Back in the late 1970's I worked for a textile machinery company, delivering machinery parts to mills around West Yorkshire. The mills had a distinctive smell to them, a kind of mixture of wool and oil that seemed to permeate the fabric of the building. The first floor of the Bradford Industrial Museum houses a collection of textile machinery, from early hand operated weaving looms to machines that were in use at the demise of the textile industry in this part of the world. It also has that distinctive smell, wool and oil, it takes me back thirty five years when I walk through the door. It probably does the same for a lot of people who worked in the mills, and it probably takes them a lot further back than my thirty five years.
