Photo-a-Day  (Tuesday, 3rd July, 2018)

The Mayor got a curved pipe sticking out of it

The Mayor and Mayoress bound together
Huffing and puffing for ever and ever.
Now the Mill is dead and won't be restarted
May the Lord have mercy on the dearly departed.

In my mind, I can still see the weavers and spinners leaving The Empress Cotton Mill in Ince, where I was brought up, at the end of their shift, with cotton stuck to their hair and clothes. My Aunty Mary used to bring us "banding" from the mill; it was a kind of tubular string which we tied to a stick to play "top- and- whip".

That's not a curved pipe. Its another appendage!!

His centrifugal regulator is quite prominent as well Mick.

DTease, I love your poem. Its light-heartedness made me smile but its meaning made me feel like crying.

They definitely earned their living by the sweat of their brow in those days - imagine on a hot day like this - toiling in a mill. The cotton flying about in the air and the infernal noise!

Mi ands are ard frum graft I,ve done
Mi legs are worse and even some .
Mi yed is bald, but for a few ,
Mi back is bent just like mi crew
Mi knees are shot with rot set in
Mi ears need shout to reach within .
Ave nowt much left to be honest chuck
down int pocket and not much luck
But there again I still can smile ,
order a bitter or pint of mild
Not much to show from years of graft ,
but wife’s still with mi and we still ave a laugh.
At the end of the day what’s left to say ,
She turned out a good un , the best... I’d say .

Irene... I well remember that string. It was like gold during the top and whip "season". Odd wasn't it how these "seasons" occurred when everybody played with/at the same thing.

There must be a site for people who want to tell stories and poems
Good clear photo Dave.

Oh Dear , From Where ! Let Wigan progress for heavens sake ! Let it welcome the future for Wigan , not be stuck in the past . Your poem is time locked and depressing!

Yes, Anne.....top-and-whip season, marbles, skipping-rope, roller-skates, conkers. No set date given for a particular "season".....it just "happened". Happy, happy days.

A few years ago Irene I visited Queen St Mill in Burnley (Now a museum). I was amazed at how little space there was between the rows of looms. All the looms were belt driven and all the workings of the looms were exposed with no safety guards of any kind fitted. I can't imagine what it must have been like to work in that place and yet many women did and were proud of the work they did.

While I was there I got to chat with two volunteers who were stoking the boilers that provided the steam for the engine that kept the Mill going and I mentioned that it must have been a very hard job when the Mill was in full production. They told me that it all depended on the type of coal they got. Some coal that they got would burn through in a very short time which meant that they had to keep stoking the boilers all day long non stop in order to keep the steam up. The better coal would burn for longer and that gave them time for a break now and then.

The impression I left with was that no one working in that Mill had an easy job and any wages they got were genuinely earned.

No doubt there is also a site for people who only want to moan Yawn.
If you don't like this one why don't you go and find it?

I recall my mam bringing bobbins home - they were good for lighting the fire!
Yawn I would rather see interesting comments than one liners.
We can all see it's a clear photo.

Not forgetting the diseases that prevailed from working with cotton inhaled in the lungs. I can never remember a time when my mother didn't have a chesty cough from working in the mill over the years.

I think the fact that the pictures on here prompt stories and poems says it all. They stir memories and prompt people to share them. Surely that's better than "nice photo", "good perspective", "nice colours" etc. If I had a photo shown I would be proud if it stirred people to "put pen to paper", (or fingers to keyboard), to share their stories with other people.

From Where - you have brought the past to life in your verse - that must have been how it was. Hard work and not much to show for it - we shouldn't forget how this country was built on the backs of those people.

Good photograph.