Wyedean is a small family business in the middle of Haworth – or Bronte Land, as we know it. It’s been in our family for sixty years and we’re very proud of that fact! My father started here in 1964 with the origins in another company, which goes back to 1852.

We’re in the ceremonial uniform business. We’re dealing with tradition, heritage and history. Ceremonial uniforms embody what has happened over the last three or four hundred years in this island of ours.

There’s a lot of details and history involved in what we make. We make it here in Yorkshire, principally because this is where the wool was, which is what most of these items were made from and still are. Also, this was the centre of the Industrial Revolution. A lot of these things before that were made by hand, and as they became mechanised, this is where it was happening. This is why we are here, and why we still remain here.

Our core business is with the British Armed Forces: the Army, Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines. However, we also supply uniforms and accessories to over sixty countries worldwide. Many of these are nations that maintain British traditions and dress styles, often Commonwealth countries or those formerly part of the British Empire.

They continue with many similal aspects of British ceremonial dress, albeit sometimes involving some colloquialism of local ethnic groups. For example, in New Zealand, the Maoris have designs in their sashes that otherwise follow patterns dating back to Queen Victoria’s era. That’s an example of what happens quite a lot around the world.

To survive you’ve always got to be reinventing the ways you do things, improving them as technology changes. That’s always been the case ever since the Industrial Revolution.

We have over a hundred machines here in the mill, and each one is unique. Most were originally built to produce specific braids or trims for particular uniforms, which means they aren’t in constant use – some may only be switched on once or twice every five years. So we look to the potential of these machines to make other things.

We’ve looked to technical textiles, and found that these machines are quite adaptable. They can make things you’d never of thought of, so now we have contacts in the automotive, aerospace, marine and medical sectors. They may want a particular product, so they come to us and they say “How can you make it?”. We’ll scratch our heads and, more often than not, come up with something that works.

We’re extremely diverse. People find us, we don’t find them – we wouldn’t know where to start!

Both of my parents worked in textiles, so right from being a youngster that’s all I’ve known. They were happy in their jobs, so I’ve followed suit. I really enjoy my job – it’s not difficult coming to work each day, I feel proud of what I do.

This is the yellow stripe on the Mountie trousers, the Canadian Mounted Police. We make thousands and thousands of metres, every year.

I’m one of the warpers here and today I’ve been doing a rope walk, where we’ve been making reins for the King’s horses and the Household Cavalry. You have to walk down the room eighteen times to create all your lengths, and then you put a twist in them to put your tension on. The final twist brings all the separate parts together to create a rope. There’s a lot of walking, I definitely get my steps in.

We do have our own language. We know all about putting a lease band in, keeping your ends in order, it goes downstairs to be loomed in. We might walk past a warp and notice something and say: “You’ve got an end out”. That terminology, I understand it and so do all my colleagues, because we’ve been in this industry most of our lives, straight from school. It’s our life.

The traditional way of doing things hasn’t changed for thousands of years. It’s warp and weft, that’s all it is. Warp goes down the length of the material, and weft goes across it. That’s been the same since the year dot and it always will be, because there are no other ways to combine things. Braiding is completely different to the weaving process, because it’s a different mechanism. It’s like a maypole – if you dance around a maypole you’ll get a tube, with a tight twist in it.

Traditionally, years ago it was always cotton or wool and silk – which has been used for hundreds of years. Now we use man-made fibres.

This ropewalk is for the Household Cavalry, making the reins for the horses. The way it’s made is traditional, on a very old machine. Older than most of us, all put together. It’s called a ropewalk because you have to walk the length of the room, taking individual threads from one end of the room to the other. You twist the individual threads, twist the result of that all together, and twist it again. The material tightens up and becomes a rope. A lot of twisting and a lot of walking. In the reins we’ve just made, there’s probably 400 metres of material and we’ve got to walk it every single time. For the King Charles Coronation we did thirty lengths of rope or more.

We made an awful lot of things for the Coronation. Nobody’s made a lot of this for over sixty years and we made all within eight months. The designs changed, the colours changed, the flags all changed, which were hand sewn by our girls. Even buttons and badges, instead of it EIIR it’s CIIIR – everything’s got to change. Wyedean played a massive role in that. We’re known for doing this kind of material, we’re the first port of call. People can do it abroad, but the quality isn’t always as it should be. We can do it here and we can do it quickly.

The sashes I make, they’re something special. They’re worn for the Trooping of the Colour and ceremonial things. I call it Wyedean’s claim to fame.

The King Charles Coronation last year was something special, as we all went as a gang. That was a treat for us, just amazing. Seeing them all riding horses, marching around and all with something from Wyedean Weaving on. You know you’ve made it, and it makes you feel proud. An exciting day!

We supply and produce anything to do with uniforms. I’m mainly in inspection, checking the medal ribbons before they go out the door, and I do warping. This week I’ve been making some sashes for ladies in Thailand.

When we left school, it was just the natural progression, virtually everyone in my family went into textiles. I started in Oxenhope at West Yorkshire Weavers, but one day I knocked on the door here (this was back in the day when you could do that), and I got taken on. I was 17, that was 43 years ago.

I started out in braiding and winding, then moved into hand sewing, machine sewing, and later into inspection.

Textiles were a really big thing around here. I’m from Oxenhope and I think there were about five mills there at that time. They’re all gone now – most of them have been turned into houses. Wyedean has carried on because of what we make and who we supply. It’s a niche industry, not just any company can do it. It’s a fantastic place to work.