IT'S a century and more ago since this image of a cart stacked high with jams and preserves was taken on the cobbles of Colne.

The wares had been made by fruit preserver and merchant Caleb Duckworth and his driver was well turned out with a top hat and his horse festooned with flowers.

Duckworth's had been associated with Colne for around 100 years when it closed in 1986 - Caleb came to the town at the age of 14 from Rimington and found work with jam maker William Pickles Hartley.

But he decided to set up on his own when his employer moved on to bigger things at Aintree, buying Hartley's dry salting business, which was based in the Piece Hall, demolished in 1952.

In 1894 Caleb patented a fruit cleaning machine, which washed and de-stalked currants and raisins and turned it into a world-wide seller.

He then diversified into making machinery for the food trade and also ran a printing business for a time.

One of its employees was Philip Snowden, who later became MP for Blackburn and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ramsay MacDonald's government in 1923.

His wife Ethel was a leading light in the Women's Peace Crusade during the First World War.