THE family of a former Victorian Lands Department worker believes the chemicals he worked with were responsible for his death from cancer.
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Eoin Howlett, a spray hand with the department, died from cancer, and his son blames the toxic chemicals he worked with.
Mr Howlett joined the Lands Department as a spray hand in 1968 at the Linton depot before being transferred to the Scarsdale depot.
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He retired from the department in 1988 after working at Ballarat's Vickers Street depot.
Five years later, Mr Howlett had an operation to remove a brain tumour.
His son Stewart said he suspected that his father had become sick from using toxic chemicals.
"I blamed them (Victorian Lands Department) from day one. Dad just said 'I got a brain tumour, I've got to pluck it up and deal with it'," Stewart said.
"As a kid, I remember opening the poison shed at the depot and they'd (chemical drums) be leaking. The floors were soaked.
"The work trucks were also parked in there.
"Dad would never let me in the poisons room.
"I remember Dad saying 'don't be downstream of the spray because it'd knock you dead'."
Mr Howlett's widow, Glenis, said she remembered her husband complaining frequently about headaches after work.
"He did say he had headaches a lot, about once a week. But he was a person who would never take Panadol. He'd say it'd be right in the morning," she said.
Six years after the first operation, the brain tumour returned.
"He came back (after the first operation) and had six years of all right," younger son Nigel said.
"He'd be talking and then just trail off, sort of dazed."
A third operation in 2001 was Eoin's last.
"Those last 18 months were hard. He had so much to tell me and Nigel and he couldn't talk or get out of bed, he was bones," Stewart said.
Eoin died at the age of 55 in February 2003 after battling a brain tumour for 10 years.
His family believes it was caused by decades of exposure to toxic chemicals.
Glenis, Stewart and Nigel said they would readily make submissions to an independent inquiry into work practices of former Victorian Lands Department workers if it was established.
The spray hand's family has recalled memories of the larrikin who brought laughter and support to their family.
One story Mr Howlett told was of placing a bag over the Victorian Lands Department Scarsdale depot office chimney to smoke out the room while new managers would undergo induction.
It would leave his fellow spray hands in fits of laughter.
jordan.oliver@fairfaxmedia.com.au
david.jeans@faifaxmedia.com.au