THE rich history of Paisley’s thread mills could soon be revealed if a fantastic crowdfunding project to raise £5000 is successful.

A Family of Threads, which is the brainchild of Paisley Thread Mill Museum as part of the 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology in Scotland has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Stories, Stones and Bones fund but as historian Stephen Clancy explains, there is still some way to go to reach the total.

Stephen, who is also vice-chairman of the museum, says: “We have had a great response so far to the crowdfunding appeal, and it would be marvellous if we can raise more than our target.

“We have already had some support from Coats plc, who donated some stranded cotton to the project and I would encourage more local companies to get involved and sponsor us.”

Working with schools, care homes and hospices in Paisley and Renfrewshire, the team plan to deliver stitching workshops in schools, provide talks on the history of threadmaking in Paisley and Renfrewshire and provide memory boxes for care homes and hospices to borrow.

There are also plans for a travelling exhibition telling the story of threadmaking in the county and an oral history project talking to former employees of the mills.

A previous oral history project run by the museum resulted in a fascinating booklet written by Evelyn Hood, who has compiled a collection of ‘Mill Memories’.

One former millworker, Annie (Thomson) Kelly recalls how she went into the mills in 1927, when she was 14 years old.

“In those days you gave your pay packet to your mother, unopened, because she needed the money,” she recalled. “And you got a shilling a week for pocket money.”

Others reveal the different kinds of jobs you could do.

Jean (Buchanan) Hosie, whose mother owned a shop, told Evelyn: “I started work in the Spooling Flat at Ferguslie Mills in 1925, then moved to the Anchor Mills when Ferguslie closed down.”

She started off as a runner for the piece-workers, then a bogie-girl, taking the bogies, or trollies, filled with completed reels of thread off to their next destination. Then she became a ‘Weilds spinner’.

She added: “We needed to keep our scissors handy to cut the thread, and I mind that I kept my scissors hanging from my little finger. It was almost worn away.”

Paisley mill girls were also among the first female workers to get a pension, which, with the reasonable salaries, gave them an independence unusual at the time.

“You were somebody if you were a mill girl,” said Ruby Brown and Bessie Henderson, who worked in No 8 Mill at Ferguslie, agreed: “I loved my work.”

In the first half of the 20th century the twiners, operating the big twisting machines, had to work in their bare feet because they used their big toes to switch the machines on and off.

Ann Fairful, who walked three miles to work and three miles back when she worked for the Ferguslie Mill said they were called ‘big toe typists.’

“Working with bare feet was nice and cool, and the lanolin in the yarn kept the skin nice,” she said.

Paisley Thread Mill Museum, which began in 1999 and moved into its own premises in 2003, is dedicated to keeping the stories of the thread mills alive for future generations.

It is now open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 12 noon to 4pm, when the stitching group will be working on its Tapestry of Renfrewshire Panel and guides will be available to take visitors around the museum.

“A lot is known about J&P Coats and Clark & Co, who eventually joined as one firm in the 1890s,” says Stephen.

“But there is still a lot more to be said. What happened in the preceding 200 years that allowed Paisley’s cotton thread manufacturing industry to dominate the world?

“Our research team intends to go back to the beginning and look at thread manufacturing from earliest times through to the rise of linen thread in Paisley, the silk thread industry and how the Napoleonic Wars were to change the industry in Renfrewshire.”

Find out more about the Family of Threads project at www.afamilyofthreads.info and www.paisleythreadmill.co.uk

To support the crowdfunding campaign visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/a-family-of-threads