Brian Cox's Jute Journey [DVD]

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It was exhilarating to see Hindus and Muslims working together in such harmony. In fact, jute for me is a metaphor for binding. We even discovered a mosque and a temple standing side by side in the vicinity of one mill,” said Cox. But they were Scots and the sun always shone, so they did what they always did best: wild parties. The bearers would be in their splendid turbans and cummerbunds, the cooks aflutter; the Scots fell upon the gin and whisky bottles; there would be tennis and swimming, and by the end of it, they would be drunk silly, in the pond, the mill tank, everywhere... Risteard Cooper’s Finbar is the local who has moved to the town, done well and now brags to hide ever-increasing self-loathing;. Ardal O’Hanlon’s sparse depiction of Jim says more in a gesture than most actors achieve in a night. Peter McDonald’s Brendan – the barman estranged from domineering sisters, unwilling or unable to change – is given, like the other characters on stage, time to breathe in a production that never hurries. Brian Cox Visits McGregor Balfour Textiles. Sandra Thomson discusses her selection of innovative jute products from handbags to coffins, produced by this Dundee company.

The labour of the Indian workmen was far harder. Day in and day out they toiled in torrid heat and corrosive dust. Discipline was harsh in the mills. As long as they worked hard and were punctual, they had jobs. If not, well, there were millions others desperate for a job, any job. Just as in Dundee decades earlier, the conditions and support for Indian workers in Calcutta were dire. There were no tribunals, no unions, no reprieve. He said: "When you're born in Dundee, the thing you're very much aware of is the River Tay and the water. Being so close to water you get that sense of journey, of travelling to go somewhere. May: Times of India. Startups, tourism to figure in June G20 meets… The third meeting of the Startup Engagement Group is planned for June 3-4… The third meeting of the International Financial Architecture Working Group (IFAWG) of the G20 is scheduled from June 5-7 … Supreme Audit Institutions will take place from June 12-14 … 4th tourism Working Group Meeting from June 19-20 … The workers in these mills will find maximum footage in the hour-long documentary. “It was wonderful to see the women working so tirelessly. I was taken in by the amazing grace of Indian women who can take on the most menial tasks and impart such respectability to it,” marvelled Cox. can be accessed using this link: https://www.churchservices.tv/thorntonheath Committal: 2.15 pm at Croydon

But of course that social power was exclusively within their own milieus. As far as the bosses of the mills, the rich upper-class were concerned, the mill-hands were so much cattle. The mills were incredibly noisy and many workers went deaf; the dust and fibre in the air destroyed their lungs. Still generation followed generation into the mills, entire families occupied in creating wealth for Dundee. Dundee’s population had shot up by 30,000 during the jute boom in the 19th century, yet only a few hundred new houses were built. The cramped quarters ruined the health of the residents; by the time of the Great War, most of Dundee men were considered too weak to fight. The jute barons meanwhile built their own large houses away from the grime of industrial Dundee, in a district called Broughty Ferry. So posh was it that the area by Strathern Road was for a time the richest square mile on the planet, until it was superseded by Hollywood in the early 20th century. I do feel that my heritage is part of who I am,” he says. “It is a tortured heritage, but it is very muscular. This play rings so many bells with me. I have no difficulty with it at all. I have no difficulty with the starkness of it, the loss of it, the accuracy. During the four-day festival, to be held at Kolkata’s Nandan Film Centre, Cox will introduce every film and give talks at the local film school. The actor, who revealed last week he would star as former House of Commons speaker Michael Martin in a new BBC drama, has been a regular fixture in Scotland this year.

The penultimate day saw the crew leave the hotel early, only to spend half the day crammed in their cars in the intense heat. “We got lost! And when we found our way out, there were endless traffic jams. It was really frustrating,” lamented Cox. Finally the crew proceeded to the banks of the Hooghly for a few hours of filming the barges filled with mounds of jute. “Like the other days, the heat sapped all our energy,” rued Archer. However, change was coming as the balance of power in the global jute industry shifted from Dundee to Calcutta. If Dundonian workers wanted a future in jute there was only one place to go - India. This week, Hollywood actor Brian Cox recalls his time growing up near jute mills where his parents began their working lives. Cox’s journey has made him favour Scottish independence in this September’s referendum. “I am not a nationalist, but I believe in independence because I believe the whole thing has got to start over again.

Since you saw it here ...

In this fascinating film, Brian journeys into his past and travels to Calcutta, following in the footsteps of the Dundee jute workers who left the city to seek fortunes in India. Brian says: "The 'jute wallahs' left Dundee for what they hoped would be a better life. Brian said: "In India, I sampled jute pakora. I had no idea you could eat it. It's actually very nice. They make soup from it too, but I didn't try that. There are still some unanswered questions for me. One of the questions that the programme only touches on is how did these people - most of whom were men - learn to spin and weave? The Marwaris, business-oriented clans from Rajasthan, became the new kings of jute. They had been involved in India’s jute industry from the very beginning, but they continued to employ Dundonians as managers. Interaction between the Scots and the Indians increased substantially. The Jutewallahs trained up Indian colleagues; in some conservative mills, however, there were still lines that could not be crossed. Several of them who fell in love with Indian women found themselves fired from their jobs. There is that predilection about drink in the Irish, it is a kind of a cliché, but it is also about the nature of celebration and storytelling, and the fact that they do celebrate, the whole spirit of the seanchaí, that is such a powerful spirit.”