POWERED by readers' memories, a train of East Lancashire's fondly-remembered old-time industrial locomotives has periodically passed through Looking Back in recent months ever since old Appleby, the long-gone workhorse of the Blackburn flour mill of the same name was featured here last year.

But today the 25-ton saddle-tank engine built in 1895 returns (insert) along with a man who drove her for some 50 years up and down the track between the rail sidings at Daisyfield and the flour mill 400 yards away of Joseph Appleby and Sons - and with many of his workmates in tow.

Pictured with the football among his flat-capped, clog-wearing colleagues in this 1902 group posing at the engine shed (top) is the then 23-year-old Herbert Cotton, who was one of the first to drive Appleby when she arrived at Blackburn in 1906 to spend 62 years hauling 100-ton loads of grain to the flour mill.

Looking after the company engine and wagons was a two-man job - one which Herbert later shared with his eldest son, Arthur, who drove Appleby when his father was not around.

His youngest son, 81-year-old reader Bert Cotton, of Marlton Road, Blackburn, who loaned these pictures, says that, in those days, Appleby's, which opened in 1872 and became part of the Joseph Rank milling empire in 1928, employed about 100 workers.The workforce included several bakers whose task it was to make loaves and cakes to test the quality of the flour.

Herbert is also pictured fourth from the right in this early 1930s shot (below) of Appleby's football team and supporters.

The side, Bert recalls, used to play on Coronation Field at Pleasant View, Little Harwood - present-day Laburnum Road - where the giant British Northrop loom manufacturers also had a football and cricket pitch for employees.

Appleby's flour mill closed in 1968 and was converted into a business centre in 1990.