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Mrs Maureen Ward’s reference files on various actions, in alphabetical order from ‘Access to health records’ to ‘Wales (Gibbs)’. Chiefly master documents for safekeeping and ready use but occasionally includes drafts and copies of documents not to be found elsewhere in the archive. As follows:

• access to health records
• ALG LBGU
• All Party Group
• appeal letters
• applications - funding
• asbestos in buildings and similar
• ban
• cleaning and parking - office
• conditional fees
• conferences
• debates etc - House of Commons, PQs
• DWP
• DIY
• E M
• Fairchild
• funding
• garage workers
• HSE
• HSE books
• IIAC
• info packs
• LAAPS
• lists assorted - addresses specialists
• low dose
• media - news releases etc
• newsletter and info
• NT
• occupational exposure
• OEDA
• oxygen
• publication lists, donation acknowledgements etc.
• research papers
• solicitors
• SPAID
• statistics
• St B
• treatment
• Wales (Gibbs)

Correspondence and papers re meeting ‘Asbestos – what next?’, Grand Committee Room, Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament on 20 October 1982. The meeting was sponsored and arranged with SPAID by Nigel Spearing MP, Jack Ashley MP and Alan Clark MP. It focused on prevention (controls to protect workers and the general public) and help (for victims) regarding the threat posed by asbestos in home and environment. These and absence of control limits were issues not addressed by the recent Simpson Committee.

Structured as follows:

• report on the meeting, SPAID discussion paper, list of those invited and signature sheet of those who attended, correspondence with MPs
• correspondence arising from the meeting, October 1982 - January 1983
• correspondence July to October 1982 (prior to the meeting)
• papers c. 1971-1982

Structured into ‘correspondence’ and 'other'.

Correspondence is 1979-1985, some of it original, and includes a version of John Todd's compilation on asbestos victims from the Glasgow branch of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), 1975-1983; also correspondence with G E ('Ted') Rushworth, the HSE, DHSS, etc.

Papers are 1972-1984 and include

• copies of 'UK in figures' 1978-1983 and 'Guide to government statistics' 1980, 1984
• notes and papers c.1972-1985 including press coverage, excerpts from Hansard reports, telephone memoranda, graphs, tables of ‘Death certificates mentioning asbestos-related disease’ (based on Hansard), copies of 'Home Office statistical bulletin' 1982 & 1983, HSE health & safety statistics, occasional and annotated copies of ‘OPCS Monitor’, photocopies of ‘Social security statistics’, Central Statistical Office’s ‘Annual abstract of statistics’ and ‘Social trends’, annotated copy of an early issue of 'SPAID news', and HSE’s ‘Digest of pneumoconiosis statistics'

Originally included a photocopy (not annotated) of M J Gardner et al. (1983) 'Atlas of cancer mortality in England and Wales, 1968-1978'. A copy of the original work can be consulted in Special Collections (see Library Catalogue at http://suprimo.lib.strath.ac.uk/).

Documentation from a number of projects and information resources with bearings on mesothelioma mortality and death certification. Roughly in chronological order.

Correspondence and papers (including reports and press cuttings), 1982-2005, with some earlier material (1973-1979).

Correspondents include

• eminent scientist Prof Irving Selikoff, Dr Andrew Churg and environmental consultant Barry Castleman
• lawyers, among them from Armstrong, Gordon, Mitchell & Damiani, Cleveland; Jane B Cantor of Garruto Cantor Trial Lawyers, NJ; Patrick Guilfoyle, Washington; Leonard C Jacque of Jacque Admiralty Law Firm, Detroit; Michael O’Connor; Peters & Peters, Santa Monica; Terry Richardson of Blatt & Fales, South Carolina; Speights & Runyan, Attorneys at Law, South Carolina; Wallace & Graham, North Caroina; and Marc P Weingarten of Greitzer & Locks, Philadelphia
• also Dwight E Brown of Asbestos Hazards Programs
• writer Paul Brodeur

Includes

• copy of documents relating to the Ahearn class action: US District Court, Eastern District of Texas [c.1993] 'Overview of and questions & answers on the global settlement agreement and the Ahearn class action'; copy of notice of class action [c.1994] Gerald Ahearn et al. v. Fibreboard Corporation et al., US District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division; and copy of notice of pendency of defendant class action [etc.], Continental Casualty Company et al. v. Daniel Herman Rudd Jr. et al., US District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division
• photocopy of court summons Beatrice Angio v. Celotex Corporation (May 1983)
• magazine articles and press cuttings, including re houses in Laguna Beach and Malibu being spared by recent fires in California, in part due to the use of asbestos tiles, in part due to substituting ice plants for the native sagebrush
• conference information (participants lists) for 'Biological Effects of Mineral Fibres', Lyon, France, 25-27 September 1979

Continues exchanges begun 1975-1977; see link below.

• photocopy of M G Jacko and R T DuCharme (March 1973 / 1978) ‘Brake emissions: emission measurements from brake and clutch linings from selected mobile sources’ (Bendix Research Laboratory for EPA, Rept. 68-04-0020)
• press coverage, press releases, excerpts from literature and Mintex product information, 1978-1998
• copy of Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Limited (1989) 'Guide to regulations on control of asbestos at work' (booklet)

As early as 1977 Nancy Tait and her charity had given evidence to the Simpson Committee about the risks of chrysotile in brake linings, drawing attention to the high level of risk to garage workers. It was not until 1985 that the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) took action.

