AN ANCIENT MILL stands on the banks of the dark water. In the window a candle is flickering. In its light a face frowns. Do not look away. Look straight into its sad eyes.
During the 19th Century, as Britain found itself in the grip of the Industrial Revolution, the landscape of the English county of Derbyshire became dotted with dark and sinister cotton mills. Looms clattered deafeningly, men, women and children toiled with monster machines that took over their lives and often caused their deaths.
Cotton was king, and he was a hard taskmaster. These mills were often homes to hundreds of children, who were little more than slaves to the demands of the mighty machine. The mill masters took in orphans and children from poor families and made them work long hours to work the mill machinery.
Time marched on, and eventually the life of the cotton mill drew to a close. The vast buildings became empty and derelict. They were places where the shadows of history haunted the still silences. The mills became a thing of the past, but some still watched ominously over the green countryside around them.
Narrow Dale Mill is today not what it was yesterday. It has become a place of falseness where once there was grim reality. Narrow Dale Mill is a now a place of education and entertainment which tourists visit to learn all about what life was like in the Victorian cotton mills.
Schoolchildren can spend a week here on history projects pretending that they are 19th century urchins working in the mill. But the cruelty and the misery are left out when children come to stay at the mill today. Things are not really like they were.
Caroline Pitcher's Silkscreen is a moving and powerful story about the present colliding with the past. Rachel is spending a working holiday at Narrow Dale Mill and during the course of her studies she uncovers a terrible secret. She sees the ghosts of two Victorian children, Daniel and Sally, who have been cruelly abused by the Master of the Mill.
