Reconnecting us with a community triumph of 40 years ago

By Jim Gilchrist
Published on Thursday 2 February 2012 00:00

UCS stands for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, but also for Unity Creates Strength, one of numerous slogans that emerged from the momentous 16-month work-in which, 40 years ago, convinced a Conservative Government, planning to let what it regarded as a “lame duck” consortium of shipyards go to the wall, to change its mind.

As a 40th anniversary concert at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival will recall this Sunday, the shipyard shop stewards’ decision to take over the yards and keep them working, rather than going on strike, was a unique form of industrial action that captured the imagination not just of Scotland but of the world at large. The work-in, led by shop stewards Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie, gained widespread public support, and John and Yoko Lennon famously showed their solidarity with a bunch of red roses and a cheque for £1,000 – reportedly prompting one rather deaf shipyard worker to respond: “It cannae be Lenin, he’s deid.” Reid’s rallying speech has become legendary, with its stipulation that “There will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying, because the world is watching us.”

The Scottish folk scene, with its strong political grounding, responded with benefit concerts and other support, and Unity Creates Strength was also the title of a benefit album produced at the time by Glasgow songwriter Jim MacLean, which featured the likes of Alistair McDonald, Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor, Danny Kyle and the Laggan folk group.

The Laggan’s singer, Arthur Johnstone, a long-time Glasgow folk activist and at that time an AEU shop steward with Glasgow Transport, will be among those taking the stage at the Old Fruitmarket on Saturday, along with other veterans of those heady days, including McDonald and Macgregor.

“It was absolutely amazing,” Johnstone recalls of those heady times, “because it didn’t just involve the political and trade union side, the churches, local businesses… everyone was involved.” He recalls the mass demonstration in August 1971 that saw Glasgow city centre virtually grind to a halt with the arrival of some 80,000 marchers. “We were still waiting to get away from George Square as the speeches were starting down in Glasgow Green.”

Johnstone, now 70, was involved in the plans to mark the anniversary – “because we felt it was being pushed into the margins of history” – that resulted in a concert in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library last October, from which the forthcoming Celtic Connections event has been developed.

Also lending support back in 1971-2 was the Scottish composer Eddie McGuire, then newly returned from his music studies in Stockholm, who remembers leafleting and selling The Worker. He was also moved, however, to write a piece called Resistance, subtitled Music for Saxophones, the score of which he presented to Jimmy Reid. Sunday’s event will feature an “extended fanfare” commissioned from McGuire, featuring an unorthodox grouping of cello, the saxophone quartet Sax Ecosse, Alba Brass and the long-established Whistlebinkies folk band, of which McGuire is a founder member.

“It was because they remembered that piece I wrote in 1971 that the UCS veterans asked to write one for the anniversary,” McGuire explains, “and that’s why I wanted to involve saxophones again.”

The three converging elements of sax quartet, brass and folk band enter over a solo cello, to be played by Maya Burman-Roy – who, by a nice coincidence, gave cello lessons to Jimmy Reid’s granddaughter.

The UCS work-in was widely regarded as a struggle to save communities as much as jobs – a victory, as Reid put it, “not just for the workers but for the whole Scottish community”. As Johnstone recalls: “This was one of the occasions when the people won their case, and it’s well worth setting down in history.”

• The UCS 40th Anniversary Celebration is at the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, on Sunday. See www.celticconnections.com

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