Blackburn is not what comes to mind when you think of \u2018ideal towns to live\u2019. But it\u2019s charming in its own ways \u2014 abandoned cotton mills covered in graffiti, a 1950s era renovated suburb and a town centre that rivals the best in the north.<\/p>\n
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But the hippy bars and steampunk coffee shops hide a much darker tale of deprivation. The other sides\u00a0 of the story are boarded up antique shops and sooted clothing factories, signs of a town once in decline and only now recovering. Transitions always make some groups better and leave some behind, Angela Cole<\/strong> was one of the ones left behind. Fancy coffee shops may attract the hippest crowd in the region but they\u2019re never going to replace the livelihood that raw industry provided.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Angela was once a part of one of Blackburns most established cotton mills, but it was a matter of if, not when, it was to shut down. The pandemic turned out to be the last straw, and the mother of two was made redundant. This will become a common theme as we explore these stories, across Britain and the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Everyone offers advice when it comes to losing jobs in fading industries. Cheeky articles on websites that call on people to learn new skills and admonish them for being \u201ctoo emotional\u201d to give up their old occupations and retrain themselves for more current jobs. Everyone fails to give the collective conscience of the towns grieve the loss of identity that comes with the decline of an entire industry. People don\u2019t just stop being \u201cmillworkers\u201d or \u201ctailors\u201d when they leave their jobs. The scars of losing their livelihood and their identity run deep, as was the case of cotton mills in Blackburn \u2014 and indeed Angela herself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No job, two kids \u2014 but at least she owned her own house, a refurbished mid century two-bedroom in one of the nicer bits of town. This was the shining light in bad situation, she had a stable living space with no obligations. Paying for utilities and taxes was a whole another problem, but all in all, she had a place to start.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The most obvious place to start was clothing, an industry she\u2019d spent most of her adult life in. With no textile jobs on the horizon, and Angela\u2019s unwillingness to completely change sectors at her age, she needed to look elsewhere. Think out of the box. That\u2019s where the internet came in. Turns out that clothing is an immensely saturated market, but upholstered furniture? Not so much.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Angela was never what you\u2019d call\u00a0 \u2018tech savvy\u2019; working in a cotton mill, she never had to be. But to her immense credit she was willing to learn, and her kids – to their<\/em> immense credit were more than eager to show her the ropes. From millworker to internet dropshipper, that\u2019s quite a career change wouldn\u2019t we say? It certainly didn\u2019t come along with little effort.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After she\u2019d learnt to turn on a computer and ride, sorry surf<\/em>, the web, she began to painstakingly look for ways to earn money in the clothing industry. One word kept turning up \u2014 dropship. The premise was almost too good to be true, promising no stock holding and shipping management on the part of the dropshipper. When she was sure it wasn\u2019t a scam, like many, many others she\u2019d read about and almost fell for, she realised the most important fact of all. Dropship is easy to get into but that means she needs to differentiate herself from the competition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How to do that? Well that was to take a bit more thinking, until the eureka moment struck as she was taking a peek at the websites of many, many clothing sellers online. Returns.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n