Theasbestostollhasn’t peakedyet..everyyear morepeoplearedying
As millions around the world suffer the consequences of exposure to the deadly material, a Scots writer brings a light touch to highlight a subject of heavy importance
LIKE many people, Frances Poet didn’t know much about asbestos – then the playwright made a friend at her baby’s music class.
This woman’s parents had died within six months of each other.
As a pal, Frances was horrified by this enormous loss. As a playwright with a strong social conscience, she was raging.
She said: “I was moved by the trauma. Then I wanted to read about asbestos. That’s when I got angry.
“My friend’s father was a draughtsman. He did a three-day apprenticeship on a ship and was exposed to asbestos. For those three days, his wife had washed his overalls. They died six months apart.”
Frances discovered facts about asbestos that chilled her. Once a common insulating material, it was used in buildings and ships. It was even in chalk and children’s crayons.
By the end of the 19th century, BY ANNA BURNSIDE anna.burnside@reachplc.com its dangers were becoming clear. The first death officially attributed to asbestos was in 1906. By 1918, US insurance companies would not touch workers who were in contact with it.
It was not fully outlawed in the UK until 1999. In 2011, it was estimated there is asbestos in half of buildings in the UK.
Frances’s new play, Fibres, turns her friends’ parents’ tragedy into a comedy starring Jonathan Watson.
She said: “I wanted to explore what it felt like to have brought that home – to be the conduit for your partner.
“The joke among the cast is that this is my health and safety play. I think it’s my plea that this stuff matters.”
Fibres is at Barrowfield Community Centre in Glasgow on October 17 and 18. For more information, go to www.citz. co.uk/whatson/info/fibres