A WOMAN died from a huge tumour caused by years of washing her husband's asbestos-covered work clothes.
Pamela Whitemore, of Spondon, was married to a lorry driver who used to load asbestos by hand.
Her family said she was a typical housewife, "cooking, cleaning and washing".
She developed mesothelioma – a cancer of the lung lining – and died at Royal Derby Hospital in November, aged 80.
She was diagnosed just five days earlier.
An inquest into Mrs Whitemore's death heard how she had a job in a bedding factory but gave it up when she married her husband, Ronald, in 1950.
Their daughter, Jacqueline Higgins, said her mother was a "traditional housewife".
She said: "Mum was a housewife and dad went out to work. That was the way it was. She took care of my father and washed his overalls. Dad did not know what a washing machine was."
Mrs Higgins said her father, who lived with his wife in The Pingle, had been a lorry driver since he came out of the Army, although he spent a short time in the 1960s working at British Rail.
During his work as a driver, he used to carry bricks, pipes and slabs and also asbestos.
He used to "hump" it on and off his lorry, his daughter said. Much of the asbestos was collected in Watford and delivered across the country.
Talking about his overalls, she said: "They were always dirty and dusty. If it was not dirt it was grease – he had a very dirty job."
She said her mother would "shake them outside the back door, then throw them in the washing machine".
It was a manual machine, rather than automatic, and had a mangle to wring away excess water, she said.
When the dangers of asbestos later become known, her father – who died from prostate cancer – talked about his experiences.
"My dad used to say 'I humped loads of those asbestos sheets and it's never done me any harm'," his daughter said.
Pathologist Andrew Hitchcock said it was an "extensive" tumour and there was evidence to show it was caused by asbestos exposure.
"It fits into a well-recognised pattern from my point of view," he said.
"We have a good history of exposure to asbestos.
"The link there is very strong."
Louise Pinder, the deputy coroner for Derby, recorded a verdict of death by industrial disease.
Ms Pinder said: "There was more handling of clothes than there would have been in the modern-day process.
"Mrs Whitemore was exposed indirectly.
"She was exposed in some way that was connected to employment, albeit her husband's employment."
source: thisisderbyshire.co.uk
Link: Asbestos Claims
