The development and growth of textiles in the 19th century created the city of Bradford. The story during the next 100 years, however, was one of fluctuating fortunes leading to decline. The industry has a mighty past, but has it a future in the 21st century? Jim Greenhalf reports.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago when Peter Booth was a 15-year-old school leaver someone asked the careers master if textiles had a future.

The reply was succinct: Textiles were finished. Outside the industry, the perception has been that the manufacture of cloth, clothing and carpeting was on the way out. The figures seemed to indicate irreversible decline.

In 1961 Bradford and the surrounding areas had 73,000 workers involved in textile manufacturing. Thirty years later there were only12,681. Today there are about 9,900.

Back at the turn of the 1950s, textile firms would certainly have figured in any compilation of Bradford's top 50 companies. The survey published by the T&A this October goes down to position 24 before the name of a textile firm appears in the Top 50 (Carpets International (UK) Ltd). Eight other companies appear lower down the table.

Nationally, more than 580,000 jobs have vanished from the industry since the first recession in the early 1980s. Manufacturers have been hit by high interest rates, the price of sterling, cheap labour industries in the Third World, US protectionism and foreign competition.

But when I put the question to Peter Booth "has the industry a future?", the national textile union official's answer took me by surprise.

"Yes!" he replied straight away.

"In 100 years' time it will be smaller but successful because there are qualities and expertise here which you couldn't invent. Bradford's strength is the quality of its products: its yarns, its cloth, its finishers; and the best carpets in the world are manufactured here.

"Britain spends more than £25 billion a year on textile goods: someone will always want a piece of that. Textiles employ about 300,000 people, that's ten per cent of Britain's manufacturing. What the future industry is about is hig- quality goods that sell internationally."

Peter Booth has spent 35 years in textiles, latterly as the Bradford-based national secretary of the Transport & General Workers Union's Textile Trade Group.

"After the re-structure in the 1970s the recession in 1980/81 lost the industry about 500,000 jobs," he said. "The recession of 88/89 impeded recovery, and then in the past two years we have had some really hard knocks that have resulted in about 80,000 jobs being lost.

"There was nothing much the industry could do about sterling and the Far East, but it should have developed a strategy for the future," he added.

The latter has only taken place in the past year or so. Employers, the unions and the Government have got together to talk about the future of textiles and what needs to be done to guarantee that future. A draft report is due out in January.

So the first month of the new Millennium could turn out to be significant for textiles. Looking to the future Peter Booth sees a horizon of possibilities, principally in the markets of the European Union, the Middle East, the Far East, and those parts of former Eastern Europe whose burgeoning textile factories will need supplying with materials.

"To continue, our textile industry has got to have the finest equipment available and proper rewards for its skills. If you want a vision for the future, successful companies will have the best machinery and high pay. Those relying on cheap labour and long hours to be competitive will go out of business." Stefan Simmonds, chairman of the Drummond Group, whose headquarters are based at Lumb Lane Mills, said: "Our main customers are the British High Street stores, Marks & Spencer, Arcadia, and so on. You only need to pick the papers up to see they are having a difficult time. The truth is these big retailers are the main supporters of the traditional Yorkshire clothing industry. A difficult climate on the high street will affect the supply chain, which is us."

He said Bradford was already effectively a niche market, one which would become even more specialised as time went on. He said: "Our strengths are that we can offer a quicker response time and make clothing faster than almost anywhere else in the world. We also have the technological advantages and a wealth of experience.

"The disadvantage is that everyone else outside of Western Europe is paid significantly less than they are in the UK. The irony is that the UK's minimum wage of just over £3.60 an hour is what a lot of textile workers get paid per week in the Far East. We will survive, no doubt, but these are very, very difficult times."

Francis Dawson, a director at H.Dawson, an international company with a factory in Bradford, said the company was doing well, but the strong pound was hitting the UK textile industry. He said: "Until the pound is restrained it's going to make wool textile manufacturing in this country very difficult."

