A CAR factory worker died of a cancer normally associated with Swindon's railway workers after exposure to asbestos, an inquest heard.

Geoffrey Dainton, 75, was diagnosed with mesothelioma four decades after he worked at the former Pressed Steel plant in Stratton, which is now Swindon Pressings.

He was employed from the early 1960s and rose to become a senior foreman where car panels were welded together and asbestos was used to prevent heat spreading. He was made redundant in 1981.

Mesothelioma is also known as the Swindon Disease because many of the town's railway workers died from the disease after being exposed to asbestos in the workshops.

Rosemary Dainton, of Dart Avenue, said that she and her late husband were unaware of the dangers of asbestos at the time.

She said: "They used to roll it up and throw it about like balls. I had a vague conversation about it but that was a long time ago.

"It wasn't until we were at the hospital that it really sunk in."

She added that her husband didn't tell her if he had been exposed to asbestos at any other time other than when working for Pressed Steel.

Mr Dainton left school at the age of 14 to become an apprentice carpenter and then worked at Avon Rubber in Melksham. He moved to the Austin Morris factory in Cowley, Oxford, before starting at Rover.

After being made redundant, Mr Dainton did not work for a year and then got a job looking after the maintenance of the West Swindon Centre.

Cecil Townsendworked at Press ed Steel at the same time as Mr Dainton.

He said that loose asbestos fibres were kept in a box or a bag and often the foreman would fetch it and mix it into a dough like substance for the line workers to use.

"To stop the heat distorting the metal we would put a line of wet asbestos above and below the seam we were going to weld. We never used masks in those days," Mr Townsend said.

He added that asbestos continued to be used at the plant until the 1970s.

Mr Dainton remained healthy until the age of 73 when he started having breathing difficulties.

Dr Janette Armstrong, consultant histo-pathologist at the Great Western Hospital, carried out a post mortem and found Mr Dainton had a tumour in the left side of his chest which had extended into his lung and liver.

Wiltshire coroner David Masters concluded Mr Dainton died from mesothelioma.

He said: "It is a pernicious disease. Once contracted, very sadly there is no cure and as we have heard, it derives from exposure to asbestos and that exposure could be decades earlier.

"I am satisfied that there is no other evidence before me of additional exposure to asbestos than when Mr Dainton was working at the Pressed Steel plant here in Swindon."

The Swindon Disease Memorial Garden was opened earlier this year in April after Evening Advertiser readers helped raise £12,000.