asbestos

In Armley, Leeds, in the 1950s, there were no play-areas, no sand pits and nothing much to do, so the children (like children everywhere) made their own games. They were lucky (so they thought) because there was lots of fun to be had with the plentiful supply of fine sand which sprayed out from the JW Roberts’ factory in the centre of the small town. The blue sand formed drifts in the playground and coloured the pavements.   It was annoying for other residents as the sand got everywhere but it was great for the children. The children could play in the factory’s loading bay, among sacks of their special blue sand and nobody seemed to mind. The sand was quite versatile too – you could kick it into the air and, if you gathered up a pile and squashed it in your hands, you could make a blue snowball out of it – imagine that, snowballs all year!    One of these children was June Hancock – she lived with her family in a nearby Armley street and went to the Clock School next to the JW Roberts factory. But neither June nor the other residents of Armley were lucky in the end.   The only cause of the cancer mesothelioma, a painful lung disease, is asbestos dust. The blue sand the children played with and which was awkward to clean – dust gets everywhere - was asbestos dust from the asbestos factory of JW Roberts. Unfortunately - for the factory’s workers, the children and all other local residents if they breathed in a spec of the dust, the damage was done. The tiny particles of dust once inhaled, embedded inside the lungs, didn’t break down, and could not be removed. It wasn’t if they would develop mesothelioma but when. June Hancock’s mother died of mesothelioma in 1982. There were 39 deaths caused by the factory in 1994 and in the same year June was diagnosed with it the disease.   JW Roberts’ parent company (T&N Plc) had paid compensation to its factory workers but June wanted the same for the residents who had died, were dying and were still to be diagnosed and die because of the negligence of JW Roberts. In 1995 June won her case and the appeal T&N Plc. In so doing she set a precedent which other innocent victims have greatly benefitted from. June died of mesothelioma in 1997.   Since her death her children have founded the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund. It is the only independent Mesothelioma Research facility to be established.       AndAnotherThing2 writes COMEDYand is Xomba's first featured HISTORIAN