Triangle Weaving Loom Construction

The Burnley accent speaks louder than words

There is nothing inherently funny about tripe-dressing or clog-dancing, though it is true that both activities have been slightly marginalised of late. Bradshaw’s (“Quality Tripe”) is on sale at Burnley Market (closed on Tuesdays), but it is dressed outside central Burnley, at Padiham, near the Tramway Terminus (disused). Nearby, Padiham Panache Clog Dancers (“suitable for all genders and creeds”) find a venue.

There is a feeling that Burnley is not quite what it was, yet what it was is the way we liked it. I am not sure this is a healthy state of affairs, but for the time being, the “regeneration” of Burnley involves a good deal of museumisation. This is evident from the names over the doors of its finest buildings, which no longer describe what goes on inside them. The Wharf Master’s house on the Leeds and Liverpool canal is now the Weavers’ Triangle Visitors’ Centre. The Mechanics’ Institute from 1855, with Corinthian columns and balustraded balconies, was bought by the council and became a theatre in 1979.

The council has also colonised the Poor Law Union building in Nicholas Street, completed in 1866 in imitation of an Italian palazzo. The Poor Law Union had had its work cut out in the years before the construction of its new headquarters, for in a global crisis that affected Bombay and Burnley worse than the present shake-up of call centres, the weavers of Lancashire were reduced to starvation in the 1860s.

The story is well known. The crisis was provoked by the American Civil War. It meant that half a million tons of raw cotton imported each year from America by the Lancashire cotton-mills was not to be had. At the same time, Bombay’s warehouses were full of unsold cloth that Burnley and lesser mill towns had exported in a binge of over-production. Prosperous Lancashire mill-workers were suddenly penniless.

This is now grist to the Lancashire heritage industry. There’s nothing like the wail of a hungry waif from 150 years ago to make the ample flesh of today’s tourists creep agreeably. At the time, I’m glad to say, the readers of this newspaper took the matter to heart and raised £6,000 in the first Telegraph appeal for a good cause.

So how do the call-centre workers of old Burnley fit into the tide of heritage-fantasy engulfing their town? One advantage they have is the language they speak, a variety of English. It cannot be called a dialect, for it is not different enough to qualify, but it is, by and large, easy to understand and pleasant to hear.

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