How courageous Inverclyde workers made major strides for women

“There’s a statue of Jimmy Reid,” said Fallen, recalling the man who led the famous ‘work-in’ of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the 1970s, now commemorated with a statue in Anderston, yards from the river he made his name on.

“Why isn’t there something like that here in Greenock for a woman like Helen Monaghan who went through this amazing pitched battle, and just didn’t give up? Even now she still has the same fire in her belly when she’s telling you about it, 41 years later.”

Fallen has spent the best part of a year capturing that fire for his own memorial, a new documentary about former factory shop steward Helen Monaghan, and the women she led to a victory against The Man.

Monaghan, now in her 80s, was the figurehead of the wildcat strike action known as the Lee Jeans Sit In, when 240 women occupied a factory run by America’s Vanity Fair Corporation in the Inverclyde town to save their jobs from transfer to Northern Ireland in 1981.

The women’s resolve was as strong as the steel their men once used to build ships on the river down the hill. With a determination fired by an innate sense of injustice, their occupation was successful not only in the profile it achieved, but also in leaving an industrial legacy. 

Monaghan and her fellow workers needled the eye of big business, leading to similar action among other female-dominated workplaces around Scotland in the following years.

For Fallen, their memories provided a rich ground for inspirational storytelling. With Inverclyde-based charity RIG Arts, he worked with a team of producers, writers and researchers as part of a wider project shining a light on the history of their achievement, with music and artwork forming part of a programme for RIG’s Galoshans Festival.

“It’s one of those things,” said Fallen, speaking at the launch of the documentary in the Inverclyde town’s Waterfront cinema. “If this was men who had done this, then people would almost expect there to be a documentary about it already. But the fact that it’s women…

“Greenock gets a bit of a bad rep but there are a lot of good things to be said about Inverclyde in general, and this is a good example of good people sticking together to get something done. It’s been a privilege to work on this with them.”

Helen is held aloft by her victorious factory workmates 

Fallen’s sentiments are echoed by screenwriter Danny McCahon, who worked as a researcher and producer on the film, entitled Sitting Tight: The Story of The Lee Jeans Sit In.

McCahon has been determined to bring their story to the screen for a decade, and supports Fallen’s call for a permanent public tribute. The streets of the town ring to the names of tobacco barons, he points out, and many of the homes on its picturesque Esplanade and surrounding streets have connections to the slave trade. “We have statues of people who reflect Scotland’s part in the Empire,” he said. “We don’t even need to get rid of them. But there should be a statue to Helen Monaghan and her pals here.”

Now that the first cut of their hour-long documentary has been given its premiere, the aim is to cut a longer version for mainstream broadcast. Taking the form of comedy-drama documentary, the film hears from the key figures behind the sit-in, including members of a youthful cohort whose exuberance Monaghan had to temper. Whether self-appointed or otherwise, the group became known as the ‘dirty dozen.’

“Helen Monaghan was like Mother Superior,” said McCahon. “Some of the dirty dozen were between 16 and 18 when the sit-in started. She gave these young women a new outlook on life. We wanted to tell the human story because the political story has been told.”

Fallen added: “We think 90 minutes is where it needs to be. Editing the interviews together, even if these women weren’t being interviewed together, you can actually feel that connection between them all.”

For Monaghan, the notion her radical call to action upon the breakdown of negotiations between management and the ineffectual union might one day lead to her sitting in a packed cinema in the town whose jobs she fought to save, watching a documentary 40-odd years later, would have seemed ridiculous.

“I’m surprised by everything that’s coming out from it now,” she said, acknowledging a growing interest in the story being told. As spokesperson for the women, Monaghan became a well-known face with the cause gaining international coverage, attracting names like Jimmy Reid, Mick McGahey and Tony Benn.

Even now she’s known around the town for her achievement. She tells of being asked for her autograph by a Greenock taxi driver. Pal Catherine Roberston, a teenager at the time of the sit in, jokes that she carries a pen with her, just in case.

Monaghan said: “I went for my injections a wee while ago and the sister came down and said to the nurse: ‘Do you know who this is?’ People you don’t think would even be bothered about it still know. But if I had been told it was going to be so hard, I maybe wouldn’t have done it. Although I’m saying that now.  I could have killed some of them at the time. They had to be put in their place sometimes. But then they soon realised what they were doing and they behaved themselves.”

A 40th anniversary celebration of the sit-in was held by Inverclyde Council last year in the town hall, reuniting the women. Back then, they stood on upturned crates and shouted on loudhailers in the factory car park. Cut to Greenock Town Hall in 2021, and they’re being eulogised in speeches from academics. A year later, they’re watching themselves in the pictures.

Maggie Wallace and Catherine Robertson were among their number.

“We went in at the deep end,” said Robertson, after the screening. “I’d never have thought something like this would be possible back then – sitting there watching it now, us all sitting there back then, ready for work, knowing you were there when it happened. You could see the funny side of it, too.”
For Wallace, seeing the film was a stirring reminder of what was won and poignant one of who has been lost. 

“I feel proud, but emotional for all the ones that aren’t here now,” she said.
Wallace scaled the factory walls on the first night of the strike, heading to local chippie Aldo’s with a massive order of fish-suppers, stopping by her mum’s to tell her to phone the papers and STV. “We’re doing a sit in, ma,” she recalls in the film. “My mam goes: ‘Ah’ll sit-in ye. Yer tea’s in the oven and it’s ruined’.”

Although the women won their jobs fight in 1981, the factory eventually closed in years to follow. But with strikes rolling across the country decades later, the Lee Jeans workers hope the message of their film goes beyond nostalgia.

“It feels like we’re back in they times again with all the strikes happening, people not being valued, being underpaid. And it’s a time of Tory government again, so it feels like history repeating,” said Wallace. “I hope this gets shown in schools, to make people aware how important it is to stand up and take people like that on, not sit back and be scared of bullies. They took on the wrong people, and we showed them that. 

“Greenock was a big town with big industry, and bit by bit they chipped away at us – the shipyards, the sugar houses. But we stood up, we took them on. I’m proud to be part of that gang, proud to be part of that sit-in and proud to have made great mates with the ones that were in it.” 

Sitting Tight: The Story of The Lee Jeans Sit In is available to view free at vimeo.com/768127297