www.arca.org.uk Te Independent, 11th April 2010 by Emily Dugan


Asbestos from his punk shop ‘killed McLaren’


P


artner Young Kim tells Te IoS that Sex Pistols manager wanted to make Sex, his Kings Road


design store, look as if a bomb had hit it – and family believes that caused mesothelioma 30 years on


Te former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm


McLaren may have been exposed to the asbestos which killed him while smashing up Sex, his infamous King’s Road punk design shop, his partner, Young Kim, has told Te Independent on Sunday. McLaren, who died last week, aged 64, of the


asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma, is believed to have been exposed to the deadly material when he shattered the ceiling of Sex, the shop he shared with his then partner, designer Vivienne Westwood. “When Malcolm created Sex he broke open


the ceiling to make it look like a bomb had hit it”, said Kim. “I always suspected that shop because it was the only place Malcolm ever really spent any serious length of time in, and there was a lot of construction and changing things. Ten Ben Westwood said his mother had mentioned that she’d seen asbestos there. It was board asbestos and it was in the early Seventies so there was a lot of it left, and I don’t think anyone really did anything about it.” Speaking from Switzerland, where McLaren


was treated in the final weeks of his life, Kim, 38, also confided how angry McLaren was that British doctors had ignored the signs of asbestos-inflicted lung damage for almost two years. After a routine chest scan in 2008 a doctor noticed “benign” spots on McLaren’s lungs which looked like pleural plaques from asbestos exposure. By January last year, the music impresario was convinced he


Wiltshire News, Tuesday 1st June 2010


had lung cancer, but doctors continued to insist nothing was wrong. “Malcolm was freaked out. He called me up


from the doctor’s office and said, ‘Young, I have lung cancer, I have lung cancer’, but the doctor said, ‘Oh no, he’s perfectly fine, he just has these spots, they’re completely benign, you don’t have to worry about it’. Ten, just a few months later, his left lung had filled with fluid and he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. “Malcolm was very angry about it. He was angry


at me for having not pushed the doctor further. He really blamed me for not believing him. Whether that would have changed things or not I don’t know, but he had a point. I confronted the doctor privately and he just made a face and said ‘there’s nothing you can do about this disease anyway’. I thought, ‘how could you say that?’ He didn’t even give us a chance; he just assumed there was nothing to be done. I never told Malcolm this story because I didn’t want to upset him.” Now Kim says she is considering making a


formal complaint against the doctor. “It was a private Harley Street clinic and his attitude was really inexcusable. I think if you’re doing a routine scan for other reasons and you notice it, you should pick up on it instead of ignore it and be very nihilistic about it. It’s not your life to be nihilistic with.” After his diagnosis last autumn, McLaren


continued his energetic lifestyle. “Six weeks ago you would not have known he was ill,” said Kim, who was McLaren’s partner for more than a decade. “He was in New York working because he’d done artwork that was being shown in museums. Ten, in early March, he was in London and made a very special piece of music for the Belgian designer


Dries Van Noten for his prêt-à-porter show in Paris. “He was very busy and very happy. Even in the


past two weeks he’d been planning his work and this radio programme he was going to make for the BBC – a whole series on pop culture from his personal perspective. So he was working all the way. It just happened so fast that even the doctors in Switzerland were shocked. Tey thought he would live a few months, and they were being conservative. But it was only a few weeks.” Even in his last days McLaren showed dogged


optimism, telling family last Monday “it’s not over yet”.


“I didn’t believe it was over either,” said Kim.


“Tey drained his lung on Tuesday and he was much, much better. He just sprang back to life, it was wonderful, and he was able to speak, he was able to eat.” McLaren’s renewed energy was short-lived,


however, as the aggressive cancer took hold. “By Wednesday things just got worse,” his partner said, her voice cracking. “I saw him that evening before he passed away and he was so sweet, he asked if he was going to be discharged the next day from the hospital. I said ‘that’d be great Malcolm, but I don’t think so’. And sadly he died the next day. Te carbon dioxide was building up because his respiration wasn’t strong enough. Ten he just fell asleep and never woke up.” McLaren’s son, Joe Corre, who had previously


feuded with his father, arrived at the Swiss clinic on Tuesday. “His son came just in time,” said Kim. “He was able to spend time with him and speak to him after the lung was drained. Malcolm was really very much himself, so it was good they had that time together before he passed away.” In McLaren’s final hours, Corre, Kim, and Corre’s


half-brother Ben Westwood were at his bedside until his death. McLaren’s body is expected to be returned to London this week before burial in Highgate Cemetery in north London. “He wanted to be buried there,” said Kim. “It’s in that movie he made, Te Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, and it was a place very dear to his heart.”


(HSE) for failing to undertake a required asbestos survey. Te breach occurred before renovation work


started at Eldene Health Centre in Swindon. NHS Wiltshire was managing the work on


behalf of NHS Swindon. An asbestos survey was carried out in November last year but at the end of January new guidance was published by the HSE setting out that such work required a more detailed inspection. A few days later renovation work began on the


NHS Wiltshire rapped aſter asbestos survey oversight N


HS Wiltshire has been given an improvement notice by the Health and Safety Executive


building followed by a visit of a HSE inspector who said the more detailed asbestos survey should have been carried out. Te following day the survey was undertaken


but no asbestos was present. NHS Swindon was also served with an


improvement notice by the Health and Safety Executive. A statement from NHS Wiltshire said: “Action


has already been undertaken to comply with the new rules and we see no problems in delivering the report to the HSE. No patients or public were put at risk and no asbestos was found in the building.”


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