Only one primate can do this. Source: People of Walmart

Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17 visited the John Boyd Textiles factory in Castle Cary, Somerset.

Boyd provided an income for impoverished children. From the John Boyd Textiles website:

The horsehair fabrics were initially woven by hand. This would require a weaver to stand at a loom all day and a small child would sit in the loom with the horse tail, serving the hair to the weaver.

"It's the tail hair from, erm, from horses." Source: Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17

Oddly, Portillo says he wondered if he would recognise horse hair. Why? What else could it have been?

The camera-work in this sequence is stuffed with visual gags. These scenes:

Smith's hair is juxtaposed with the hair from, erm, from horses. Source: Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17

Her jacket design completes the hint.

Head heights and human hair are nicely juxtaposed with horse hair. Source: Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17

The camera work inside the mill is a treat:

What beautiful hair you have! Source: Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17

What beautiful hair you had! Source: Great British Railway Journeys S04 Ep17

Human hair... Potentially a source of pocket money for respectable ladies fallen on hard times. Such as E. Nesbit's Railway Children:

"Hmmm what else could we sell?" Source

Portillo also says that the last remaining hair mills are Boyd's in England and a mill in France. Maybe that's why British and French women still prefer their armpits shaved.

Tuppence a tuft! At that price you can shave me upstairs AND downstairs! Source

And finally:

Michael Fabricant M. P. Source: BBC news interview 2022-05-25

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