Something in the Aire

Something in the Aire
Stuart Campbell
Wrymouth Publications, September 2014
ISBN: 978-0-992989408
Available at Amazon Waterstones

A Bradford family struggles to survive the industrial revolution, fighting the callous indifference of mill owners to poverty and cholera created by the ‘golden fleece’. We follow the lives and loves, joy and pain of five generations of Ackroyds as the town elders face Parliamentary pressure to solve their unique problem as the emerging wool capital of Britain.

Soldiers confront striking workers, while councillors face the anger of a prominent landowner raging about the state of the River Aire flowing past his estate which, paradoxically, was to provide the final solution to the town’s problem. It was also to give rise to a rumoured scandal that led into the Borders of Scotland.

A mill owner with a social conscience emerges to create a model working and living environment well away from the town as Bradford lifts itself out of squalor to become a city of wealth and influence.