DUST AT ACRE MILL Production team – Investigation by Richard Creasey, produced by Stephen Clarke, directed by John Sheppard (Granada Television, World in Action, 1971)

Graphic accounts of how Cape Asbestos broke the law from 1940-1970 regarding work place conditions at Acre Mill. Combining reconstructions of working conditions and processes in the mill with the testimony of former workers, it was the first programme to bring the lethal dangers of ill-protected contact with asbestos to the attention of the general public and was a landmark in the treatment of health and safety at work.

ALICE – A FIGHT FOR LIFE Produced and directed by John Willis (Yorkshire Television, 1982)

Two short extracts from the 90 minute long 1982 documentary featuring 47 year old Alice Jefferson. Alice had worked at Acre Mill for nine months when she was seventeen, and thirty years later was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma. The film explicitly linked asbestos with cancer, and attacked what it perceived as the government’s complacency in limiting the manufacture and use of asbestos in Britain.

Alice died of mesothelioma in February 1982, a month after filming for the programme had ended. She left a husband and two children aged fifteen and five.