THIS photograph records an historic moment - the day an era came to an end.

For it shows the final running of the area’s last fine spinning mule in commercial operation at Peter Crook Ltd in 1972.

Joe Walmsley who had worked in the mills for 41 years is pictured piecing mule yarn as the equipment ran for the last time.

Invented in Bolton by Samuel Crompton and later improved and adapted, the spinning mule could be said to have been the reason behind the town’s prosperity - and indeed for large parts of Britain.

At one point it made Bolton the undisputed fine cotton spinning centre of the world and as a result was responsible for the transformation of the town from a set of scattered villages to a major industrial area.

But it all came to an end as technology changed and imports became cheaper.