The London-based firm had been given a Government contract to produce special gas mask filter pads made of blue asbestos at the factory in Old Town, Hebden Bridge.

Acre mill was available, and strategically out of the way from Hit-ler's bombs.

At the peak of production there were 600 conscripted workers who produced 100 million gas filters until 1943, when it was considered the threat of gas warfare was over.

After the war, the asb-estos trade was booming and Cape decided to stay in Hebden Bridge and diversify into other asbestos products including rope, pipe lagging and textiles.

People from all over Britain were drawn to work at the Old Town mill with the prospect of above average wages and cheap housing in the Calder Valley.

But according to asbestos claims specialist John Pickering, of John Pickering and Partners solicitors, safety precautions were virtually non-existent and a blue or white haze of asbestos dust filled many of the workrooms.

He said it had been well known in the asbestos industry since about 1928 that the dust was damaging to the lungs and was known to cause asbestosis.

By about 1935 it was realised that there were cases of cancer that seemed to be linked with asbestosis.

Then in 1955 it was confirmed by prominent doctor Sir Richard Doll that asbestosis could lead to cancer.

About a year later, pathologist Chris Wagner discovered that people living near asbestos mines in South Africa, without even working in the industry, were contracting a form of cancer which was then extremely rare - mesothelioma.

He published the findings of his research in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine in 1961, warning that people who had only had a slight exposure to asbestos were falling victim to this incurable illness.

In 1965 the groundbreaking findings of Muriel Newhouse caused widespread concern when she looked into cases of cancer and mesothelioma in a hospital in London's East End.

Dr Newhouse and her colleague Hilda Thompson's case control study showed that 53 per cent of patients had had exposure to asbestos dust.

She also showed that wives of workers at Cape Asbestos's Barking factory had contracted pleural mesothelioma merely from washing their husbands' overalls.

Mr Pickering said he first became involved in compensation cases against Cape Asbestos in 1969.

"After I had investigated a few cases it was clear conditions were appalling and I wrote to the then Hebden Bridge MP Douglas Houghton," he said.

"I said that what was going on there was tantamount to manslaughter."

Mr Houghton sent on the letter to Acre Mill but company chiefs rubbished the claims.

"There were dozens and dozens of cases. So much so that I couldn't handle them all myself and I had to ask other solicitors to take some of them," said Mr Pickering.

The factory was pulled down in 1971.

Concern was also raised after children were seen throwing "asbestos snowballs" at each other in the yard of the firm's premises at Hangingroyd Mill, Hebden Bridge, in 1972.

In 1974, another Hebden Bridge MP, Max Madden, initiated an ombudsman's inquiry on Acre Mill.

The report published by ombudsman Sir Alan Marre in 1976 criticised the Factory Inspectorate over its handling of conditions there.

Mr Madden said the report revealed a distressing catalogue of delay, indecision and reluctance to prosecute by the Factory Inspectorate before Acre Mill closed.

Almost 250 of a total of 2,200 employees had developed crippling asbestos diseases by 1979.

Asbestosis sufferers and local residents set up the Hebden Bridge Asbestos Action Group to tackle issues surrounding the deadly dust.

Chairman Ron Slattery, of Brunswick Street, Hebden Bridge, who suffered from asbestosis, died in December 1992, aged 71.

Employment Secretary Michael Foot also called for an inquiry into the asbestos industry following the high-profile scandal

But it never happened and still nobody knows how many lives this tragedy has caused.


Asbestos fact file
* Asbestos is a non-burning mineral which comes in three main forms, blue, brown and white. White is thought to be less dangerous.
* Raw asbestos was mined in Africa, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and Canada.
* It is effective as an insulator of heat, electricity and sound.
* Epidemiologists estimate the rate of asbestos-related deaths in Britain will peak by about 2020.
* Experts also predict British mesothelioma deaths are set to rise to 2,700 a year over the next 20 years, before starting to fall.
* Acre Mill was built in 1859 for woollen manufacture but was sold to the Dunlop Rubber Co in 1920, before laying empty and falling into disrepair. Cape Asbestos moved in at the outbreak of the second world war in 1939.