Correspondence with various unions (in roughly alphabetical order by name of union). Includes publicity leaflets, press cuttings, copies of

• International Metalworkers’ Federation (1979) ‘Action programme against asbestos’ (at AUEW)
• Peter Kirby (c.1982) ‘Death in the textile industry: a proportional mortality study of 952 dyers, bleachers and textile workers who died between 1976-1980’ (at TGWU)

• correspondence with Dr Morris Greenberg and Dr K Duncan of the Employment Medical Advisory Service (EMAS)
• leaflets by and about the organisation
• correspondence re EMAS report 1975-1976, ‘Mortality of asbestos workers in England and Wales 1971-1981’
• transcript of BBC news report by Gavin Scott, featuring Dr K Duncan, Max Madden MP, Joe Walker and Nancy Tait, c.1977

Further includes

• copy of HSE (1981) ‘Health and safety: employment medical advisory service report 1979-1980’
• EMAS & HSE Guidance Notes (medical series)
• copy of ‘H&S Bulletin’ 1978 (re recent EMAS report)

• correspondence and papers (including press coverage) re British Rail 1985-1991
• correspondence and press reports re Ralph Pickett, 1974-1978; Mr Pickett (d.1977) had worked in an engineering workshop of British Rail for 25 years and developed asbestosis
• correspondence with F C Walmsley of British Rail Eastern region re effects of asbestos dust, 1975

Correspondence with Canadian contacts (1979-1999) and re asbestos in Canada (to 2006), in reverse chronological order. Also papers including research papers, press coverage, news releases, sample death reporting forms. Themes covered include workmen’s compensation in Canada and the Canadian government’s resistance to banning asbestos.

Papers include

• copy of Canadian report on French chrysotile ban (in French, with a summary in English), 1999
• copy of OEDA newsletter (autumn 1998), discussing Canadian attitudes to asbestos
• Canadian regulations on chrysotile, 1998
• photocopies of articles by asbestosis victim and historian Ray Sentes, who had worked as an insulation worker in Canada prior to studying the Canadian asbestos industry and becoming an historian and activist
• Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety press releases 1989-1990, probably incomplete set
• copy of typescript G Atherley and R Whiting (1981) ‘Basic concepts of occupational cancers’, presented to the Canadian Labour Congress Conference on Cancer in the Workplace, Montreal, 23 February 1981
• copy of S Graham et al. [?1974] ‘Cancer in asbestos mining and other areas of Quebec’

One of Nancy Tait's earliest Canadian correspondents was Margaret R Becklake of McGill University. They met during Tait's visit to North America, 1977.

Over time this dossier changed from a correspondence with Canada file into a Canada-themed aggregation in which everything pertaining to the subject of asbestos in Canada accumulated.

• copy of article ‘Asbestos – the most lethal of a safety materials’, unidentified source, c.1974
• copy of ‘Killer dust in school’, in ‘The Teacher’ 30 April 1976
• copy of ‘Dust danger shuts two more’, in ‘The Teacher’ 14 May 1976
• copy of ‘Dust probe’, in ‘Building Design’ 21 May 1976
• copy of ‘Alert over school buildings’, in ‘Building Design’ 14 January 1977
• copy of ‘Sennet’ (London’s student paper) 14 February 1979, marked ‘not asbestos’

File of papers relating to the threat to Sculptors from asbestos.
Includes:
-Newspaper clipping about the Christmas crib at St Paul's Cathedral that included asbestos, 1974
-correspondence with the artist of the Christmas crib, Miss Zydower, about the creation of the scene, 'play dough' and notes about the process
-notes with contact details for a sculptor
-other correspondence about sculptors and asbestos, 1993
-copy of newspaper clipping about an asbestos death linked with modeling clay

Correspondence and papers re airborne dust (in particular asbestos) in the London underground system. Key correspondents include MPs Anthony Berry and Max Madden, as well as the Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), J J McMorrow.

Includes:

• correspondence on low toxicity cables, 1978 (and 1982), between Nancy Tait and Berry, Madden, McMorrow, Sidney Weighell (General Secretary of the NUR) and various suppliers of low toxicity cable
• press coverage 1976-1980
• circulars of the NUR, 1980
• typescript of a report by McMorrow on a meeting of SPAID held at the Friends’ House, Euston, 10 March 1979
• correspondence with Victor Platt of Chingford, December 1978 and January 1979; Platt edited a health and safety bulletin “for trainmen on the east end of the Piccadilly Line”
• London Transport press information, April-July 1978
• Nancy Tait’s research notes and correspondence with Berry and Madden, May-June 1978
• photocopies of correspondence between McMorrow and the Department of Transport, the Health & Safety Commission, etc.
• copies of London Transport Executive’s notes of two meetings between the Management and the representatives of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the NUR, and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, 13 December 1977 and 24 April 1978
• announcement of British Society for Responsibility in Science press conference on asbestos dust in the London underground, 28 November 1977
• photocopies of leaflet ‘Killer dust on the tube’, prepared by McMorrow and the London Work Hazards Group, published by British Society for Responsibility in Science, 1977
• correspondence re the death of railwayman Charles Maurice Hayward, 28 May 1977
• photocopies of correspondence between McMorrow and Prof. E J Shellard re glass fibre dust, 1976

A letter from Nancy Tait to McMorrow, September 1976, originally contained an extensive enclosure: Johns Manville Corporation's response to the US Department of Labour, April 1976, re the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) proposed rulemaking on occupational exposure to asbestos. This duplicated material elsewhere in the collection. See link below.