WHEN her husband's life was extinguished by the asbestos-related disease, mesothelioma, Eastbourne widow Pauline Bonney decided to keep his memory alive by campaigning for greater safety.
John Bonney died 10 years ago at the age of 51 after inhaling deadly asbestos fibres as a young man, when he worked as an apprentice electrician and handled wires coated in the substance.
Like many tradesmen at that time, he never knew the risks ass
ociated with his work, nor was he ever told about protective wear.
Short of an outright ban on asbestos around the world, Mrs Bonney believes people need to be told about its dangers and safety rules strictly enforced to stop others suffering a similar loss to hers.
She said, " John was an active man. He was hard-working, skilled, energetic and positive. If he'd had any idea his life was being put at risk through his job, he would have insisted on being kept safe.
"Such simple things like training and masks and surveying buildings for asbestos would have saved his life."
Mrs Bonney, of Shalfleet Close, Langney, recalled how he had developed a chronic cough but carried on working to provide for her and his step-daughters, Christy and Jenna.
Several months after his symptoms first appeared, Mr Bonney had collapsed at home, hardly able to breathe, his lips turning blue and his stomach swelling.
At first diagnosed with pleurisy, he learned on the eve of the couple's fifth wedding anniversary in August 1988 that, in fact, he had mesothelioma and consequently just months to live.
On February 26, 1999, he lost his struggle with the tumour that had invaded his body and died.
Mrs Bonney said, "It was a struggle: a slow, painful battle with death that no one should have to endure, and which with proper precautions can be avoided."
She has since handed out leaflets and written poems to highlight the dangers of asbestos, and this week backed a nationwide Hidden Killer campaign launched by the Health and Safety Executive.
It is directed at the 1.8 million plumbers, electricians, builders, joiners and others who daily run the risk of exposure to asbestos, and of whom 20 die each week.
Mrs Bonney said, "They are needless deaths, and I hope that anyone likely to come into contact with asbestos will realise the harm it can do and not go to their graves so bravely yet futilely as John did."
For more information visit: www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/hiddenkiller/index
