A HEARTBROKEN widow died just a week after she buried her husband of more than 60 years, an inquest heard today.

Marty Potter arrived at his mother Irmgard's home, from which he runs his business, and found her dead in her bedroom with an empty bottle of Oramorph on the night stand.

Just a week before, the family had buried William Potter, 89, who died from asbestosis in July, which he contracted while working as a steam fitter over several decades.

Mrs Potter, of Leyburn Close, Woodley, suffered from a string of health problems, including heart trouble, and regularly took the morphine-based medicine to ease her "extreme pain".

The coroner heard Mrs Potter had made plans for the future, including doing some work in the garden, and family members were left devastated after she died so soon after her husband.

Marty told the inquest however that he was convinced that his mother did not take her own life.

He said: "She seemed to be looking forward to the future.

"My father kept her in check, she was a shopaholic, she was always on QVC and the shopping channels, she would have bought the lot.

"She would spend 20 or 30 quid on ticky tacky stuff. We thought she was going to run riot, she had more to look forward to."

Sitting at Reading Town Hall, Coroner Peter Bedford ruled that Mrs Potter, 82, did not take her own life, and that she died as a result of severe Ischemic heart disease.

A post-mortem examination showed that she did have a high concentration of morphine in her system, but the coroner revealed she would have a high tolerance to the drug owing to her regular consumption.

The coroner added: "The first question is that can I be satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that the evidence allows me to conclude that Mrs Potter took her own life.

"The answer to that is no."

Mr Potter, who died aged 89, revealed in a statement written years before his death that he had worked with the deadly fibre asbestos for numerous years.

The coroner concluded that Mr Potter died as a result of industrial disease in the course of employment, and his wife, whom he married in 1954, died of natural causes.