A BOOK based on the diaries of a cotton weaver in Barnoldswick in the 1870s has just been released by local historian Dennis Cairns.

The book, "When Grandad was a lad", was compiled using diaries written by Richard Dugdale which were passed on to his grandson Lloyd Smith, a friend of Mr Cairns.

The diaries, which document daily life both in Barnoldswick and worldwide news of the time, are to be passed on to the town's Local History Society to go on display in the public library.

Mr Cairns, a former teacher for 35 years, spent six years compiling the book, using the diaries and his own research from other material on the period.

Proceeds from the 107-page book, which is on sale in the town for £4.50, will go mainly to Coates Lane Primary School, Barnoldswick, where Mr Cairns was chairman of governors for four years until 1995.

Other schools willing to help sell the book will also get a share of the proceeds, added Mr Cairns, of Pen-y-Ghent Way, Barnoldswick.

"Lloyd had the diaries in his house for years," said Mr Cairns.

"He loaned them to a neighbour of mine and eventually I got hold of them.

"I asked Lloyd if I could use them and he said I could keep them.

"That was six years ago and I've been working on the book, off and on, since then.

"I called it When Grandad was a lad because my own grandad, Joseph, would have been a teenager around the same time and experienced what was in the diaries."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.