A WIDOW is fighting for compensation after her husband died from an asbestos-related disease.

Barry Sayer worked as a carpenter and lived in Little Clacton all his life.

He was diagnosed in February last year with mesothelioma and died six months later, aged 76.

Widow Brenda believes Barry was exposed to asbestos when he was contracted to the building firms Shairwoods and Galliford Sears during the late 1970s and 1980s.

She says her husband would come home from work covered in dust, which she now assumes was asbestos.

People exposed to asbestos can go on to suffer from mesothelioma – a deadly cancer which can take 30 years to develop.

The vicious disease is almost always fatal.

People who contract mesothelioma at work are usually entitled to compensation.

Brenda, who ran the village greengrocers for more than 13 years, now hopes colleagues who worked with Barry can shed light on conditions at building sites run by the two companies.

Brenda believes her husband was probably cutting asbestos sheeting as part of building work, including converting warehouses into shops and lining fire tunnels with asbestos at a site in West Horndon.

The couple had met in their teens, but split when Brenda went to work in a London tax office.

They rekindled their romance when Brenda moved back to Little Clacton in her early 20s.

They soon married and had four children, including twins, living in the village their whole married life.

Barry was forced to retire in his early 50s after an accident, but became a keen gardener.

Brenda said he grew “just about everything”.

“When he was too sick to get upstairs, we made him a bedroom downstairs,” she said.

“Luckily, he couldn’t see the garden from there because it would have broken his heart watching something he loved fall into disrepair and become overgrown.”

Lawyers at Fieldfisher are representing Brenda.

They are asking anyone who worked with Barry and has information to email Shaheen.mosquera@fieldfisher.com or call her on 0207 861 4393.