Widow of joiner who died from long-term effects of asbestos praises St Columba's for efforts to help husband

As joiner Jimmy Darling covered pipework at the city's old Royal Infirmary, he worked with care and attention to detail he always did.

It was a straightforward job for a man of his expertise, just one of many tasks he was frequently contracted to do, often in some of Edinburgh's most prominent public buildings.

That was back in the 1960s, when in the confined spaces of the former Lauriston Place hospital, Jimmy and his colleagues would work without protective masks or clothing. It was the norm - just like most workers, they had no idea of the risks they were taking.

But Jimmy was handling large sheets of Asbestolux boarding, and with every breath he took, he inhaled tiny asbestos fibres that became lodged in his lungs. There they would lurk, undetected for decades, before they killed him.

When Jimmy was diagnosed with a fatal cancer, mesothelioma, it was heartbreaking for a previously fit and healthy man. But at least he and his family had a source of comfort as he battled the disease - St Columba's Hospice.

He was 76 when he died, and until the cancer struck, had led a peaceful, contented life. His family was at the centre of his existence - his wife Isobel, the sweetheart he had met decades earlier at the Leith Assembly Rooms, and their three children, Alistair, Fraser and Laura.

Jimmy had always worked hard, firstly as a joiner, before becoming a maintenance man with the Northern Lighthouse Board, travelling the country to carry out repairs on lighthouses, often as far afield as Fair Isle. It was a job he absolutely adored, retiring aged 63 when the board decided to contract out its maintenance work. Jimmy was an active man, loving to play golf, go bowling and take walking holidays, turning to woodturning as a hobby during his retirement and producing beautiful pieces which still decorate his family home, just west of Musselburgh.

But around Christmas 2008, Jimmy developed a pain at the bottom of his chest. He thought he had pulled a muscle while dancing, but the agony didn't go away.

"He went to the doctor and she said she was sending him for an x-ray that day," his wife Isobel, 77, explains. "We had no clue, we really just thought he'd pulled a muscle.

"The radiographer phoned the doctor to say Jimmy had a lot of fluid, and the doctor phoned here and said we had to go to the Western General.

"He had the fluid removed and we were invited back to see the doctor - she just said he unfortunately had mesothelioma. I think we were all quite stunned.

"And we were told there was no cure."

The cancer diagnosis was bewildering for the family. Jimmy had never smoked and kept himself fit. But just a few questions from the doctors uncovered the likely cause.

"The first interview he had, they asked where he had worked. I think they knew what they were looking for. They knew when he said he'd worked with Asbestolux boarding," she says.

In a tragic irony, it was back to the Royal Infirmary for Jimmy, this time at its new site at Little France.

He had an operation to reduce the fluid on his lungs, and he and Isobel actively read up on mesothelioma, joined support groups and travelled to conferences for asbestos workers stricken by the disease.

Meeting others who had been affected was some comfort, but the circumstances of Jimmy's illness were difficult to cope with.

"You have a lot of emotions. You get so angry that men's lives are just . . ." Isobel pauses. "You say 'Why me?' Jimmy was a fit chap, he never smoked, just enjoyed his retirement.

"He was working hard to keep a wife and children and nothing seemed to be done about it - asbestos was only banned in 1999."

When Jimmy came home after his surgery, the couple were visited by community nurses from St Columba's, and their burden was at last shared with a team of people who seemed to know what they needed almost before they knew it themselves.

"I used to get phone calls asking 'Would you like this?' or 'Would you like that?'," Isobel, a former social worker explains. "The community nurses asked if Jimmy needed help to get in and out of the bath, and we got a special mattress for the bed. Things just seemed to happen and you often wondered how."

Jimmy also began to attend the day hospice in Granton on alternate Mondays, where he could chat with staff and patients, and enjoy complementary therapies.

"He could speak to people if he was worried about anything, and it gave me a bit of a break too because I had this short space of time when Jimmy was being looked after by somebody else," she says. "I think it was quite good for him to be away from me too, I think we both benefited."

Despite the circumstances, they both grew very fond of the hospice. "Everyone's so friendly. There's a real atmosphere when you go in. You know there are seriously ill people there, but it just seems busy and calm, there's somehow a serenity about the place."

Jimmy attended the day hospice for around nine months, and it was there that a member of staff suggested he put together a memory book. Gathering photographs and recollections of his life was not just an opportunity for him to reflect - it also gave him the chance to leave something lasting for his family. When Isobel wants to be close to him, all she has to do is open it up.

Jimmy wrote accounts of his life which were printed onto glossy pages in an album, and proudly shown to others at the hospice.

In January, Jimmy went to St Columba's on a residential basis for three weeks to have his medication assessed. While he was there he had a stroke and was admitted to the Western General where it was discovered the cancer had spread to his brain.

He was able to return home, but when he finally needed to be admitted again, the couple were sad to find there were no spare beds at St Columba's.

He went instead to the Western, and although he and his family knew he would have excellent medical care, there was no hiding that the hospital, with its focus on finding a cure, could not provide such skilled care for the dying as St Columba's.

"The Western and the hospice - chalk and cheese," Isobel says. "At the Western, staff are so keen to get you well, whereas the hospice know that you're not. I suppose it's easier in a way to know that the end is coming. I think in conventional medicine, death isn't talked about.

"Even at the end when Jimmy was dying, they were still trying to get a line in and you just felt like screaming 'Stop!', or saying 'They wouldn't be doing this at the hospice'. You had to admire the young doctor though - he was so determined he was going to do this for Jimmy, but . . . " she shakes her head.

Jimmy may not have been able to die at St Columba's, but the hospice made all the difference to the Darlings during the last months of his life - and it continues to be a comfort.

When Jimmy was visiting, she would often pop down to receive complementary therapies, and she still does, helping her relax and give a lasting connection with St Columba's.

And now Jimmy's memory book has pride of place in her living room. Poignantly, Isobel has stuck into the last page copies of Jimmy's death notices, carefully snipped from the Evening News. "I'm still being looked after by the hospice. Going back for the first time was a wee bit odd, but I feel at home now."

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