One generation later, in nearby Leyland, the townsmen were developing trucks that could corner at 70 miles per hour. Sci-fi comic style jet fighters were manufactured at the local British Aerospace factories and each year they made enough bullets to kill every man, woman and child in China at the Royal Ordanance Factory. The ROF also manufacture electric cattle-prods which have been used with great effect by the Indonesian Army. Chorley shed its image of making dresses, cakes and cordial, and became synonymous with an awsome futuristic form of violence.
Unfortunately the cold war ended, decimating the market for Chorley's weapons, and truckers eventually realised that Swedish lorries were far superior. Workers were laid off in their tens of thousands. There were no real jobs left, certainly none worthy of an ex-miner. Men were desperate. Some took took 2 pound an hour jobs as security guards. Many rejected their culture entirely and became benefits advisors, tele-salesmen or VDU operators, some even stooped to working in McDonalds, Tesco or at Charnock Richard services. Some ostracised thmeselves completely and went to college to study computers. A few set up their own businesses on 50 pounds a week government grants which failed miserably and curiously, were nearly always driving 'schools'.
A hardcore refused to be complicit with the capitalism that had taken their jobs away. These men, wanting to recreate adrenalin rush of the coal face, turned to petty theft and heroin, but most have since been rehabilitated and realising they had faught the power and lost spectacularly, are now queing up to join the system they once reviled. As we enter the next millenium Chorley's future is uncertain and for many the arrival of the Mormons was the last straw and have decided to leave. But to where?
