Lessons from the the past in Soller
Published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin
Tuesday 2nd December 2014
Photographs by RACHEL FOX
Last Thursday in the Escolapies Cultural Centre a lecture with slides and film was shown to a packed house. This was the beginning of a series of events taking place here in Soller to remember Soller’s industrial past. The interest in this part of recent history was obvious by the way the people poured in and latecomers had to sit on tables at the back of the room – every chair was occupied. To set the scene for this avid interest requires a flip back in time one hundred years when there were 21 textile factories in Soller and 1 in Bunyola. The mills were working 24 hours a day at the time making hundreds of yards of cotton, velvet and silk. The goods, when finished would find their way to the Port of Soller and begin their journey to France and the rest of Europe by boat. Some of the goods went to mainland Spain and indeed during the Spanish Civil War Soller was one of the few manufacturing centres largely unbombed and able to continue production.
This period of Soller’s history resulted in the mass employment of the women of the area. Most of them had husbands similarly employed in the factories. This created a need for a 24 hour children’s nursery where some children slept while their parents worked. One of the nurseries remaining today and reincarnated as the upholsterers on the Placa d’Americas has a tiled freeze around the main room depicting the children of the nurseries. It is a memento of a bygone, ahead of its time, era in the Soller Valley when full employment brought its own rewards. The boom times had all but ended in the 1960’s and the last Soller factory closed in 1972. Synthetic materials and the influence of developing economies drove the prices down so that Soller production was no longer economical.
The last factory closed was owned by Fabrica Nova – its owner Damian Mayol stipulated in his will that he wished the building and its machinery to be preserved and made into a museum. He was anxious that this part of recent history should not be forgotten nor the part in the production that Sollerics played. The City of Soller was left half the building to make the museum and the Mayol family would own the other half. The good intentions of the City were always there but the money wasn’t and so the building near the main car park in the centre of Soller fell into disrepair. This project is now coming back to life with the involvement of the Fet a Soller company. The vision is that the building will be made a working industrial museum, a shop for Fet A Soller local products and the base for the work of the handicapped work force of Soller. This is a visionary plan that is growing in the heart of the City – no date for completion yet but it’s good to know that it may happen one day.
The interest in this film was obviously because so many of the watchers were the children and grandchildren of the workers in those factories. They remembered to the factory whistle as shifts changed and the ‘Arnold Bennett ‘stories of high days and holidays when all the workers had a Bank Holiday day off. The stories and reminiscences came in thick and fast and made us wish we had a better understanding of Mallorquin. This is the beginning of a series of lectures and visits to the factory sites of Soller and is a fascinating glimpse into the past and the reasons that Soller was considered the place to live in Majorca . The concept of Soller being a self contained island within an island has its roots in these stories.
December is now upon us and the countdown to all the happenings of the season. Pro Musica Chorus – the Choir of Soller give their Christmas concert on Sunday 14th December in the Convent Church at 19.30 hours – don’ be put off if you turn up and find a Mass going on. This is normal for this venue to have concerts following a Church service – you are in the right place. Then the City gives itself to the season with the City Christmas Concert on Saturday 20thDecember at 20.00 hours in the Church of Sant Bartholomew in the centre of Soller. These two occasions mark the start of Christmas in this place and are supported by hundreds of Sollerics. Ensaimada and hot chocolate to follow these occasions and you know that you are in the heart of a Soller Christmas. What could be nicer than that?
