IT was the fact he would not see his four grandchildren grow up that made Richard Dickinson break down in tears.

A private man, he at first managed to hold himself together emotionally after being told he had only months to live.

But a few days after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer related to exposure to asbestos, it became too much for the 69-year-old.

For his wife Joan, it is this memory of her husband sobbing uncontrollably which is the most upsetting.

She said: "I knew he didn't have very long but he'd got it into his mind that he'd got a year or two left.

"But then he went to the specialist and was told he was too weak to have chemotherapy.

"A few days later the grandchildren came over and it absolutely broke his heart that he wasn't going to see them grow up.

"We've done lots of things with our older grandchildren; we've taken them to Disneyland and went on holiday with them every year to Cornwall.

"So it broke his heart he wouldn't be able to do it with the younger two. He really, really cried. He didn't cry in front of the grandchildren but our daughters were there.

"Our youngest grandchild, Isabelle, is only a year old and I'm so sad that she isn't even going to remember him."

Joan, of Kirk Hallam, said the most difficult thing to comprehend was that her husband's death on October 23 last year could have been prevented.

A keen golfer and gardener who walked the dog every day and ate healthily, Richard looked after himself.

Joan believes that if her husband had not been exposed to asbestos – thought to be while he worked at Stanton Ironworks – he would have had decades of life ahead of him.

Sadly asbestos took him away from his family: daughter Sam Starling, 44, and her children, Jessica, 21, and Alexandra, 19, and daughter Shelley Chapman, 38, and her children, Mitchell, four, and Isabelle, one.

Joan said: "Richard didn't deserve to die how he did. It just doesn't seem fair.

"Mesothelioma is an absolutely horrendous illness. It takes away every bit of dignity you have.

"He had a chest drain to get rid of the fluid on his lungs, which was in from July to the day he died.

"He'd got this horrible bag hanging at his side. He couldn't lie on his side because of it and he couldn't walk anywhere."

Now the family are hoping more research will be carried out into treatments for the illness which could improve the quality of life for patients.

They have backed calls for the Government to find the cash to set up a national research centre.

Sam said: "I hope they fund more research. My dad's dead and we can't do anything about that, but hopefully something can be done for others."

Richard moved into Sam's Ilkeston home in the final weeks of his life because there was enough space to have his bed on the ground floor.

Sam said: "My dad's last few weeks were horrendous. He just got sent home to die because there was nothing else they could do."

Richard was allegedly exposed to asbestos at Stanton Ironworks, in Ilkeston, where he worked for 25 years.

He joined the firm as a moulder after leaving school at 15 and worked his way up to the position of foreman before leaving in the 1980s.

A moving statement, written by Richard in the last months of his life, was read out at an inquest into his death in Derby last month.

He described how there were few days that he was not surrounded by the deadly dust.

But he was not aware of the danger it had posed to his health until he was diagnosed with cancer in July last year.

The first symptoms appeared in October 2008 when he visited the doctor with a chesty cough.

He underwent a series of tests in hospital but they failed to reveal the problem.

Joan said: "Our lives stopped. He couldn't drive the car because the vibrations from the road gave him so much pain."

Eventually the pain got so bad that, a month before he was diagnosed, he was referred to Nottingham City Hospital.

Specialists realised there was a problem with his lungs which could be mesothelioma and decided to remove part of the lining of his lungs.

Joan said: "I asked them what would happen if it was mesothelioma and they told me there was no cure.

"But they told me not to cross that bridge yet because we hadn't got there."

While Richard was still in hospital recovering from the operation, Joan was asked to meet with the consultant the following day.

She asked one of the nursing staff what to expect and was told that, while she could not tell her what the doctor would say, she should bring her family.

Sam said the family spent the night before the meeting together.

She said: "It was traumatic; we didn't get any sleep."

The following day their worst fears were confirmed.

Richard deteriorated rapidly after that.

Sam said: "Dad was one of those people who was never ill. He went from being a really robust and healthy 14-stone man to seven stone.

"The pain was horrendous and it sucked the life out of him."

Sam she said the family had been left with the fear that they might have been exposed to asbestos which had clung to Richard's work overalls.

"We've got that worry of whether it could happen to us," she said.