I WOULD like to take this opportunity to comment on the campaign for a memorial to the victims of mesothelioma.

I fully endorse this move. So many people have suffered and will go on suffering that something should be done to record this fact and for others to remember them.

But I also ask you to remember that not every case can be attributed to the railway works. My mother died in 1989 of mesothelioma after a two-year battle with this disease. She went from being a lively person to a breathless, pain-wracked shadow of her former self and we, as many others have done before, asked the question 'How did this happen?'

We finally had to come to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with the works. No one in our family had ever worked for the railways.

She was asked so many times if there was any connection and she always gave the same answer no.

We were just told that she could have contracted this disease at any time during the last 20 years.

I ask that the 'other' victims are not forgotten. The ones who do not know where this disease came from, who don't have any one to blame.

We are not belittling your campaign, just asking that when the memorial is raised, it says to all who died of mesothelioma in Swindon .

Mrs OLIVE FAIRCHILD

West Tockenham,

Nr Swindon