YORK'S asbestos timebomb has claimed two more lives - sparking calls for a memorial to the scores of people who have now fallen victim.

Pensioners Albert Marshall, of Tang Hall, and John Sherwood, of Holgate, both breathed in deadly asbestos dust while working at the York Carriageworks, inquests were told.

Decades later, both paid the price when they died of the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma.

Now, Albert's son, Stuart, has hit out at the way they were exposed to such danger.

He said: "It should never have happened. It was known even in the 1930s that asbestos was dangerous."

He called for a memorial to be created for all the former carriageworks employees who have fallen victim to the consequences.

He suggested that the names of those who have died should be inscribed on the Holgate Arch, a 16-ft high steel sculpture created last year to commemorate the carriageworks and the craftsmanship of people who worked there.

"It would be a place where people could go and remember those who have died as a result of working there," he said.

"There is nothing like this at the moment. Hundreds of people must have died through the asbestos there, but there's no memorial whatsoever."

He said his father, who died on his 89th birthday, had still been very fit and active until he fell ill with the cancer.

"He was still out in the garden, trimming the hedges," he said. "Then he started puffing and panting. He thought at first it was just getting old, but then he went to the doctor and he said he thought there was fluid on the lung."

The inquest was told that Albert, a chargehand, worked at the carriageworks from 1945 until 1980. He said before he died that he could not recollect ever working directly with asbestos, but that there was often asbestos dust in the air and on the ground.

York coroner Donald Coverdale recorded a verdict that Mr Marshall died from the industrial disease mesothelioma, and recorded the same verdict in relation to the death of Mr Sherwood, 66, of Trenfield Court, Holgate, who worked as an apprentice French polisher at the carriageworks between 1954 and 1959. The inquest heard that Mr Sherwood had worked in air which was thick with dust.

Over the years, more than 80 York inquests have been held into the deaths of former carriageworks employees from mesothelioma, including two earlier this year for Dennis Sanderson and Peter Henry.

Another inquest heard how a York woman, Julia Murray, also died from the disease, with her only known exposure being through the overalls brought home from the factory by her father and brothers.

Updated: 10:04 Monday, March 07, 2005