A PLAY based on the story of the Shrewbury 24 is coming to Burton Bradstock for one night only.

United We Stand is about 24 building workers who were accused, and three jailed, for violent picketing and intimidating workers in Shropshire.

It tells the story behind the compelling dispute and aims to dispel the myth, put about at the time, that the pickets were criminally violent rather than ordinary working men seeking a better life for themselves and their fellow workers.

Actor Ricky Tomlinson, best known for the Royle Family and Brookside, was one of the Shrewsbury 24 and has given his backing to the Townsend Productions play, which is brought to Dorset by Artsreach.

He said: “I am delighted the Townsend Theatre Company are presenting a play about the 1972 building workers’ strike, and the plight of the Shrewsbury 24 building worker pickets.

“It is 41 years since I, together with Des Warren and John McKinsie Jones, were charged with conspiracy and jailed. “We were charged with conspiracy, but we believe the real conspiracy was between the government, the building contractors and the judiciary.

“They wanted the prison sentences to act as a deterrent, to prevent workers from taking strike action. Every worker should know what happened to us so as to ensure it does not happen again.”

The events surrounding the strike are still making headlines to this day, and 42 years on, the high-profile Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, led by picket-turned-actor Ricky Tomlinson, is still seeking to overturn the prosecution of the 24 building workers.

In the 1960s and 70s the UK’s building companies were making millions re-building the country, but building workers faced the most dangerous working conditions and poorest wages of any trade.

In the summer of ‘72, for 12 weeks, 300,000 building workers launched their industry’s first national all-out strike to end cash ‘lump’ wages and seek better pay by using the controversial tactic of ‘Flying Pickets’.

The partial success of the strike, and the methods used, enraged the construction industry and government, and culminated in the arrest of 24 builders in North Wales who were charged with offences including conspiracy to intimidate and affray.

The ‘24’ were prosecuted at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 1973.

Combining Townsend Productions’ trademark cast of two playing multiple roles, grand theatrical style and wit with popular and political songs about the strike, arranged by renowned folk musician John Kirkpatrick and Ricky Tomlinson’s poems from his time in prison, the production aims to bring the full story of the compelling dispute to life.

United We Stand is at Burton Bradstock Village Hall on Saturday, November 8 at 7.30pm.

Call 01308 897214 for tickets or see artsreach.co.uk