THERE is no end in sight to York's asbestos nightmare. Another inquest adds another name to the toll; with it comes the grim realisation that the deadly dust has claimed its first victim from a new generation.

When John Dawson was a boy, he would tinker with his motorbike in the back yard. Dad Robert would come home from the carriageworks and shake his dusty overalls in the yard. An innocent routine of family life.

Forty years later, John died of mesothelioma. A post mortem examination revealed high levels of asbestos bodies lodged in his lungs.

The asbestos timebomb has already claimed many fathers and husbands. These were men who worked amid piles of the 'miracle material' at the carriageworks.

Earlier this year, an inquest heard how the first York wife and mother had succumbed to mesothelioma. She was the victim of her weekly wash: breathing in the fibres from her husband's overalls as she cleaned them.

Now the first child of a carriageworker has died. Mr Dawson's death is bound to worry many sons and daughters of York carriageworkers. It is therefore important to reiterate two facts: he was particularly exposed to asbestos through his father's habit of shaking his overalls in the yard; and experts believe the risk to other carriageworkers' children is small.

The Dawson family is planning to seek compensation from the British Railways Board. In recent times, the board has been creditably swift at settling claims, including that of the wife who died.

The board's response to the Dawson claim will be telling. It has to decide whether to set a precedent and accept responsibility for 'second generation' victims, without knowing how many more there will be. It knows pay-outs to their families are likely to be larger, given that loss of earnings may be taken into account.

Nevertheless, we hope the board will compensate Mr Dawson's family without the need for a protracted legal battle.

Compensation needs to be coupled with compassion.

Updated: 10:33 Thursday, July 05, 2001