Remembering Mavis Nye
1941 – 2023
My colleagues and I, at Hodge Jones & Allen, were deeply saddened by the recent death of Mavis Nye. She was an incredible human, a fighter for asbestos victims and a phenomenal asbestos awareness campaigner.
On meeting her for the first time, I was struck by how calmly she dealt with her fight against mesothelioma and her determination to play her part in the search for a cure for the disease. We all marvelled at her amazing energy and resolve. Despite her hectic schedule, she always had time for a chat. We will all miss seeing her.
Mavis developed mesothelioma in 2009. As a much younger women, she had washed her husband’s clothes when he returned home from working as a shipwright at the Chatham Dockyard. She would shake her husband’s clothes, before placing them into the machine and did not realise the dust coming off them contained, asbestos fibres.
Following her diagnosis, Mavis became a passionate and eloquent campaigner. The Mavis Nye Foundation was created, to give hope to, to inspire and help fellow victims of mesothelioma. In sharing her story, she told those, she hoped to dispel some of the fear and myths around mesothelioma and treatment for the disease, something she certainly did, many, many times over.
Among her many achievements, in 2021, Mavis received the British Empire Medal for Services to People with Mesothelioma.
Our thoughts are with her husband, Ray, their family and close friends.
Isobel Lovett, Head of Asbestos Team, Hodge Jones & Allen
