Asbestos at British Uralite by Dr Mavis Nye My next door neighbour had a brother die of Mesothelioma in the 1970s. He went to court and won a sum of money enough to buy a house but he died soon after. I was trying to find his case but I can't at the moment. It was on front page of the daily papers. I came across British Uralite and that was where Ray had worked when he left the dockyard. He only worked there six months. But it only takes one fibre as I keep saying. We couldn’t make a claim here as a secondary claim as it was still before the 1964 point that they claim they didn’t know it was dangerous. Of coarse if Ray (God forbid) ever needed to claim then old cases are great to have evidence of people who have won claims. We were very interested to see my Solicitor has won such a case. Harminder Bains (Leigh Davy) acted on behalf of Mrs Joyce Holley, who worked at the British Uralite asbestos factory in Higham from 1943 to 1949. Initially she worked in the women’s pipe shop and then finally in the canteen. She was exposed to asbestos while making asbestos products such as pipe bends, pipe terminals, pipe cowls and garden boxes. She also cut wet asbestos sheets, wrapped the asbestos around moulds and finally took the moulds to a fire to dry out. After drying she would smooth the asbestos products down with an emery board and polish them with French chalk. Mrs Holley was diagnosed with mesothelioma in July 2009. At the British Uralite factory in Higham, chimney pots, pipes and tiles were made from raw asbestos. Similarly, it was also used in power stations and heavy engineering plants in the towns. I can’t believe that Ray hasn’t told the story of the six months' employment he did here. He said when
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I interviewed him “You have never asked, but I have written it down for our solicitor. Ray said “We were manufacturing window boxes, which entailed multiple trips to the hopper, where sheets of wet asbestos were laid out on giant tables, about six foot by eight foot long. Using a giant rolling pin between, two men, we would roll a sheet onto the rolling pin and carry it back to our work stations. There it would be unrolled on the table and various sizes would be cut from the wet sheet. These would be placed in wooden moulds and beaten into shape with a metal spatulas. These moulds would be placed in a rack overnight. The following day these moulds would be back on the bench where the semi hard asbestos would be trimmed with a knife or hack saw blade, the mould placed back in the rack. The following day these moulds that had been trimmed would be dismantled to remove the window box, these window boxes would be stacked on the floor around the work area, where they would be left to cure or harden. The next day the cured window boxes could then be filed, sandpapered and all edges cleaned, they would then be dusted down with a powder where they would be taken to the stores. With all the filing and sand papering being carried out, this inevitably created asbestos dust, which settled on the benches on the floor and on your clothes and all other sections in the open factory area. The same dusting, cleaning, sawing and sandpapering created dust everywhere and on everything with no attempt by management to clean up. In the event that the window boxes or other asbestos items were damaged and refused acceptance in the stores they would be broken up and the pieces thrown in the bin. When there was a strike you were made to tear open the sacks of asbestos ready for the hopper in an enclosed area in which asbestos dust and fibres were over all the machinery, up the walls and about half inch all over the floor. The air was thick with dust. At no time did British Uralite offer any breathing protection nor offer any warnings. Asbestos was also used as a building material in schools and homes between the 1950s and 1980s. While the dockyard and British Uralite have long since closed they have left behind a legacy of death. Ray lost a wonderful friend that we visited. A 31-year-old fit man who died of cancer. This was our first meeting with Mesothelioma.
