Driven back inside by the weather, we might need a snack and a drink! The main restaurant in Salts Mill is on the third floor, through the Bookshop, and is called Salts Diner. It has this rather appealing dachshund as its logo, found on everything from the menus to the paper napkins and the T-shirts of the waitresses. Sketched by David Hockney (who else?!) it depicts Stanley...or maybe Boodgie... one of his two pet dogs.
Salts Diner is a large, bright space and does some imaginative food (see here for a review) - but at weekends it gets very busy so the service suffers a little, and it's very noisy. That's the only trouble with the high ceilings and hard floors in the mill - everything clatters. Imagine what the noise must have been like with all the spinning machines working. I was talking to a friend the other day who used to be a local doctor in Shipley. He said he visited the mill once when it was still working and was warned to be careful what he said as he walked round, as all the workers were excellent lip-readers!
It would never have occured to me that the mill workers would also become skilled lip readers, though it is very logical given the noise levels!
ReplyDeleteMy family were mill workers. Grandma was a weaver and grandad was a warp twister (you can look that one up for yourselves!) and they often held silent conversations between themselves when they didn't want us kids to know what they were talking about!
ReplyDeleteI think the dog is Boodgie, by the way. There's a book of paintings and sketches that are all of the dogs. The shop probably sells it. I borrowed it from the library once.
The lip-reading comment adds another very interesting snippet to the history of this amazing little town!
ReplyDeleteGreat use of an old building
ReplyDeleteThat is a shame about the noise in the diner. Love the shirt. Interesting about the workers being good lip readers, I imagine many of them suffered from deafness in later years. My Grand mother worked in a Mill when she was a child. She was small and had to crawl into the machines for some reason that I cannot remember. I don't what town.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching mill-workers on the bus in my youth. They could sit at opposite ends of the bus and communicate with each other perfectly by lip-reading. Despite my deafness it is a skill I never managed to master.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, this idea the workers had ,to read the lips !I'm always surprised about how people are able to adapt and overcome!
ReplyDeleteThat is an adorable drawing of the dog!
ReplyDeleteLove the shirt.
ReplyDeleteI'll be back to find out more about your part of this amazing world!
I imagine that the hearing of lots of mill workers was affected by all the noise, so sadly the ability to lip read must have come in handy in daily life.
ReplyDeleteI love that Dachshund drawing. I like David Hockney's work anyway ;-)
I like the shirt and the dog. Does David Hockney have a connection to Saltaire?
ReplyDeleteSaltair means Psalter, a book of poems to be sung, maybe at the Diner in Saltaire... Do you have any input for us about the origin of the name on your post Jenny pretty please? Is it just named after a person or is it from ancient Ireland? We are enjoying your site stumbled upon from cyberspace....Keep it up! Cheers from Canada....
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute shirt. I love David Hockney's work. Can you buy these online?
ReplyDeleteLip-readers -- what an interesting tidbit!
ReplyDeleteMy mother-in-law would love that shirt (she has that type of dog)! Looks like a fun place. How funny about the lip reading!
ReplyDeleteMichael & Hanne - Saltaire is named Salt after Sir Titus Salt, the Victorian industrialist who built the village and Aire the river beside which he located his new mill.
ReplyDeleteOh how fun that the servers wear this t-shirt and use their skills at lip reading too! ~Lili
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