Satanic Mills

With rows of terrace houses, bricks blackened by a century of soot, Darwen could be any northern town. The weather is often grim, market traders fill the streets with shouts and a tight community sits at its heart. Yet its industrial past that brought that community to the terraces has faded, the mills still loom over Darwen, but have long since been abandoned. Alan Whittaker, who was the Darwen district reporter for the Blackburn-based Northern Daily Telegraph before moving to Fleet Street, grew up in Darwen in the 40s and 50s. In his book, Beneath Those Hills, he captures life in the middle of the twentieth century and in this short extract, Alan reminisces about growing up among the ‘Satanic Mills’.

The poem ‘And did those feet in ancient times’, now universally known as ‘Jerusalem’ and used as an improvised national anthem of England at many sporting events, contains one stark line that evokes vivid memories of my childhood in the industrial north. Like many thousands of children, I grew up ‘among those dark Satanic mills’ of Blake’s poem and thought nothing of it, although as a ten-year-old I wondered why Blake had singled out the cotton mills as abodes of the devil when almost every other building in the town was also pitch black. Even the churches and the vicarages.

A century of unremitting pollution, soot, poisonous chemicals and a lethal blend of ignorance and total indifference on the part of mill owners and town hall worthies had combined to coat the huddled terraces, the municipal buildings, the library, churches, and every garden wall in Darwen, my hometown, with a layer of deeply ingrained black muck. Smoke from the coal fires of every home mingled on high with the black clouds belching from dawn till dusk from every mill chimney to form a poisonous pyrogenous curtain.

But an oft-repeated saying seemed to justify and exonerate the mill owning perpetrators whose businesses made a not insignificant contribution to the bronchial problems of their employees. ‘Where there’s muck there’s money.’

Blackburn seemed aptly named because black was the predominant feature of the town. The sprawling terraces, shops, public buildings and even the statues of Gladstone and Queen Victoria on the Boulevard were coated in grime and pigeon mire. There were outlying hamlets called Blackamoor and Blacksnape. By the same childish logic Blackpool, a rash of pebble-dashed Accrington brick, should have been called Redpool.

The chance of contracting some form of lung infection or breathing disorder seem to increase the further from the coast you lived. People in heavy industry centres such as Huddersfield, Sheffield, Leeds, Oldham and Halifax existed under a permanent sullen, brown-tinged cloud and sometimes never saw the sun for weeks on end. Smog, a poisonous mixture of fog, smoke soot, carbon and a lethal concoction of toxic chemicals cloaked town centres for weeks and killed scores of people.

But despite, or perhaps because of, the unrelenting stranglehold of amorphous carbon there was a fierce determination endemic among working class families to keep their community as neat and tidy as humanly possible.

Grass and weeds were not allowed to intrude into the cracks that separated the stone flags that formed the pavements outside every terrace. Housewives diligently scrubbed the front step every week and applied a coating of donkey stone –usually obtained from a vociferous rag-and-boneman- with artistic care before issuing stern instructions not to put a foot on the step until the artwork had dried. Backyards were swilled in cold water and sash windows gleamed for a day or two with a spotless brilliance that proclaimed the cleaner’s pride.

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’ was another oft-repeated saying.

Homes that could boast a small front garden with a cast-iron rail invariably had a privet hedge that had to be meticulously clipped at regular intervals. Now a privet hedge is a curious throw-back to a distant era: the age of wireless accumulators, itinerant knife-grinders, street singers, and that other relic of bygone days- a regular weekly dustbin collection. It was a time when men wore raincoats, women wore skirts and you could sample roast potatoes from a cart pulled by a downcast donkey and devour hot black pudding from a stall on the open market.

Today anyone attempting to sell such innocent delights would be persecuted and prosecuted out of existence by the ‘Elf and Safety and Food Hygiene stasi. Strangely I never heard of anyone dying from food poisoning after sampling such wares.

The Second World War changed many things. Not only the boundaries of Europe but civic attitudes. The slogan ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ which appeared in the 1950s was a sad reflection on the attitude of a growing population that appeared to be totally indifferent to social responsibilities or common niceties. Litter louts, the brainless spawn of a feckless society, abounded, scattering chip papers, cardboard cartons, plastic cups, and take-away food receptacles with the careless abandon of wedding guests showering confetti. ‘There are Council workers employed to sweep up, it’s their job’ was a typical response to anyone brave enough to question this odious form of anti-social mindlessness.

Now it is almost impossible to stroll around the centres of many former industrial towns without encountering the deleterious debris discarded by these moronic legions. Empty beer cans rattle in gutters, pavements are coated with discarded chewing gum, plastic shopping bags festoon the hedges of country lanes… the list is endless.

The questionable decision made by many authorities to get rid – on economic grounds – of waste collection sites has had a serious effect, not only on basic hygiene but on the appearance of some towns.

With no ‘dump’ within a reasonable distance, the back lanes behind the rows of many terraced houses have become convenient depositories for rotting mattresses, soiled sofas and the detritus of a maladjusted minority who seem quite content to exist in a cesspit of squalor. It’s no coincidence that rat infestation has soared in the last twenty years.

Which brings another oft-repeated old saying to mind. Something about ‘Being as happy as a pig in….’

ALL CHANGE 

BY ALAN WHITTAKER 

The moorland path winds gently down

Through a swaying sea of gorse and ling.

In no hurry to reach the distant town,

Where cotton once reigned as king.

It sidles into a wind-racked wood

Near where mill owners’ mansions stood.

Houses with names the postman knew,

Acres of land and a spike-topped wall.

Moorside, High Crest, and Sentinel’s View,

Curlew’s Haunt and Stepback Hall.

Stone fortresses built to endure,

The winter winds that rake the moor.

With fountains, tennis courts, flower beds,

And a brook babbling by.

Stables, lawns and potting sheds

They could watch their mills pollute the sky.

With glasses raised they would fondly gaze

At their fiefdom wreathed in foggy haze.

Then to the lounge for afternoon tea

A ritual performed each day.

Served by a maid at half past three,

And always a blend of Earl Grey.

Far from the litter-logged noisy town

With its straggling terraces, two up two down.

Mill chimneys with their poisonous smoke

Mere memories now of days long dead.

Haunting the dreams of older folk

Who toiled in the hell of the weaving shed

Where the clatter of looms from seven till five

Challenged eardrums to survive.

The mills have a different role these days

Offices, warehouses, a shop or two

Bookmakers and takeaways,

Luxury apartments with a bird’s eye view

Four bedroomed flats or a pied-a-terre?

For ‘comers in’ with cash to spare.

Much sought after homes, the adverts say,

The chance of a lifetime to settle down.

Convenient to seaside and motorway

And a pleasant drive into the town.

A town that’s changed but not forgotten

The last mill siren mourning King Cotton.

Secluded stone-fronted Curlew’s Haunt,

With library, billiards room and mezzanine.

Is now a thriving restaurant

Extensive menu; French cuisine.

There’s a view of distant twinkling lights

And a pianist on Saturday nights

Out with the old, bring in the new

Move with the times, they say

From the moors there’s now a smog-free view

And the path still weaves its lonely way

 Beneath Those Hills: A Lancashire Hodge-Podge by Alan Whittaker is available to buy on amazon.co.uk for £7.99