SPAID was founded in 1978 by Mrs Nancy Tait - now Nancy Tait MBE Hon DUniv. Nancy's husband Bill had died in 1968 after a puzzling illness. His death might have been another cancer statistic. Nobody anticipated his widow's tenacity in seeking to understand what killed him. There was no obvious connection between his occupation as a senior Post Office engineer and the presence of the barely detectable spear-like asbestos fibres in his lungs.

There was a fundamental injustice attendant on Bill's death. The Post Office accepted no liability and withheld the pension Nancy would have been content to receive. What one admirer has characterised as her 'genteel bloody-mindedness' was roused.   More detail...