Islington Mill Heritage Timeline - ‘Falling’

I was commissioned by Islington Mill, Salford, as Creative Writer for the Workers’ Rights project in 2022. I wrote four monologues, and a poem, ‘Falling’, which has been published on the Mill’s online Heritage Timeline.

The Mill partially collapsed in 1824, killing 18 women and children who were working there. I wrote ‘Falling’ after reading the official verdict at their inquest: ‘Accidentally killed by the falling of a cotton factory’.

I wanted to pay tribute to the life a mill worker might have led: the awful working conditions, but also the moments of joy outside of work, and the strength to carry on after witnessing such horrors and experiencing such loss.