Did this factory kill my dad?

THE workplace was immortalised by Greater Manchester's most famous painter.

- CHRIS SLATER

Titled 'Going to Work, LS Lowry's painting depicts the Mather and Platt engineering plant in Newton Heath, with staff streaming in for a shift.

James Blower went to work there for 25 years off and on, between 1953 - ten years after Lowry painted it - and 1978.

His family remember his stories about the steel fabrication and welding work he did for the firm, and the other jobs he did for them that made other workers safer like fitting sprinkler systems in factories.

It means the thought that that work might have been killing him, gradually, is difficult for them to come to terms with.

James, from Oldham, started to suffer breathlessness in early 2019, and died just four days after receiving a diagnosis, at the age of 81.