I’m sponsoring the match ball at tonight’s friendly vs Leicester City in memory of my dad, Alan Rogers, it was his birthday today and he died just over 11 years ago of Pleural Mesothelioma – a pernicious lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.
Today should be about doing something positive, so I’m grateful to the club for allowing me to do a bucket collection for the Mesothelioma UK Charitable Trust, who proive all kinds of support, I only wish they had been around when dad died.
Exposure to asbestos is a silent, but deadly killer. Any one involved in construction, building and maintenance should now be aware of the dangers of asbestos – but the asbestos industry kept quite about the dangers until the 1980’s. By then the damage was done. The deadly dust affected workers in the shipbuilding, railway and vehicle / boiler / pipe making / maintenance industries.
Not only workers have been affected, families and friends exposed to workers dusty work clothes have also suffered. My Dad’s best friend, also a post war apprentice with the Southern Electric Board, died of mesothelioma and his widow sadly went the same way a few months later.
The late Queen Mum’s aide, Sir Alastair Airde was also a victim – he oversaw the renovation of Clarence House – doctors, nurses, school teachers and others have also succumbed. So this evil has affected people from all walks of life and their families – all because of big industry’s greed for profit at all costs.
Compensation is often very hard to get – as old employment and pension records dissapear with time and, if several companies are involved in a working life-time, the buck gets passed around.
From a personal point of view it was harrowing to watch an active, practical and well loved man of village and vale cut down prematurely at the beginning of a well earned retirement. There’s nothing worse than watching a loved one slowly drown from lack of oxygen and in a misty morphine haze.
RIP Dad – we miss you.
UPDATE:
thanks to the marvellous generosity of the Brakes and Foxes fans, as well as Leamington FC for donating the match ball fee and £20 from my mum, the total raised was a tremendous £386.
UPDATE 2nd Aug’13 – Thanks from Meso UK:
Brakes Videos 