Daniel Meadows reunites with Stanley at Bancroft Mill exhibition 50 years on

Fifty years after they first met, photographer Daniel Meadows and mill worker Stanley have been reunited at Bancroft Mill in Barnoldswick, Lancashire, where their unlikely friendship began.

In the early 1970s, Meadows was a young photographer determined to document the dying days of the Lancashire cotton industry. It was at Bancroft Mill that he met Stanley, the man in charge of the steam engine that kept the looms running. Despite their different backgrounds, they became close friends. Meadows later described it as "love at first sight", and Stanley's family welcomed him warmly.

The reunion took place as Meadows's exhibition, Shuttles, Steam and Suts, went on display at the mill, now a museum. The photographs and recordings capture a world that no longer exists, including images of Stanley's wife Vera cutting Meadows's hair and of Meadows teaching the children to play croquet.

Their friendship had a lasting impact on both men. Stanley's daughter recalled how Meadows persuaded her father to let them listen to the Top 40, while Meadows, who had been sent to boarding school at the age of eight, said Stanley and his family introduced him to a world he had never known.

During the visit, Stanley revealed his final wish: to have his ashes scattered from the top of Bancroft chimney. He said the matchsticks would be in a cardboard cylinder and thrown into the boiler fire, and his remains would rise up the chimney and dissolve into the sky above the town.

The exhibition remains open at Bancroft Mill Museum until the end of October.