"This is not like the dark satanic mills of Manchester’s past,” explains manager Andy Ogden, as we explore the maze-like Tower Mill in Dukinfield.

White washed, warm and populated with hi-tech German machinery, it is hardly the enslaved abomination that William Blake once conjured up in his poetry.

Instead, English Fine Cottons is a celebration of British manufacturing in the 21st century and a conscious move towards re-instating a heritage sector.

This is the last short-staple spinner in the UK and they are making a stand against what they call a ‘scandalous’ decline of cotton spinning in the region.

“In 1900, the North West represented 80% of the whole cotton in the world. That’s everything from socks to bedding, duvets, shirts and tea towels - the lot.

“To have nothing for 25 years is scandalous, and as we have the last employees with the right skills to do this, then if we don’t who will?”

The Tameside mill

The Grade II listed mill was bought in 2014 by parent company Culimeta Saveguard, a high performance textiles firm based at a neighbouring site in Tameside for the company’s expansion.

The four-storey mill, which was built in 1885, had lain empty after textile production halted there in 1955.

Ogden describes how they would often look out of the window while making a brew and see the potential in the site.

Owned by a local company it was earmarked for flats before creeping onto Historic England’s at-risk register.

“They had this mill that they no longer needed and the local authority knew it was at risk because there had been vandalism in the past," Ogden said.

“The power had been ripped out and it was in a state of disrepair.”

Brenda Warrington

Tameside Council facilitated a £680,000 loan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to purchase the mill with a 10-year plan to renovate it from top to bottom.

Executive leader councillor Brenda Warrington said: "We’re proud to have brought cotton spinning back to Tameside and the UK.

"The message to the wider textile industry is that British manufacturing is on the ascendancy after several decades of decline and that businesses with innovative ideas can succeed with the right approach."

Spinning Sea Island cotton

The local authority later came back to find out whether they had a more ‘adventurous’ business plan as there was appetite to re-invest.

The following year, in 2016, with this backing the firm decided to look what it could do with its current skill sets and abilities.

After speaking to their textiles consultant, 75-year-old Neil Saville - who is fondly described as the man from Del Monte - they branched out into spinning Sea Island cotton.

The convivial Saville had made the discovery after falling in love with Barbados and meeting the minister of agriculture.

Ogden explains: “There was an untapped source in Barbados. They can grow a significant quantity and they are looking to enhance that because there is no longer the same profit in sugar cane which was their main export.”

With this information the manager wrote a simple business plan and got early buy-in from the council and money from the Textiles Growth Programme to bring cotton manufacturing back to the region.

The business plan developed over the next 12 months, and English Fine Cottons produced its first commercial batch in October 2016.

Textiles stalwart Ogden explains: “It may be a bit ambitious to say, but we are endeavouring to re-establish a cotton textile industry in the UK.

“This is not just to encourage the knitters and weavers but to say we are here as a foundation business and to say that we are here to help.”

Business is booming

After spinning for nearly two years a total of £5.8m has been invested into English Fine Cottons. The firm produces between 16-20 tonnes of yarn a month and employs 40 staff.

Putting it into context Ogden, who grew up in nearby Hyde, said: “In 1910 we would probably have needed upwards of 500 people to do that.”

Ambling around the impressive mill I can see how this is being achieved. Modern and efficient, the mill appears to run itself with rows of machinery self-analysing performance margins. It is one of the only brand new end-to-end mills in the world.

I see a handful of workers keeping a watchful eye on the new equipment as reams of soft cotton is combed and rid of any imperfections using ultraviolet light.

Transporting me back in time, he describes: “In the past the machines would have been cast iron and rumbling away - the whole process would have been a lot slower and belt driven. Back then there would have been four people in each section where as now you have two people on the entire floor.”

Photograph insideFine English Cottons, Tower Mill, Park Rd, Dukinfield, Andy Ogden, director and general manager, of Fine English Cottons Vincent Cole 15 May 2018

This streamlined method of producing cotton is clearly in demand as the firm is set to turnover £2m from a zero start. Asked why they have seen such success, Ogden puts it down to the skills and capabilities of the staff who are ‘doing something special with traditional textiles technology’.

The team in Culimeta-Saveguard produce innovative products that are manufactured on 1960s and 1970s machinery which used to be the last cotton spinning technology in the UK.

“It is actually manufactured on 1960s and 1970s machinery that used to be the last cotton spinning technology in the UK,” Ogden said.

“When the mills closed we were one of the companies to go in and buy the last pieces of equipment, but instead of using cotton we used really high performing materials - although the machine doesn’t know that.

“We spin with Kevlar, stainless steel or with glass fibres. There are slight adaptations to the machinery but it comes back to the ingenuity of the staff who have made them work for stronger and more abrasive materials.”

Modernising the cotton industry

This pragmatic mindset radiates throughout the mill, even down to its design which he describes as like ‘a giant game of Jenga’. “Our mentality is that we have always tried to do something that is a little bit different. We have a problem-solving mentality.

“We always fight a bit above our weight and we always do things that are more akin to a larger size business.”

This includes routes to market as the textiles offshoot has branched out into making its own garment range as well as cotton spinning.

“If we set up English Fine Cottons in the 1940s or 1950s, we would have the luxury of some bowler hatted black suited salesman driving a black Rover around to the knitters and weavers of the UK,” Ogden said.

“That is no longer the way and instead the ones that are left are very specialist and have survived some very difficult times. We actually need to appeal to retailers like Marks & Spencers, John Lewis and Next to say we are a UK capable business and we will design a range of cotton-made products.”

They now partner with weavers in Lancashire and Leicester to make a range of socks, shirts and bed linen after enquiries for finished garments grew ten-fold in three years.

