a little-known fatality where 20-year-old Ronald Maddison died 45 minutes after what scientists thought was  200mg of liquid Sarin dripped onto his arm. We also talk about the development of chemical weapons during the Cold War and the history of the Porton Down Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment.  Up to 20,000 people took part in various trials at Porton Down from 1949 up to 1989. In 2004 Maddison’s death was ruled to have been Corporate Manslaughter. The MoD withdrew a challenge to this ruling minutes before the hearing. In 2008  the MoD paid 600 veterans of the tests £8k each without admitting liability. Now if you think there is a vast army of research assistants, audio engineers and producers putting together this podcast you’d be wrong. This podcast relies on your support to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories and make them available to everyone for free.  If you’d like to help to preserve Cold War history and enable me to continue to produce this podcast you can via one-off or monthly donations. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ for more details. Do join our Facebook discussion group where the cold war conversation continues between episodes. Just search Cold War Conversations in Facebook. I am delighted to welcome Ian Foulkes to our Cold War conversation… There’s further information on this episode in our show notes which can also be found as a link in your podcast app here.  Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated – goodbye. Support the show