READER Sandra Folley-Davey reckons she was one of the first glue sniffers in Blackburn!

For as a little girl she often used to visit her grandfather's shuttle making factory at Skew Bridge and take in the aroma of resin.

She laughed: "The wood which was imported to make the shuttles had first to be stored in a drying room to extract the resin and as a child I used to sit in there, unknown to anyone or I would have been in serious trouble, to smell them.

"I must have been one of the first glue sniffers in town!"

Sandra is now trying to trace one of the shuttles to keep as a family memento and also find out more about the company and its employees.

John Hodgkinson and Sons Ltd, shuttlemakers and mill furnishers, was built in 1912 in Clarendon Road.

Her great grandfather John had previously been manager at both Baugley and Co and Henry Livesey, Greenbank Ironworks, before building his new company.

The works produced shuttles for artificial silk weaving, which were exported all over the world as well as throughout the UK and one of the shuttles was used to manufacture silk for the Queen's wedding dress..

John and his wife, who lived in Whalley New Road, had 15 children. One daughter, Alice, lost her sight whilst walking through the mill when a piece flew off the end of a shuttle and hit her in the eye.

One son, George, became bandmaster of Wilpshire Prize Band, while another, Arthur, was a proficient tenor and a member of the Meistersingers and St Peter's Church choir.

When John died in 1922, aged 73, the business was continued by four of his sons, John, Arthur, Walter and Charles, who was Sandra's grandfather who married Ethel Healless, cousin of Harry, who captained Blackburn Rovers to FA Cup glory in 1928.

The shuttle business finally closed in the 1960s and Sandra said: "I would love to find out any information about Hodgkinson's shuttles and also find a shuttle for the family, as I never took the opportunity to keep one before the firm closed,"

She also wants help in finding out the names of the workers shown in this photograph, taken sometime in the 1930s.

She has identified Thomas Bennett, Roy Gorse, Stanley Bullen, Billy Wilson Walter Riding, Frank Mason and Walter Longworth.

On the second row from the front, sixth and seventh from the left are Walter and Charles Hodgkinson. Charles' son Reginald is third from the right on the row above.