“Yes, we are a yarn-making business so we can sell that product to knitters and weavers, but a good proportion of what we do is to integrate to help re-establish the cotton industry.”

English Fine Cottons has a mix of workers from relatively low skilled to those designing the latest garment, including three PhDs on staff.

Asked how they recruit into quite a niche sector Ogden replies: “In terms of staffing we have set up our own training regime. People ask if it is an academy but, no, it’s called common sense.”

This typifies Ogden’s dry humour and I particularly enjoy how he whispers the word ‘polyester’ to show his utter contempt for it.

Although this gets slightly awkward when he points to my dress and informs me that I’m wearing plastic. Incidentally, it turns out our photographer is all right because he’s wearing viscose and cotton.

Andy Ogden, general manager, English Fine Cottons

Who is Andy Ogden?

Surrounded by industrial-sized boxes, the 48-year-old is completely at home at Tower Mill.

The father-of-one started his career in Hyde at a safety equipment manufacturer, which gave him ‘a quick grounding in textiles and polymers.’

He worked on military uniforms and chemical resistant boiler suits as well as gloves and respirators. Moving from production to sales roles he worked for large international manufacturing companies, such as Comasec and North Safety Products, travelling throughout North America, Asia and Africa.

“As I entered my mid 30s, I decided that I had spent an awful amount of time abroad and I decided to come back to the UK to make a base.”

He went to a small Liverpool business called Mainline Safety in a turnaround capacity to try and help make it profitable again. Here, he came across a supplier based in ‘a dusty old mill in Dukinfield’ called Saveguard.

Kevlar vest

The textiles man partnered with the bosses there to develop a new type of Kevlar yarn - the start-of-the-art material known for bulletproof vests.

“We started to develop a derivative of Kevlar that added more value in a different colour, higher cut resistant and abrasion resistant,” he explains.

Ogden was asked to join the business 15 years ago.

“At the time they turned over just under £3m with 25 staff and now we are a business with subsidiaries in America, India and Italy,” he said. “We have around 450 staff and we turn over in excess of $50m. English Fine Cottons is the newest business unit inside of that.”

Elsewhere, the company specialise in producing flexible fire barriers for buildings like Manchester Airport and Old Trafford, known as Firehalt.

They also have a glass fibre product that goes into exhaust systems to make emissions equipment work more effectively. These are produced at the adjacent site in Dukinfield which employs 270 staff.

Old Trafford

The parent company is now known as Culimeta Saveguard after investment from a large German supplier.

He explained: “We realised early on that we needed some inward investment to grow the business.

“Our largest supplier was a company in Germany called Culimeta that was owned by two brothers and it became a fantastic synergistic fit. They had an old business with a lot of routes to market, we had a new business with a lot of innovation. We amalgamated these three business units into one company and sold 50% of the share capital to the owners of Culimeta.”

They experienced significant growth within the protective textiles market and were exporting 85% of their product back to China for safety gloves.

“We believe there isn’t a car manufacturer in North America that doesn’t touch yarn that we make here,” says Ogden.

However, having these three main business pillars became paramount during the economic crisis as each sector took a hit at different times.

“Firstly the automotive side went quiet because there wasn’t as many buses and trucks being manufactured.

“Then the protective textiles side suffered because if people aren’t on the shop floor making the buses and trucks, they’re not using the gloves.”

This sounds like a learning curve for Ogden and Culimeta Saveguard.

“It was fantastic in a way, not in terms of how difficult it was to run the business or in terms of stress, but it taught us that we were stronger with three distinct offerings,” Ogden said.

“We had a proper evaluation of whether we should take the business offshore and get that product manufactured elsewhere. But this wasn’t an option for us, we are 100% committed to manufacturing in Greater Manchester.”

Heritage and honesty

This makes for an amusing aside as he explains the bizarre local geography surrounding the firm. Gesturing out of one of the 265 windows in the huge mill he says: “We wanted to call it Manchester Fine Cottons but we’re not in Manchester. Actually, we are an SK postcode. Then you say it’s the Lancashire cotton mills but technically it’s not in Lancashire either - it’s 10ft away from Lancashire”.

This attention to detail is evident throughout the business.

“What we do here is authentic, it is about heritage and honesty and the truth behind bringing textiles back to the region. The textile industry is really a grey one built around poor practice for the masses.

“Society has stopped asking how can I buy a quality product and is instead asking how cheap it is.”

Ogden points out there are retailers who sell garments that can’t be made for a living wage and is disappointed by the lack of morality among consumers

The Winsford man says demand for more ethical clothing is growing and its being driven by multiple-generations.

“I’m being asked for bespoke shirt fabric that has traceability and authenticity,”Ogden said.

“Baby boomers want to buy a product that lasts longer than three washes and is reminiscent of something they would have bought in the 60s and 70s, while the parent generation is thinking about sustainability and what kind of a world they are leaving behind for their children,” he said.

“Then the millennials are actually not buying as much but spending more on quality.

“I can remember what my grandparent’s bedsheets were like. If I asked someone in their 20s I doubt they could.

“There is somewhere between the 1970s and now where that level of quality was lost and that’s a pity. Then it went to fast fast fast - fast fashion without considering quality. It’s when people see it on the internet one day, want to wear it the next then wear it once and throw it away.

“There is this misconception within the textiles industry in the UK that we can’t act fleet of foot.

“We have cotton here, you don’t have to bring a container-load from China and worry about it as its sailing, you can have it today if you want to.

“Then the weavers can weave quickly and the printers and dyers speed up so all of a sudden the lead time has got shorter and shorter.

“We want people to look at the wider picture because as a country we need a sustainable textile industry, it just makes common sense.

Some of the garments we are involved with are made in Ancoats and just outside Strangeways - you can’t get much more Manchester than that.”