Never To Return

Re-submitted for print.

This picture really says everything about what's happened to the textile industry in England. There is a an old mill (Litton Mill at Millers dale) about 10 miles from where I live that was responsible for the deaths of over 300 children in the really dark old days. They brought orphans and abandoned children from as far as London and then worked them from dawn until dusk with the bare minimum of food, managing to keep it a secret (I believe the locals just ignored the goings on as long as it didn't reflect on or leak out from the local parish) until one child, Robert Blincoe escaped and exposed the worst excesses of the old system with a book detailing some of the most harrowing tales of cruelty.
Laws were made to protect children under the age of .... 14 I think it was but without revising on some history I can't say for certain.

This particular mill did not I have to say, have anything to do as far as I can ascertain with such barbaric acts.

The textile industry remained a major force in Britain until the mid sixties when imports finally started a huge and fairly fast decline.

The strange thing about this whole place was the feeling that they just went away and never came back. There were still towels on some of the looms like they had just been switched off in the middle of production and that was that.



Sorry about the history lesson.