My grandfather was manager of the spinning mill in a one-industry town called Asbestos, Quebec (guess what that industry was). I have a picture of him modelling

My grandfather was manager of the spinning mill in a one-industry town called Asbestos, Quebec (guess what that industry was). I have a picture of him modelling a tailored asbestos-fibre suit standing in front of the spinning mules, white dust coating everything. Makes you skin crawl, but when he died it was more likely due to exposure to carcinogens during his time on the front in the Great War. We had knit asbestos gloves at our house when I was young, and chunks of chrysotile you could just peel for hours as a distraction. It had many wonderful uses.