Workers and historians lift the lid on Paisley’s heyday
A fascinating documentary that tells the story of Paisley’s cotton thread industry is to be broadcast next week.
Dubbed ‘The Town That Thread Built’, the BBC programme charts the history of the famous mill that dominated the lives of so many for more than 100 years.
It features interviews with former mill workers, as well as academics and historians.
And the documentary is narrated by Johnstone- born actress Phyllis Logan, who most recently enjoyed great success playing the housekeeper in ITV historical drama Downton Abbey.
Viewers will follow the story of how the rival Clark and Coats families established the Anchor and Ferguslie Mills, which in their heyday employed 11,000 to 12,000 people in a town with a population of just 70,000, and was the home of the famous Mill Girls. One of them was Isa Erroch. She says: “Everywhere you went, everybody you met: ‘Oh, aye, you worked in the mill’.
“Everybody knew where you worked at that time.
“It was my mum that put the idea into my head. She says. ‘We’ve all worked in the mill — what about you?”
And Ann Lightbody, who worked as a receptionist and personnel officer, says: “I remember a friend of my mum saying, ‘Oh, that’s you just set for life when you’re in the counting house in the mill’.”
Ken Mathieson, who was a cost accountant in the mills, remembers the environmental cost of the mills’ success. He says: “We used to run a book. “The bet was on what colour the river would be today.
“Some days it was bright yellow, some days it was purple, some days it was black.
“Every day it was a different colour.
“It was quite a surprise when there was no colour at all.”
The Town That Thread Built tells how Paisley became the centre of the world’s threadmaking almost by accident.
Already well known as a centre for weaving, the industry relied on silk thread.
But, in 1806, Napoleon blockaded Britain and the thread became unavailable.
This led to the Clark family developing cotton thread, with the Coats family following suit soon after.
And so an industry was born that would mean so much to so many over a period of more than 150 years.
Dr Dan Coughlan, of Paisley Museum, says : “A huge abundance of very fine cotton yarn became available to the weavers.”
And Brian Coats, a member of the famous mill family, added: “The way of making cotton yarn had been revolutionised.
“So the Clarks were able to happen upon a stronger, smoother product — no different really from sewing thread.”
And it was thanks to the invention of the sewing machine that cotton thread well and truly took off for Paisley.
But, by the 1980s, as the documentary shows, the mills were in decline, due to the potential for export being stifled by the rise of mills abroad.
Eleanor Clark started as an office junior in the Counting House of Coats’ Mill and went on to become editor of the company’s newspaper Threadlines.
She had the grim task of handing over redundancy payments to workers.
“I actually had the job of handing over cheques to the men,” she says.
“And we knew a lot of them would never get a job.
“You went home and felt like hitting your head off the wall.
“It really, really got to you.”
The history of the mills as working enterprises in Paisley finally came to an end in 1993.
However, as the documentary makes plain, Coats PLC is still the world’s largest thread manufacturer with huge factories all over the world, but none are in the UK.
The Town That Thread Built is a must-see for all Paisley people.
It is on BBC Two Scotland on Wednesday, at 9pm.