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Cancers caused by historical asbestos exposure kill more people every year than road accidents.

The number of cases - which can take thirty or forty years to develop - have been rising for decades and are expected to peak in the next five to ten years.

Paul Lewis from St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan worked as a heating and ventilation engineer most of his life. When he started his career, he worked a lot with asbestos which was widely used at the time for insulation and fireproofing.

"We were removing it from the pipe-work, the big hot-water cylinders by just knocking if off with a hammer, a hacksaw or any tool that you could get hold of."

"It made a lot of dust. We did use to wear very limited masks, but I don't think they were right for doing the job that we were doing," he tells Eye on Wales.

At Christmas Paul was told he had mesothelioma - an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung caused by asbestos exposure.

Mesothelioma sufferers often don't survive longer than a year, a prognosis that two Welsh patients a week are currently receiving.

Rosalind Andrews' husband Graham worked with asbestos at the former GEC electronics factory at Hirwaun near his home in Cwmdare in the Cynon Valley.

When he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2008 both he and Rosalind struggled to come to terms with what they had been told.

"It was very hard, we just couldn't believe it, what was happening. Graham seemed to accept it towards the end, I just had to get on with it, looking after him."

"Graham was a big man - 18 stone - and he went down to nothing. He had pneumonia and then he was sort of in a coma for five or six days. It was very, very sad."

Like many who are diagnosed with Mesothelioma, Rosalind and Graham contacted the Cardiff-based cancer charity for support.

It helped a growing number of people with mesothelioma last year and expects the numbers to rise still further this year now that the helpline operated by its Cancer Support Team now covers the whole of Wales.

"They've heard news that they were not expecting to hear," says the team's manager, Sue Elford.

"Particularly when they've been told that this is something that has been affecting them, but only just come to light, from over twenty, thirty, forty years ago."

"They are very concerned about a whole raft of things: financial - how are they going to manage; emotional; sometimes the things they want are very practical. And sadly we have to act on these very, very quickly."

While mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancers used to be most common amongst those who worked in shipyards or in power stations, the ban on its use now means that it's tradesmen who are now most at risk.

The Health and Safety Executive estimates that eight joiners, four plumbers and six electricians may die each week from the effects of asbestos.

For the last three years it has been running a campaign to educate tradesmen of the dangers of asbestos. Sarah Mallagh is from the HSE's asbestos unit.

"This has been a multi-media approach targeting tradesmen, raising their awareness that there is the legacy, that asbestos is still in buildings and alerting them to the fact that they need to get appropriate training."

"Also to the fact that people that manage or are in control of the maintenance of buildings have duties to identify where there might be asbestos and provide that information to anyone that comes into the building to carry out work."

The Tenovus cancer support line can be reached on 0808 808 1010