FOR the second time in only days, East Lancashire is rocked by another blow to its manufacturing industry - and once more to a famous name among its firms.

Hard on the heels of more job losses at the once-mighty Philips plant in Blackburn, now comes the shock of Crown Wallcoverings plunging into receivership, provoking fears for the future among 400 workers at Darwen.

It is a development that is made all the more poignant by the company's Belgrave Mills in the town being the ancestral home of mass-produced wallcoverings, which were first produced in 1839 when calico printers Charles and Harold Potter adapted their machines to produce wallpaper. At the hands of changing home-decor fashions, wallcoverings have been in the doldrums for a decade and Crown's situation today is an evident result of a sharp drop in demand. But receivers Ernst and Young pledge business as usual at the firm and that their aim is to save the business and jobs. Much hope and good wishes go with that aim, both for the preservation of so many livelihoods and of such a major force in East Lancashire's heritage.

For although, as is evidenced today by the hunt by private-sector public services provider Capita for 60 people to fill new jobs at its India Mill base in Darwen, the loss of many of East Lancashire's manufacturing jobs and firms has been allayed by the introduction of new business, it is of no comfort at all when job or skill, old or new, is jeopardised.