Frances
Poet knew very little about asbestos poisoning when one of her daughter’s
friend’s mothers told her how her own parents had died within six months of
each other because of it. Her dad had been a ship’s draftsman, she told Poet,
and had been exposed to asbestos during a brief three-day stint on board. As if
it wasn’t bad enough that such fleeting contact with asbestos had such fatal
consequences, the fact that the cause of her mother’s death came through her washing
her husband’s overalls was the cruellest of fates.
This
was the starting point for Fibres, Poet’s new play that forms the final
contribution to the Citizens Theatre’s Citizens Women season in a co-production
with Stellar Quines Theatre Company. By the sound of it, writing the play has
also become something of a labour of love for Poet.
“It
was just so upsetting when I heard that,” she says. “I thought asbestos was a
thing of the past, and I’d never heard of this thing where someone could be
exposed to it just through washing someone’s overalls. After that, I started
reading about it, and I spoke to a friend who’s a doctor, and she said that
there would be deaths related to asbestos until 2020. That figure has now been
raised to 2040, so this isn’t something in the past. This is now. More people
die from asbestos related diseases than from traffic accidents, and it’s the
NHS who are paying for that. The companies responsible aren’t paying for it,
which, if there’s no funding, means we’re all paying for it.”
As
Poet discovered, the sheer ubiquity of asbestos in everyday life made it an
accident waiting to happen for decades.
“Asbestos
was a really versatile material used in shops, and which had incredible fire retardant
properties,” says Poet. “That’s why it was used. One of the things that made me
very angry when I started researching the play is that it’s been known that
asbestos was a dangerous substance since 1898.”
This
was after Lucy Deane Streitfeild, who was one of the first female factory
inspectors in the UK, first raised concerns about what she called ‘the evil
effects of asbestos dust…’ Deane Streitfeild and other women inspectors were
ignored until 1911, and only in the 1930s was the term mesothelioma brought
into medical use to diagnose asbestos related cancer. Even then, asbestos
continued to be used widely for decades, with Scotland’s ship-building industry
a particular conduit for its poison.
“It’s
everywhere,” says Poet. “It’s in our schools, our hospitals and our homes, and
it affects us all.”
Given
the roots of her play, one might have expected Poet to write a piece of angry
agit-prop that pointed the finger at big business in its complicity with the
poisoning of a largely blue-collar community that audiences coming to see the
show as part of its tour of community venues in and around Glasgow and beyond
will relate to. As it is, while Fibres doesn’t shy away from the tragic
consequences of its subject, Poet has filtered the experience through the
gallus mouths of Jack and Beanie, a working couple who contract the disease
from Jack being exposed to it while working in the shipyard.
“Listening
to me, you’d think I’d done a play that was really hard to watch,” says Poet,
who has been working with Clydeside Action on Asbestos on the production, “but
Fibres isn’t that play, and I have no desire to write that play. I think the
more laughter we see onstage, the more we relate to the characters and feel
their pain.”
With Jonathan
Watson and Maureen Carr playing the couple alongside supporting roles from Ali
Craig and Suzanne Magowan, any comic turns there are should be laced with a
depth only such experienced actors can apply to their performances. Such a
clearly heartfelt piece of work should also tap into some of the most important
day to day issues of our times.
“I’ve
joked with Jemima about this,” says Poet, “but I call it my health and safety
play. Only through writing it did I realise the importance of people being safe
at work. So if there’s anything broader going on in the play beyond the
controversy regarding asbestos poisoning in Glasgow and in Scotland, it would
be that. When people work, even for paltry salaries, the very least a company
can do is to make sure the people working for them have their health
protected.”
Fibres,
Barrowfield Community Centre, Glasgow, October 18; Cove Burgh Hall, Cove,
October 19; Paisley Arts Centre, October 22; Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow,
October 24; Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, October 25; St Francis Community
Centre, Glasgow, October 26; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, October 29-30;
Barlanark Community Centre, Glasgow, October 31; Dunoon Burgh Hall, Dunoon,
November 1; Whiteinch Centre, November 2.
The Herald, October 10th 2019
ends
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