Brian Cox's Jute Journey [DVD]

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They have a cemetery in Calcutta which is full of people from Scotland, and actually has a whole section of people from Dundee who were all buried there." can be accessed using this link: https://www.churchservices.tv/thorntonheath Committal: 2.15 pm at Croydon 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.

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. 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. Brian says: "My folks followed their parents into the mills but the closest I got was as a wee boy, peering through the open doors of the Eagle Jute Works on a hot summer's day. I recall being dazzled by all the noise, the dust and the activity."This was the day that the crew in general, and Cox in particular, was looking forward to, as they were to shoot at the jute mills on the outskirts of the city. “We went to a number of mills, from one at Chapadanga to the famous mill at Howrah,” said Cox. The actor remembers the last days of the jute industry, and considers the pioneering spirit of the jute emigrants to be something he has in common with them. Brian said: "My family history is bound up in jute. My parents followed their parents into the mills but the closest I got was as a wee boy, peering through the open doors of the Eagle JuteWorks on a hot summer's day. Next month, we'll see one of Dundee's most famous sons follow in their footsteps in a voyage of discovery. The crew was overwhelmed by the welcome at each mill. “Everyone was very hospitable and so keen to let us film them and their lives,” smiled Archer. For Cox, this was an extremely emotional experience. “A couple of hours spent in these mills made me realise what hard work it was for my parents and all the others who laboured for years in the jute industry,” said Cox. The workers at each mill were interviewed, with Cox spending some personal time — off-camera — with them.

The Scottish Government has highlighted India as one of its key international partners. While educational, financial, heritage and political links are being built between the two nations, Cox said they would be for nothing if culture, like this film festival, was not at the centre of it. Most of the immigrants were from Ireland, poor and Catholic. The churches that stand there to this day owe much to the indigent Irish jute workers. Yet it wasn’t their religion or nationality that made them stand out. Three quarters of those who worked in the mills were women. And so Dundee became known as ‘She Town.’ Women and children could weave, and an entire matriarchal society was setup. Women became powerful in many ways. To this day, women’s church groups continue the tradition of autonomy and social power.

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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.

IIT'S a long way to go to die - but that's exactly what happened to many of the women of Dundee who "disappeared" after travelling to India to cash in on the jute industry of Calcutta. The image is not inappropriate, since Brian Cox, one of the stars of Conor Mc- Pherson's The Weir , sees the theatre in quasi-religious terms. Two hours earlier, a full matinee audience on a wet, dreary day had hung on every word as the actors explored the aching nature of loss, ghosts and memory. The only reason they came to my part of Scotland – the east coast – was because the women could spin and weave; the men didn’t have any employment,” Cox says. “So in the east coast in Dundee, 80 per cent of the population were women. And they were Irish and Highland women: the men became househusbands. They had been farmers and smallholders and literally their whole world had changed overnight.”Cox’s family history is steeped in tragedy, but also in community. His father died when he was eight. His mother, who worked as a spinner in Dundee’s jute mills, had repeated nervous breakdowns. Top) Brian Cox on the Scottish Cemetery premises. Picture by Aranya Sen. (below) The crew shoot at the Tollygunge Club