Eileen’s husband Ray was only 54 when their hopes for a long life together after their children had grown were shattered.  He contracted the disease when he was working as a painter for British Rail in the early 1980s. 

Eileen says: “I knew nothing of mesothelioma and could not say it let alone spell it; we didn’t know what hit us. I don’t want any other family to find themselves in the situation we did and that is why I contacted London Hazards and went on to set up the East London Mesothelioma Group (ELMs), which provides a listening ear especially when someone is recently diagnosed with the illness or someone has just been bereaved.”

London Hazards Centre signposts asbestos callers to organisations who will help them negotiate the benefits and compensation maze. They are keen to spread the message that there are now treatments available which although they don’t cure mesothelioma – a cancer only caused by working with asbestos – but do give “extra years” with better quality of life for victims.  they also want to see more money put into cancer research for improved treatments: a lot of Londoners have been exposed to asbestos in the past, and we are only just being to see the beginnings of what the medical experts call an “asbestos epidemic”.