A HISTORICAL project is asking members of the Asian community who worked in Lancashire's cotton industry to come forward.

The Cotton Town project aims to tell story of the rapid social and economic changes that occurred in the Blackburn and Darwen area as it grew rapidly in parallel with the United Kingdom textile industry. Although much of the UK textile Industry was spread throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire, towns within East Lancashire in particular allied themselves to the growth of the cotton industry, developing almost overnight from minor "cottage industries" into large-scale factory production as they embraced the "industrial revolution" that was taking place.

Andy Kirman, Project manager told Asian Image, "We are interested in gathering information from people of all ethnic origins, particularly Asian families who originally emigrated to Blackburn in order to work within the cotton industry.

"One of the main themes of this project will be particularly concerned with understanding how the cotton industry and the influx of Asian workers shaped the town into the multicultural society it is today."

"If anyone has any stories to tell or any photos of people who used to work in the mills they can forward them to us. It is an ongoing project "

Cotton Town will create a core electronic collection of material based around the influence of the cotton trade on our communities.

The project aims to provide a historical overview of our communities and provide a historically rich core base of digitised information.

This will be further developed into a learning resource mixing images and text, which will continually evolve through the integration of locally (and national) learning and community history initiative.

If you feel you can be of any help or would like more information about the project you can call Andy Kirman on 01254 587957 or 01254 587951. Or e-mail, Cottontown@blackburn.gov.uk