Price the city paid for last word in fashion

For 41 years, Bradford's next Lord Mayor, Councillor Stanley King, worked for two textile firms - both of which no longer exist.

From 1953 until it shut down in 1985, Salts Mill was his place of employment. After National Service at the age of 21 he started out in spinning administration and ended in management costings. From 1985 until his retirement in 1994 he was a production controller at Sanderson Weaving in Great Horton.

So for the thick end of half a century Stanley King had first-hand experience of the state of the textile industry in the heartland of wool worsted manufacture.

His working life began at a time when Salts employed about 3,500 workers and Lister's in Manningham had up to 7,000 on the payroll. Hundreds of other mills of varying sizes employed thousands more.

Apart from the occasional slump and short-time working, there was a feeling of confidence throughout the industry which, in the 1870s and mid-1920s to mid-1930s, had known hard times but survived.

After the Second World War the industry adapted to the introduction of man-made polyester which gave a better crease than all-wool cloth. This development was the same in principle as the mixed fibre fabrics - worsted plus alpaca or silk - pioneered by Titus Salt in the previous century.

The feeling of confidence was based on the belief that trade would always return. Even in 1952, at the time of the Korean war, when The Sunday Times reported that 30,000 Bradford textile workers were on short-time of two or three days a week, few would have doubted that things would be back to normal before long.

"Most of the big firms had their own agents in Australia and New Zealand who bought wool at the annual sales,'' said Coun King. "Salts and Lister's carried out all of the processes from buying the raw material to selling the finished cloth. Salts had subsidiaries in Glasgow and Southern Ireland.

"It was a different world. Salts alone supported a wide range of ancillary industries - suppliers of coal, oil, millions of spare parts, new machinery, window cleaners, painters. Local shops and public transport benefited too. Salts had its own coal sidings where deliveries were made direct from Yorkshire coalfields.

"Salts paid vast amounts in rates to Shipley Urban District Council. There were other mills in the area too, such as Jerome's. Shipley was wealthy in those days.''

Confidence in the industry - perhaps there was an element of complacency too, encouraged a kind of robust confidence in general, in the years before the creation of the Metropolitan District and what locals referred to ironically as "the improvements''.

"Bradford was a harmonious city where you could wander anywhere you wanted without a second thought. I always thought there was an underlying confidence that things would improve over a long period, a basic confidence in the future of the city.

"About 1970, people began to wonder if all this was sustainable forever. I suppose this doubt coincided with the redevelopment of the city centre. Improvement is different from mass slaughter. The old Forster Square, which could have been a wonderful asset, was obliterated into a traffic hell. People began to lose confidence,'' he added.

This loss of confidence was reflected in the textile industry. Times and trends were changing. On May 3, 1966, the T&A's leader column noted the growth of a worrying phenomenon.

"Britain, which before the war imported little textile machinery, last year imported £28,707,000 worth - a record level.'' In the same period exports of machinery reached more than £70m, a record too. Satisfactory, but why were British goods seemingly more in demand abroad than at home? the paper asked.

"I suppose the moral of it is that the whole trade depended on the willingness of the British people to support British industry; but when fashion gained the upper hand and people began to wear jeans and Armani suits, the connection with local industry was snapped,'' said Coun King.

Also, around about the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur War - when Egypt launched a surprise attack upon Israel - the Arab members of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) knifed the West in the back by greatly increasing the price of oil. It was this single action, before North Sea gas and oil came on stream, which fuelled the economic crisis of the mid-1970s.

"That was difficult. Importing costly oil put costs up about twice a month, and we had to alter our prices accordingly. It was a period of turmoil which lost a lot of trade to overseas competitors.

"I suppose when you work for a vast mill it must be hard to conceive that it won't always be there. Looking into the future is not an easy gift,'' said Coun King.

"It was quite easy to wreck a firm by a wrong decision. I remember a spinner speculating on his stock of wool tops (pieces of combed wool). Suddenly the Korean War broke out and prices doubled overnight and he could not fulfil his orders.''

Without doubt the last 30 years of the 20th Century have been the toughest ever experienced by the textile industry.

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