A Pembrokeshire builder who had helped shape a main county town lost his life to a hidden killer, an inquest has heard.

Kenneth John Harding moved to Milford Haven from Cardiff when he was six or seven. He married his wife at the age of 21, having met her as a teenager. The couple went onto have six children.

During his working life he worked in agriculture, as a builder’s labourer and a brick layer before starting up his own business in the 90s. He retired in 2008.

In the 1960s and 70s he had worked at the Esso refinery, working on pipes that were lagged with asbestos at a number of different locations within the refinery.

A statement from a colleague of his said that the work had made a ‘dust which could not be avoided’ which got onto work clothes. He described the conditions as ‘a very dusty environment’.

In the summer of 2022 Mr Harding developed breathlessness. It was first put down to an infection, but a biopsy in 2023 diagnosed mesothelioma.

Mr Harding died on June 27 2023.

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Mr Harding’s family told the inquest that he had ‘fought like mad’ against cancer and a heart condition to be there for them.

They expressed their distress that an unknown condition that had lain dormant for decades had ended his life.

“He had no chance to fight it,” they said, adding that the results of a biopsy had arrived in April but that Mr Harding had not been told about them until June.

Mr Harding’s children said that he had been involved in the construction of several Milford Haven locations including the Mount Estate. 

“You look at places around our surroundings and say ‘my dad built that’. He would always tell us where he was working when we were born,” they said.

Assistant Pembrokeshire Coroner Mark Layton extended his sincere condolences to the family before recording a conclusion of industrial disease.

“During the course of his employment Mr Harding was exposed to asbestos,” he said. “That exposure has led to mesothelioma. This disease was the cause of his death.”