When I was at sea we used to carry cargoes of raw asbestos in bales from Quebec, Canada to Manchester. If I remember rightly it was bound for Turner, Newalls factory in Rochdale which employed thousands of people. They made many products containing asbestos.
After the dockers had got their hooks in the bales when discharging it we had to sweep up the waste ready for dumping, there was asbestos dust everywhere. I am going back 50 years ago now and there was no Health & Safety then as there is these days and no one knew how dangerous it was going to turn out to be. We were given no masks or overalls etc.
In 1993 when I was working at the Tunnel I had a slight accident and was taken to Buckland for treatment. I had X rays taken of my lungs and shadows were found on them. The doctors at the hospital asked me where I had worked but wouldn't tell much about it and left it to my G.P. He told me that I had fibrous tissue on my lungs and it was nothing to worry about. I never even thought about the asbestos that I had been exposed to all those years all those years previously.
A couple of months ago I had the flu and with it a persistent cough which I had for about six weeks, my wife persuaded me to go to my G.P. in the end and he put me on a course of antibiotics and sent me for an X ray. The flu cleared up but the cough persisted and the X rays came back and they were no different from the ones of 15 years ago so the shadows haven't increased for which I am grateful. I still have the cough but not as heavy. I was a heavy smoker until I was 30 years of age and packed it in because of the cough, I am now 74 so haven't had a fag for 44 years.
I don't know if my cough is down to asbestos or not. I am just hoping that it gets no worse. Sorry to have rambled on.
