Witness appeal – did you work with ambulanceman David Mellor?

David, who lives in Shaw, worked as an ambulance driver right across the borough between 1966 and 1991.

He was very happy in his job, first for Oldham Ambulance Service, and after a short break working as a landlord he was keen to get back to the job he loved. He rejoined the ambulance service when it was then run by the North West Regional Health Authority.

What David, who has been married to Cindy since 1965, didn’t know in the 25 years he spent driving ambulances and helping his fellow people of Oldham, was that the stations where he was based contained the lethal asbestos which would one day make him terminally ill.

Now David needs to find the other people in these happy pictures, the colleagues he worked alongside, so that they can help him with the story of his working life.

David, who has three children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He believes he came into contact with the deadly fibres while he was working out of two ambulance stations in Oldham: Kelsall Street and Croften Street.

David said: “At the Kelsall Street station ambulance attendants had to clean the old coke fired boiler, daily on the late shift.

"The boiler was in a small room and was lagged with asbestos. It was fed by pipework which was all lagged with asbestos.

"It was in a bad state of repair with asbestos lagging on the floor which would be disturbed by old dumped furniture also left in the room.

“The ambulance station at Croften Street also had asbestos roofs, plus asbestos lagged pipes to a gas boiler.”

David’s solicitor Steven Dickens, of Leigh Day solicitors, said: “David needs to trace anyone in these pictures who remembers working alongside him in the ambulance service in Oldham from 1966 onwards.”

If you are in the pictures, or remember working with David Mellor, contact Steven Dickens at Leigh Day solicitors on 0161 393 3574 or sdickens@leighday.co.uk