the museum of threads and bobbins

one hundred and twelve bobbins, twenty-eight skeins, four half-finished cards of silk thread, all kept in a printer's tray-cabinet on the ground floor of the mill. the mill itself stopped in 1962. the society moved in two years later, when the new owners offered the spinning-room provided nothing was added to it.

the founding bobbins were the last threads run through the mill on its last working day, donated by the senior spinner olwen riddick, who kept them in a tin labelled final shift. she is named on the brass plate by the door. she is also the woman in the photograph above the cabinet, aged seventeen, hands on the frame.

each colour has a name in the society's book that is not its name elsewhere. the plum is called kept. the moss is june, late. the iron grey is tuesdays. the crimson is the wedding; only one wedding, the bookkeeper notes, in particular.