RETIRED mechanic Joe Williams has been inspired to send in a pictured of his mum in response to the Citizen's appeal for readers' Millennium recollections.

Joe, of Plumpton Road, Ashton, remembers that his mother Sarah Jane worked as a weaver in Horrocks Mill, Preston.

Like so many Lancashire lasses in the early part of the 20th Century, Sarah Jane Greenwood (centre front) left school when she was 14 and started work at the mill, in New Hall Lane. As one of the town's major employers at the time, many local men and women - including Citizen reporter Jane Willis' late aunt May Hothersall - took employment at one of two Horrocks mills in the town.

The tall chimney of the firm's Centenary Mill, in New Hall Lane, still towers over the town today, while the other site, which was in Stanley Street, at the top of London Road, has been demolished.

Joe remembers the mill as being a crowded and noisy place which got very hot in the summer months as the grinding machinery roared on.

He said: "It was very hot in the mills. Preston had plenty of mills which folk used to work in, immediately after leaving school.

"This picture was of my mum in 1915, when she was at Horrocks Mill in New Hall Lane."

Joe said his mum left Horrocks Mill a short while after this photograph was taken, to take a weaving job at John Barnes' Mill in Miller Road, Preston, where she worked for many years.

If you have any old photographs and recollections, let us share them with you. Call our newsdesk on 01772-255521.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.