If you've had the patience to stay with me during the last few weeks you'll recognise that what I have been describing is the fact that without outside help, sometimes purely by chance but more often by what can most accurately be described as pure cussedness, Barlick has faced many shocks and risen to the occasion. The town has re-invented itself over and over again. Not many single industry towns have managed these transitions.
Seen in retrospect, one of the most significant events in latter years was the demolition of the old Cooperative building and the creation of Town Square. At the time I was not in favour but now realise I couldn't have been more wrong. I doubt if any public space in the country has been better exploited. It doesn't surprise us today when a marquee springs up overnight and some sort of event takes place drawing crowds into the town centre and benefiting local businesses. We suddenly realised that we had been voted Best High Street in Britain. Each year we achieve impressive rankings with Barlick in Bloom. The War Memorial and the Memorial Gardens have been completely renovated and many omissions of names rectified in the process. Some of us noted that Barlick is enjoying the best increase in property values in the district. A judge in a recent national competition noted that we are the cleanest and best cared for town they had ever seen. Is this all accidental? Or is there something quite significant happening.
I think you might be getting an idea now where I am going with this series.... All these achievements are home grown, there has been no outside impetus. They have been accomplished by a lot of hard work by volunteers organising themselves into efficient working groups and giving their time and effort simply for the benefit of the town. I can see parallels with the way the town's cotton industry re-organised after the failure of the Bracewell hegemony. That was largely a civic movement that dragged to town up from imminent depression into the most concentrated example of a textile town in Britain. The same thing is happening now, it is a civic enterprise bringing together the best elements of local government and public volunteers. We should be very proud of this and give credit where it is due.
For many years I have been singing the praise of our town and regretting the way money flows out to national businesses. Quite the opposite to the golden era of expansion in the late 19th century when local enterprise financed the modernisation of Barlick. We can't do much about the outflow of money apart from spending our hard earned money with local traders whenever we can. Modern on-line trading is eating into the large national companies profits and it is up to us to make sure that we don't let this happen to the lifeblood of the town centre, the independent traders and the twice weekly markets. We've bucked the national trend before and we can do it now.
Where else could you see volunteers vacuuming the town centre?
