Possible Clues:

• Checked cotton fabric
• Cotton fabric
• Homework, as it were, comes round with German cotton
• Shy, retiring - youth leader material
• Obscure place like Manchester, not the first to produce strong fabric
• Not using professionals to gather American university material
• Fabric of college plastered with amateur work
• Patterned cotton fabric
• Checked or striped cotton, often
• Material apt to shrink, going north on back of lorry