Thwaites brewery sign mysteriously displayed 'TWATS' days after job losses were announced

Mystery surrounds the circumstances after a gigantic illuminated sign, visible across Blackburn and much of East Lancashire, suddenly displayed the word 'TWATS'.



The letters H, I and E on the sign at Thwaites Brewery atop the Blackburn building fell into darkness as people left town centre shops and offices on Friday night. It happened after news this week that the brewery is to axe up to 60 jobs with plans to close the majority of its Blackburn site.



The first sightings were made at around 4.40pm. Within 15 minutes the entire sign was blacked out. However by 5.30pm the lights were restored to normal working order. A spokesman for Thwaites said that on being alerted the brewery turned the lights off and launched an investigation into what had happened.



He said: “When made aware of it, all the lights were immediately switched off. It’s not clear what happened, whether there was a fault or other problem but only a few people have access to that part of the building.” It is unclear if there was any link between the redundancy announcements and the change to the sign.