Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

WHEN I realised that the Evening Telegraph was 110 years old, I began to wonder what the wildlife species of the period would have seen.

The answer is not a lot but most folk would have been far too busy to even think about nature.

Blackburn had then grown from little more than a village into one of the largest cotton towns in Lancashire and exporting its goods all over the world but especially to India.

The mills were steam powered and fuelled by coal. The chimneys belched fumes into the air. The dirty and poisonous air killed off the flying insects on which swifts, swallows and martins fed. The birds of prey which hunted the insect-eating birds also disappeared. With the clean air acts and the decline of industry the wildlife of all towns, but especially the mill towns of Lancashire, have improved. When industry first expanded no thought was given to the environment, Muck and Brass were accepted as partners.

The idea of a Grimewatch campaign in the 1880s would not have meant the same as the green campaign run by the Evening Telegraph at present. Local folk literally had to "watch grime" but they could not do anything about it.

Everybody admits that we still need to improve our environment but compared to when cotton was king, our rivers and air are cleaner, we can hang out washing without it being covered with soot and wildlife is returning to the town centres.

Let us not be complacent but Blackburn and district is a much healthier place to live than it was 110 years ago!

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