A MAJOR campaign was launched yesterday to tackle Scotland's chronic legacy of asbestos-related illnesses, which is among the worst in the world, writes Aine Harrington.

An umbrella group of health workers, campaigners, council officials, and lawyers have united in a bid to help workers from shipyards and factories, and others who affected their spouses through asbestos fibres brought home on their clothes.

The group - comprising Clydebank Asbestos Group, Greater Glasgow Health Board, and West Dunbartonshire Council - has now set up a helpline and is ready to help get compensation and benefits for asbestos sufferers.

The free phone line (0800 801299) was launched yesterday on Asbestos Awareness Day in Clydebank, which has the highest rate of asbestos-related deaths in Britain and one of the worst rates in Europe.

Owen and Margaret Lilly, of Parkhall, Clydebank, used to be keen hillwalkers and dancers but say the quality of their lives has been destroyed by asbestos. Mr Lilly, 59, was exposed to asbestos for four years in a factory and local shipyard from 1963-67. But Mrs Lilly, 60, has also been affected through fibres bought home on her husband's clothing.

His asbestosis, a scarring of the lung, causes him extreme breathlessness, while Mrs Lilly's diffuse bilateral pleural thickening is also severely disabling.

Although their only child, Maggie, 34, has shown no signs of the disease, her parents say that she will always have to be wary because asbestos can take anything up to 20 years to show itself.

Mr Lilly said he was at yesterday's launch to make ''his voice heard'' and to raise the profile of the disease. He said: ''I just feel that I have been totally used because I was underpaid at the time and then the employers abused you as well because they exposed you to all this.

''They knew the dangers and yet they said nothing. I am dying just now and I have had a minimum of eight years or more knocked off my life, doctors have told me that.''