FROM a woman suffering because she used to give her dad a hug as he came home from work to tales of snowball fights with the "magic material" - the stories are endless and varied but all share one thing in common: asbestos exposure at the Barrow shipyard.

Following on from a special report into the legacy of decades of working alongside the cancer-causing material, families of those affected have been paying tribute to the hundreds and possibly thousands of people who have suffered and are now suffering as a result.

One Barrow man, in his 70s, only discovered he had asbestosis and mesothelioma when he went swimming at the Park Leisure Centre and literally "sank to the bottom".

"I couldn't get myself off the bottom of the pool; I had an x-ray at the hospital and my lungs were full of fluid, there was no room for air and they drained a litre out of them," he said.

Hearing of the regular 'snowball fights' with asbestos beggars belief now but for many decades, there was a culture of knowledge that being exposed to asbestos would cause health problems.

One woman said: "My dad died 25 years ago aged 46. He was a plumber.

"I remember him telling me it was all over the shop floor and they used to have snowball fights with it then eat their sandwiches!"

Government reports and inquest findings going back as far as the early 1900s identified causes of death as being directly linked to asbestos exposure.

The word asbestosis was first used in 1924 when a doctor identified it as the cause of death of a 33-year-old woman who had worked with the material since she was a girl.

A subsequent official report into asbestos workers found that 25 per cent of them showed evidence of asbestos-related lung disease. So there is little validity in anyone who argues that the categorical link between asbestos and health problems was not confirmed until 2000.

Not everyone who has health problems due to asbestos exposure worked at the yard - sometimes even just knowing someone who did was enough to kill you.

One woman told us: "I have bilateral pleural plaques and it was from my father's overalls.

"He was a sheet metal worker in the yard and had pleural plaques but died from an embolism and my Mum died from mesothelioma ovarian cancer... I have never worked in industry but have inherited the threat of mesothelioma."

We want to hear your stories.

Did your dad, brother, uncle or granddad work in the shipyard and fall ill after being exposed to asbestos? Share your pictures of them below.

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ASBESTOS-RELATED DISEASE SYMPTOMS

Breathing in asbestos fibres may eventually scar the lungs of some people, which can lead to a number of symptoms, including:

shortness of breath – this may only occur after physical activity at first, but it can eventually become a more constant problem;

a persistent cough;

wheezing;

fatigue (extreme tiredness);

chest pain;

in more advanced cases, clubbed (swollen) fingertips.

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