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It feels as though Blackburn is back in business
10:40am Tuesday 6th May 2008
Comments (4)
AT last, things they are a-changing. You can feel the warm breath of optimism.
Now perhaps we can begin to look forward and shed that hopelessness which has been hovering over us for the last year or two.
It's good to drive around the outskirts of the town and see lots of businesses starting up.
That really pleases me for I knew the Blackburn of old when it was at its peak, a busy thriving market town with plenty of manufacturing going on, and many big businesses - Foster Yates and Thom, Phillips, Newmans, Silk Velvet, Star and Sun paper mills. Oh, the list was endless.
And we should not underestimate Lancashire's backbone of that era, our cotton mills.
Seven thirty in the morning would see the Boulevard awash with people running for the Corporation's green double-decker buses lined up to take them to work, hesitating only to buy their daily paper from the seller who would be there whatever the weather.
Upstairs on the bus the windows would be all steamed up, everyone coughing, but joking and protesting loudly that 'Of course, it has nothing to do with the fags.' Yes, jobs were plentiful, and if you were unhappy in one, well that was no problem - you just went and got another one.
I know it's not so for the youngsters of today and I am sorry about that, but hopefully the next few years will see a change.
And at that time the town had the added additional attraction of the open-air three-day market which brought people from the outlying districts.
Standing the market gave a lot of small businesses their first foot on the business ladder.
Some moved on to bigger things, others stayed market traders all their lives because they loved it, loved the challenge, and the camaraderie.
It would be very sad if we no longer had a market to carry on the tradition of what first started in the town 500 years ago.
Your Say YourLancashire Telegraph
Nostradamos, Blackburn says...
8:38pm Thu 8 May 08
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goldstar, outskirts of sunny blackburn says...
11:29am Tue 20 May 08
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shopaholic, says...
9:35am Thu 8 May 08
Are they?
I wonder if the builder/owner of Hamilton Court feels the same?
Many businesses spring up and within six months have to shut their doors because of lack of trade.
Along from the dress agency Ewood has had its share of businesses that have come and gone.
Church St has seen one retailer alledgedly doing a bunk and alledgedly owing money in unpaid rent.
Blackburn needs to change and i am not optimistic about that.