A FORMER houseworker for Blackburn Rovers legend Jack Walker has died from an illness connected to her wartime job as a gas mask inspector.

A Burnley inquest was told a pathologist had reported that May Shanks had the most asbestos fibres in her lungs he had ever seen.

The hearing was told how a national expert on asbestosis discovered 32 million fibres per miligramme of tissue in samples.

The pathologist said the average asbestos count in such cases was two to three million.

Widow Mrs Shanks, 87, of Northfield Road, Rising Bridge, died at her home on May 1, about six months after falling ill.

East Lancs Coroner David Smith recorded a verdict of death from exposure to asbestosis.

Mrs Shanks' son Michael, who lived with her, said her last job had been as a school crossing warden.

She had previously worked for a considerable length of time for the late Blackburn Rovers boss, Jack Walker, at his home .

During the last war, she had worked at Griffin Mill, Blackburn, as a munitions inspector producing gas masks.

Mr Shanks said his mother told him she used to have to turn the masks inside out and a "sugary dust," came out. She had been employed at the factory for two to three years.

Mr Shanks said his mother started to be ill about six months before she died and thought if she ignored it, it would go away. But it didn't.

A doctor found a tumour in her stomach, she went for hospital tests but seemed to deteriorate. Mrs Shanks was bedridden until a couple of weeks before she died. She was on morphine and nurses cared for her at home, day and night. Mr Shanks said on May 1, his mother was rambling and gasping for breath. He said he just sat down, heard a coughing noise and went in to see his mother but she had died.

Pathologist Dr Abdul Al-Dawoud, who performed a post mortem examination on Mrs Shanks said 90 per cent of the tumours of the type she was suffering from were caused by asbestos exposure.

He said he had taken samples of lung tissue and sent them to a doctor at the University of Wales, who was a specialist in the subject.

Dr Al-Dawoud said the expert had found 32million fibres of asbestos in one milligramme of lung tissue - and the average in such cases was two to three million. It was the highest count he had ever seen.

The pathologist told the hearing Mrs Shanks died from cancer due to asbestos exposure.