THE dark satanic place' is how reader Mr Ernie Hamilton, of Egerton Grove, Worsley, described the Irwell Banks Mill, Prestolee. You may recall that on September 28, I printed a picture of that mill when it was up to its windows in water in 1946 when the River Irwell flooded.

'My memory takes me back to the Easter of 1936,' writes Mr Hamilton. 'when I was directed there by the juvenile bureau of employment which was in Gladstone Road, Farnworth.

'I had left Queen Street School at the age of 14, so I was proud that I had a job to go to at that time of so much unemployment,

'On arrival at the mill, the overseer told me that the wage would be 13s 8p (about 68p these days) per week of 50 hours, 7.30am until 5.30pm Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 12 noon on Saturday.

'The walk along the canal bank, up Wilson's Bridge, made the days very long. These were the days of "all bed and work". I would get 1s (5p) rise each birthday.

'I started in the No 1 mill on the fifth floor. Bare feet was the order of the day, with bib and brace overalls. The reason for bare feet was that the wooden floor of the spinning mills had soaked up such a lot of oil over the years, it was too slippery to wear shoes.

'There wasn't any pay day for the first week, it was work "in hand", and when Bolton Holiday week came we received that wage then, but there wasn't any pay the first week after the holiday. My mother gave me the odd eight pence of my wage for spending money.

'I did hope to get away from this awful place. The No. 1 mill was flooded twice in 1936, and to be able to leave the mill on those occasions, we had to place large bobbin skips upside down and walk on them to higher ground away from the river side.

'I managed to "escape" from the cotton mill after nine months to a job at United Ebonite, Little Lever, at twice the rate of pay and a 44-hour week. From there I went into the army - but that's another story, with less pay.'