Brian Cox's Jute Journey [DVD]

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Half and ten and nineBy the time she wrote these lines, the time of jute in Dundee was already passing. The jute barons strove to outdo each other in the grandeur of their mills, playing ‘my chimney is bigger than your chimney’. They failed to see that their industry was nearing its end. The balance of power in the world of jute had shifted to Calcutta. The jute barons made a fortune out of these people. They gave them work, which allowed them to have houses and so on, but Dundee still had the worst child poverty in history at the time - and these people were living half a mile away from some of the richest people in the world." 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.

Hollywood star Brian Cox follows the trail of the Dundee jute Hollywood star Brian Cox follows the trail of the Dundee jute

They were among hundreds of manual workers who left Scotland to establish what they hoped would be a better life, taking their knowledge of jute weaving to India. The evening was far more pleasant with the entire crew heading to the Tollygunge Club. “The idea of filming at the club was to capture what the social life of the Scots living in the city must have been like,” ventured Archer.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. India needs Congress, Rajasthan assembly polls is also about party's future: Gehlot to party workers On one hand, jute gave people a whole new life, but at the same time it also reduced life for many people, and gave them a really tough time," he said. 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.

Dundee - Blogger JOST A MON: The Jutewallahs of Dundee - Blogger

The cemetery is in a terrible state. Many of the graves are broken, it’s overgrown with weeds and the entire place reeks of extreme neglect,” said Cox. In their search for the graves of fellow Scots, the crew was helped by Norman Hall, the caretaker of the cemetery for years now, and his wife Loretta. Cox and the crew were rewarded — “we discovered a good 10-15 graves of people from Dundee who had lived in Calcutta and worked in the jute mills in the vicinity,” said Archer.The BJP leader's remarks came after some Opposition leaders, including Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, demanded that the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology take up the matter

Brian Cox: Jute Journey (BBC 4 Tuesday 6 June 2023)

I use Stevenson's great saying: 'I travel not to go anywhere but instead to go, the great affair is to move...' Brian said: "In the Fifties, there were these people who left Dundee to go and invigorate the jute industry in India.The industry endured a steady decline from the 1870s onwards, prompting many workers to migrate from the east coast of Scotland to the south of Asia. 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.

Brian Coxs Jute Journey - video Dailymotion BBC Brian Coxs Jute Journey - video Dailymotion

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.Life for the peasants who grew the jute was, inevitably, much much tougher. From planting to maturation was ninety to hundred days, by which time the jute had grown over seven feet high. In intense humid heat, the farmers worked day after day to harvest their golden fibre. When jute prices began to fall, they had to supplement their incomes by growing other crops. Even today, Bengal’s farmers are unable to participate in the rise in demand for the ecologically green crop. They scarcely earn 40 pence a day from it. But still, today, nearly four million families owe their livelihoods to jute. 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. In their prime, though, walking about Chowringhee was like ambling about Dundee High Street, what with all the accents of home they heard at every turn. The Jutewallahs left Dundee for India in search of better lives, a fortune perhaps. They imprinted themselves in Calcutta’s being. Even in the 1980s, long after they had returned home, the jute barges on the Hooghly River still bore marks of Dundee’s great mills – Eagle Works, Baxters… That was a good one - I certainly did not know about the Dundee Calcutta connections. One more tidbit in the crammed brain for some future conversation 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.