A HAMPSHIRE woman died after she was exposed to asbestos while working in a London hospital in the 1950s, an inquest has heard.

Valerie Drury, 76, from Barton on Sea, was a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington when she came into contact with the deadly material which decades later caused her to develop lung cancer. Southampton coroner Keith Wiseman read out details from an obituary of a microbiologist who died earlier this year from the same condition. Mr Wiseman said that staff at the hospital would often use underground tunnels around the hospital when the weather was cold, and asbestos was used in the tunnels to lag the pipes.

He recorded a verdict of death from industrial disease.