BEYOND THE FIRE - REMEMBERING OXFORD MILLS
POET. CURATOR.
At the height of the inferno, around 75 firefighters tackled the blaze.’
MEN, 7 Aug 2019
What happens to collective memory, history and place when a devastating fire blazes through the heart of a community building rendering everything to ashes? How does one find strength to carry on when all that is familiar vanishes?
In July 2025, Hafsah Aneela Bashir launched an exhibition exploring the joys of connection and the impact of loss through the lens of the Oxford Mill 2019 fire in Ashton Under Lyne.
Through film and archive, Hafsah explores the histories of Thomas Mason an English textile manufacturer who built the historic mill in 1851 and Bashir Ahmed, a Pakistani textile manufacturer who operated from Oxford Mills until the 2019 fire – 168 years apart. How does a community honour the stories that make up people and place?
What happens when treasured possessions, secure environments, and a sense of self turn to ashes? What does rebuilding look like when the physical impact on the community is staggering, and the emotional aftermath, deeply felt?
The Great Fire Of Oxford Mills, 6 August 2019
by Hafsah Aneela Bashir
۱
Midnight brought with it the grand collapse
The sixth floor of the cotton mill too tired and old
let go
The haunch of its neck trapped against the roof
A rib cage of old metal beams expanding with the heat
could do nothing as rows of cardboard boxes
set themselves on fire
۲
It did not matter now
the 11 o’clock grand buffet, celebrating the mill owner’s success
Endless extended family sat along two white tables
chattering,
As the fifth-floor windows shattered from the pressure
Fire-crews with a small hose full of tears
aimed at the empty sockets of the building
۳
10 o’clock below, against the edge of a cordoned pavement
the mill owner and his wife stood side by side
an exact 5 inches apart
The crackle of fire, a gold glint in their eye
The townspeople behind, watching
as the building creaked and groaned
contemplating if now was the time to blow
۴
At 9 o’clock – the wife gave birth to the mill owner’s fifth child
Who rode his bike around the foot of the mill
Stood at the side lines yelling foul at the factory workers
playing football on the green next to the carpark
packed with trucks
ready to deliver the day’s orders
۵
At 8 o’clock the bricked mouth of the mill housing the generators
exploded – the townspeople wept
as a mushroom plume gathered high into the indigo sky
The mill owner’s wife warned
it’s only a matter of time
۶
At 7 o’clock the weavers in the walls of the fourth floor
Kicked the spindles and hoisted their dresses in the air
It did not matter now, as they loosened their hair
that they danced in the belly of this beast,
fox trotting in flames with their blackened boots
۷
Outside, at six o’clock
the mill owner silently watched
as demolition companies and insurers, surveyors and voyeurs
slyly passed around business cards,
parroting so sorry this has happened, so sorry
۸
At five o’clock the mill owners older three sons arrived
with bouncy castles and mountain bikes
school certificates and the usual fights
Three lads in scruffy shorts eating ice cream at the mill doors
racing up the spiral staircase
to see who could sprint the fastest to clear all six floors
۹
At four o’clock the mill owner’s wife asked him
Why if we’re on fire here, do we always try to put out a fire there?
as the fire crew summoned for water
from a neighbouring district
ignoring the mill owner’s plea to use the canal nearby
۱۰
At 3 o’clock the mill owners wife gave birth to their daughter
The siren of four fire engines signalling the news
Only a small fire, they said assuring the mill owner
Nothing to worry about, so they sent back two
the black smoke from two burning buildings down
stinging their eyes as they spoke
۱۱
At two o’clock the mill owner’s wife waited too many hours
Residents, distraught as they evacuated Gibson Terrace homes
The workers worried they’d have to sign on the dole
Reporters tweeted and the young, snapchatted the blaze
The mill owner watched his life’s work burn, in a daze
۱۲
At one o’clock, each huge Mecca machine
melted into the floor
Cotton rolls stacked like tinder
fanned the flames some more
It didn’t matter now how the red-hot safe, hidden
burned their marriage document or hard-earned money
The floors decided to descend
exhausted by the weight
as the mill owner closed his eyes
whispering, QadarAllah, this is fate… this is fate
۱۳
At the stroke of 12, just as a man down the road
unknowingly sparked a flame opening an oven door,
a young groom and bride faced each other in the mill’s grand hall
Standing an exact 5 inches apart
The warmth of love reflecting a fire in their hearts
The townspeople watched the mill owner as he asked if she’d oblige
To accept the love he had for her and agree to be his wife
As the beams crashed down around them, fire engulfing her bouquet
no-one heard their answers and the fire raged for days
۱۴
Ash, debris, grey dust and broken concrete
Metal fencing, an eery silence, now on Oxford Street East
How long before the people
of Ashton Under Lyne forget to say,
There used to be a grand old mill here
With one of this town’s first quilters, called B&A