Picking up the thread from a textile offshoot

The huge white letters which proudly spell out the name of one of the city's biggest textile producers can still be seen for miles around.

But the blackened stone monument is just about all that is left of Drummonds in Bradford.

The company, which just a few years ago employed more than 600 people in the city, has been broken up into various small parts with most of its business now in Huddersfield.

Just a few textile firms remain in the enormous mill.

But it is also home to another Drummonds spin-off which is slowly but surely building a bright future for itself in the hugely competitive world of IT.

Altrigen Solutions was formed less than three years ago from three members of the Drummonds IT support department.

Faced with Drummonds' imminent demise, the team entered negotiations with the textile firm's bosses about how it could be reformed as an independent company which also competed for external contracts.

After eight months of long discussions, the deal was completed.

Two of the original three - managing director Paul Frear and technical director Mark Fullarton - remain and have been joined by sales manager Neil Peacock.

The company, which provides IT services and skills to small and medium-sized firms, now totals five staff in all and is this year anticipating a turnover of about £500,000.

And it is still closely connected with the industry from which it was born, with textile clients including Drummond Fabrics, Parkland Fabrics, Armatex, James Walker and Sons and Indygo Dying and Finishing.

Altrigen also services two firms - Pioneer Weaving and Victoria Warping - which remain in the Lumb Lane mills.

For Paul Frear, 35, who joined Drummonds 16 years ago and went on to become the firm's IT director, the demise of the historic firm was a sad reflection of the city's crumbling textile industry.

Drummonds was struck first by the rise of low-cost foreign competition and then suffered a hammer-blow with the troubles experienced by one of its main clients, Marks & Spencer, in the late 1990s.

"We could have continued for a time with the level of staff that we had, but we knew that with time there wouldn't be the level of financial resource available to pay us," explained Mr Frear.

"We had a good team, we wanted to keep that, and we believed we could still provide a service to Drummonds and also to others in the market as well."

With Drummonds' support - and its sizeable IT contract in the bag - the new business was born.

That's not to say the trio of self-confessed "tekkies" found the transition easy.

"It has always been an ambition of mine to have my own business," said Mr Frear. "I won't say that I haven't had sleepless nights but you don't get anywhere unless you take a gamble.

"All of us felt the same. It wasn't a snap judgement and we were confident in our own abilities and confident that the proposition we had put forward was a good one."

The new business has grown steadily. As well as hardware installation and maintenance functions, it also offers corporate sales, specialist web sites, network design and database development.

"Now it is a case of working on much more diverse projects and every day is different," said Mr Frear. "Now we are masters of our own destiny which means more responsibility and more pressure for all of us."

The directors said their background working within a large firm gave them a good insight into their customers' needs.

"We know how it feels to order something and then just receive a box and then you have to try to work out how it works," said Mr Peacock.

But Mr Fullarton admitted the competition could be tough.

"It is often difficult for us to get an edge on someone else because there are good computer firms which have been going longer than us and are bigger than us," he said. "But we have held our own against them - it is about building relationships with clients.

"Often you are talking about something that requires creative input and technological input and making sure that, at the end of the day, it works. If that means working every evening to ensure that happens, that's what we do. It is something that we learned when we were the IT department for Drummonds."

One of its latest projects - the development of a dating agency for military personnel - is about as far removed from textiles as you can get.

But Altrigen remains faithful to its roots - and to Bradford.

The big mill might not be the bustling workplace it once was but the solid stone walls are now home to some of the latest computer technology.

And Altrigen is hoping to benefit from ambitious plans to encourage new companies to set-up in the shadow of the Drummonds chimney.

"We did consider whether to stay here or move on, but we have a lot of infrastructure here," said Mr Frear. "There are lots of regeneration projects in this part of Bradford and we want to be a part of that."

Mr Fullarton added: "We still get a lot of good business from the textile companies within the building and we feel confident that new tenants will come in. I think that, after the troubles of the past two years, people realise that regeneration is needed here and I think it will happen."

But, while Altrigen is looking forward to the future with confidence, the giant mill remains a constant reminder of the past.

"It was quite sad to see Drummonds decline," said Mr Frear. "In the past, we went out there on the shop floor a lot, and we built-up a lot of good friendships. We do feel sad that a very successful business declined so much because of loss of market share. The place is certainly a lot quieter these days."