Memories, memories, A lot of the women in my mother's family worked in the linen mills - including herself - though she was always at pains to emphasise that she was never a "doffer". This was the most menial and unskilled work in the mill. At the other end of the status ladder came the weaver the acme of the linen-worker's craft. Thus the old mill song of vulgar insult which claims that the doffer will "never get a man" while the weaver "will always get a man". The woman in charge of the doffers was the Doffing Mistress. The misspelling "doffin" has somehow become accepted as something almost sacrosanct. Why perpetuate error ? Roddy