A WIDOW from Grays who battled for years against industrial air pollution in Essex is asking for help getting justice for her husband who contracted asbestos cancer at work.

Sheena Nelson, who lives on London Road, has campaigned for more than 20 years against chemical omissions from nearby detergent factories.

In a cruelly ironic twist of fate, her husband Reginald Nelson died just before Christmas last year from mesothelioma, the fatal cancer caused by poisonous asbestos dust.

It is likely that Reg, who lived and worked in Grays his whole adult life, was exposed to the dust while working as a carpenter for the construction and engineering firm SC Sanders.

The firm, which closed in 2006, was located on the London Road for more than 50 years.

Mrs Nelson said that Reg and other workers at the firm knew they were dealing with materials containing asbestos in the workshop but didn’t confront their employers at the time.

“When Reg said how concerned he was 10 years ago, I told him not to worry, any health problems would have shown up years ago,” Mrs Nelson said.

“How wrong I was. This type of cancer takes years to develop and came back to destroy him in his retirement.

“All he’d ever done was to work hard in a job he loved,” she said. “He was the love of my life.

"We were married for nearly 35 years. Three months after the cancer was diagnosed, he was gone.”

Mr Nelson worked at SC Sanders between 1953 and 1978, mainly repairing woodwork in the workshop. Brian Gibbons and Ron Brown were two colleagues.

Now law firm Fieldfisher is looking for witnesses who may also have worked at Sanders who could provide information on working conditions that could help achieve a settlement for Mrs Nelson from the firm’s former insurers.

“Just before he died, I told him how sorry I was I hadn’t listened to his worries.

His last words to me were, ‘it doesn’t matter, love’. But it does.

"He was a gentle, decent man taken away so unkindly,” she added.

Anyone with information should email Dushal.mehta@fieldfisher.com.