A cleaner who died from mesothelioma could have contracted the disease after washing clothes 50 years ago.

Sylvia Parker, who lived in The Broadway, Moredon, died in September 2003 a year after mesothelioma dubbed the Swindon Disease due to the numbers of former railway workers who have died from the condition had been diagnosed.

But a Swindon inquest heard the former Moredon Infants School cleaner was exposed to asbestos, which causes the disease, when she was as young as 10.

The grandmother-of-four, who was 68 when she died at home of malignant mesothelioma, had only ever come into contact with asbestos through touching and hand-washing her husband's and father's clothing.

Nigel Brookes, assistant deputy coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, said that the disease could remain undetected for more than 40 years, although the average period is 32 years.

As a child, Mrs Parker helped her mother shake out and hand-wash her father Reg Telling's clothes after he returned from work as a roofer. Asbestos was used for insulation in roofs and walls.

But the inquest also heard how Mrs Parker's husband, David Parker, 61, might have carried home asbestos particles on his clothes from work.

During the 1960s and 70s Mr Parker worked in the boiler and engine rooms for the Merchant Navy for 10 years. Although Mrs Parker did not hand-wash these clothes, she would still have come into contact with them when she shook them out before putting them in the washing machine.

Mr Brookes said: "There is nothing to suggest that she was exposed during the course of her own employment. It was probably as a result of contact through her father's or her husband's clothing caused by their employment.

"Rather unusually, as opposed to the vast majority of cases when mesothelioma is found in people who themselves have contact with asbestos during the course of their own employment, I am bringing about a conclusion of industrial disease."

The inquest was attended by Mr Parker, a lorry driver, and their 41-year-old daughter Tracey Booth.

Mr Parker said: "When mesothelioma was first diagnosed we knew it was the Swindon Disease, and so knew it was terminal.

"Throughout the year of her illness she gradually got more and more out of breath. I don't know if I will be able to claim compensation but I might look into it."

Mr Parker said his wife's father died from lung cancer about 20 years ago, although mesothelioma had not been linked to his illness.

He said: "I'm not really worried that I may have it too. I might get my lungs X-rayed but there's nothing they can do anyway if it's found."

Mr Parker has now arranged to see Old Town-based industrial disease lawyer, Brigitte Chandler, for advice.

At the beginning of the year experts warned how the peak of the mesothelioma epidemic is yet to come.

An article published in the British Medical Journal this year claimed that one in every hundred men born in the 1940s will die of mesothelioma. There are now around 1,800 deaths from the disease every year.

aemery@newswilts.co.uk