Kinky Knickers

Blog
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I've been watching the Mary Portas programme http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2117642/Mary-Portas-Great-British-Knicker-Experiment-underwear-goes-sale-Boots.html recently as she tries to bring back manufacturing to Great Britain. It's been interesting to watch as I remember going in a cotton mill in Middleton as a child to see my great aunty Joan who used to be the secretary. My family were all good machinists (leisure not trade) and I can remember going to the mill shops with my mum to choose fabrics & patterns to make my clothes. I'd show her in topshop what I wanted and she could make it for about £5 - a quarter of the rrp. Nowadays even my mum couldn't compete with China!


Over the years the North West of England has suffered from the loss of this trade & skill. I can't sew for toffee...I can write complicated IT programs & build websites but I'm lucky. I did well at school, was supported by my parents, had a natural ability & used it. Many youngsters are stuck now in joblessness as the manufacturing jobs that supported this wonderful & in places beautiful part of the country have gone. I want them to come back, as Mary demonstrated, for all the apprentices making knickers there are others making the lace, marketing the product, making the packaging etc. And as we saw the apprentices were able to spend in the local economy making more jobs & demand.


So I want a pair of kinky knickers, in fact not just one pair, lots of pairs. I would love to see this area of England humming again to the sound of sewing machines and people happy and proud of their trade.

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We lived on the Lancashire/ Westmorland border and hardly went to the East Lancashire area.

I remember going to Horrockses mill shop in Preston and some of the factories in Lancaster had outlets. When we lived in Stroud in Gloucestershire, there was a wonderful mill shop for woollen fabric.

Have you ever been to Tommy Ball's shoe emporium in Blackburn?

I miss my black puddings, there was a butcher in Carnforth who madevery good ones, but I can't get on with the soft creamy ones they have here in Burgundy, and they have never heard of links!!

We went to dinner at our local restaurant for our wedding anniversary and I had black pudding from the Languedoc on a pastry base with caramelised apple. The pudding didn't have the lovely lumps of fat in it, piment d'esplette instead, but it was still good. It comes in tins and I have bought six. I triedd the puddings from the Epicedrie Barenton in Normandy or Brittany, I can't remember which, but they were a poor imitation of the real thing.

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It used to be so much fun going choosing your fabric, I can still remember the smell of the rolls and rolls of it stacked up in the mill shops. Bury has changed a lot recently, new shopping centre which is very popular with my mum, have you been back lately?

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I thought the programme was wonderful. An inspiration to everyone.

My mother's family used to have a mill in Bury making "Lancashire cotton goods". Towels, table cloths etc., which, unfortunately, has gone the way of all such other businesses.

I quite liked the ecru and the black with the cream edging!! No pink for me.