"It ain't brain surgery..."
Which is basically the response from the workers at Wittenoom and the manufacturers of the various products that used its asbestos. James Hardy has been the centre of a long running scandal concerning asbestos in Australia; because I've been living through it I've no need to Google it, but anyone wishing to muck about with asbestos ought to know about asbestosis and mesothelioma.

One of the cases brought to light was a 33 year old woman whose only exposure to asbestos was one day when she was three years old and her father demolished a fibro clad extension and stacked it all in the driveway before taking it to the tip; she'd played in the stack for only about an hour but she died of the exposure thirty years later.

Bobert, like me, you may have lived through all sorts of nasties and come through unscathed. In the past, the hazards I recognised I subjected to a rough and ready risk analysis and, like you, I'm still here. I've lived an exciting life and I still take that approach. As I get older I recognise I was exposed to hazards I didn't recognise at the time. I don't regret what I did and I'm still healthy. If I start playing around now with asbestos it's quite probable I'll die of old age before the mesothelioma starts. But I have no intention of exposing myself unnecessarily to either asbestos nor to legal vulnerability. I strongly commend such avoidance to you and the other readers of this thread.

Cheers, Rowan