[Graham Boak]

Radium paint is not "apparently radioactive" - it is radioactive. There is a known and very well documented history of deaths and disfiguring cancers from it, although generally linked with working practices at the factories using this paint, and hence higher levels of direct exposure.

The problems caused by low-level radiation are far from clear: there is considerable controversy over evidence that there is indeed no such thing as a safe level, however low this is set. It seems clear to me that those arguing strongest against it are those with a wish to avoid possible lawsuits, rather than those with a truly independent point of view. Which does not necessarily make them wrong.

Illness and deaths due to radiation are always a lottery: some people survive unharmed whereas others succumb to lower levels. I suspect that long-term exposure to this level would not affect many: or perhaps your fathers may just have been lucky.

It is the role of government agencies to be protective - there is after all a long list of cases where such protection has been inadequate for the workforce or general populace, so the modern tendency for litigation forces them that way.