A woman has been awarded compensation of £300,000 after her husband died from the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma.

Michael Streets left school in 1963 and got a job as an apprentice oil fitter at Fawley Refinery, the Southern Daily Echo reports.

Although he left the company in 1975, Mr Streets said he recalled there being no safety measures in place to protect employees against the danger of asbestos. In fact, he said in a statement before he died that workers used to have ’snowball’ fights with the fibres and that the air was thick with deadly dust.

Mr Streets contracted mesothelioma and died in December 2007. His widow Francis took legal action against the Esso Petroleum Company and it recently admitted liability.

She is to be awarded £300,000 in compensation for her loss.

Asbestos-related cancers typically affect five times as many men as women because they are often the result of working in industries that used the materials in the 1960s, Cancer Research UK attests.