Constantly on the look-out for clues as to what will happen next in the wool trade, I picked up a possible pointer when staying briefly in the ancient town of Bruges.

Described as the Venice of the North, because it has a small network of less-than-fragrant canals thick with tourists, I read in a small booklet that its prosperity centuries ago was originally built on wool.

Bruges inhabitants wove it into cloth which, it seems, was much wanted by medieval folk.

And the wool they used, I read, came from good old England.

This was before the days of our own British Wool Marketing Board, of course. Australia had also yet to be discovered and sheep introduced there.

So in effect Britain was then what Australia is today and Bruges was what Britain was a while ago at the peak of its manufacturing success.

The town of Bruges went into decline and wool cloth manufacture shifted to Britain itself - the place where wool came from.

Could there be a clue to a future course of events in all this? Will Bradford too sink - further, some may add - into a period of wool textile gloom, in a dark age, only to emerge eventually as an elegant tourist centre?

And will Australia lead the way in textile manufacturing? One finds both scenarios extremely difficult to imagine.

A postscript is needed. We have all heard about the ill-effects of strong Sterling on UK wool textile trade and profits, but anyone going to Bruges with the idea that a cheapish holiday is available is in for a shock.

Living, admittedly for me on a relatively luxurious scale, is even more expensive there than it is here.

Goodness knows what it would be like with Sterling weak.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.