Podcast | Assume Nothing: Killer Dust

A new series of the award-winning podcast Assume Nothing: Killer Dust starts with the story of a secretive factory opening in Northern Ireland in the 1960s.

Casually scanning through old newspaper archives, producer and presenter Ophelia Byrne stumbled across an odd headline: “Hush hush process in Ballyclare firm.”

The newspaper was printed in 1967.

“Strictly no photographs” was the order issued at the opening of the new factory.

“90 guests steered clear of a top-secret process.”

What, she wondered, was this factory making?

Another line then took her down a rabbit hole from which she would not emerge for eight months.All workers “will have to sign an oath of secrecy.”

Ophelia didn’t know it when she started out, but her subsequent investigation into this company, Turner and Newall, would take her across the Irish Sea to places like Rochdale, Leeds and London.

She discovered that a million documents had been released for a transatlantic trial – papers which showed potential cover-ups and other evidence which even suggested corporate espionage. The product, she discovers, is asbestos - a dangerous substance which can cause cancer.

Ophelia marries previous journalistic investigations to newly discovered documents which reveal what government agencies knew about its risks, and when. The series leverages company correspondence which the manufacturers claimed did not exist, and never imagined would become public.

This is the story of Killer Dust, from mountains of the material in mines still operating in countries today, to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the terraced streets of the north of England. It is the story too of the people who fought and died for the truth in order to expose the reckless pursuit of profit in the making of one of the most dangerous building materials on the planet.

Assume Nothing: Killer Dust is an 10 part series made for BBC Sounds, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Ulster.The first half of the series will be available on BBC Sounds from Monday 3 March.

The first episode will broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster from Saturday 8 March at 1pm.