Father was there for 12 months 1957/58 and witnessed them, no protective clothing only wearing shorts, he was impressed by the explosions then paid the price by dying from a very unusual cancer later. There were many others.
Old family friend was there who is sadly no longer with us, one quiet evening in the pub he told me all about it, something he hadn't talked about before, he said they all lined up with goggles on, turned around away from the flash and said he could see those standing in front like X-rays, he said unfortunately no one told the NAAFI cat not to look at it and it was blinded, same went for all the landcrabs that were walking around bumping into trees etc. The funny thing he said, was the one thing that really worried him about it all was he went into the little NAAFI store and all the toothpaste had squirted out of the tubes... He didn't die from anything cancer related, so in that respect was lucky.