This week's stories include the violence in the Pilkington glass strike, a court of inquiry is held into the dispute and the 7-week strike finally ends, creating "peace in town of fear". In other news the Reporter asks "Whatever Happened to the Carr Mill Dream?" and the paper profiles haulier Joe Pickavance. "A Police Guard For Strike Rebels" was the large headline on the back page of the Daily Mirror on Monday the 18th. Two days earlier a secret ballot of Pilkington strikers had resulted in a narrow majority in favour of a return to work. However on the Sunday a mass meeting of 3,500 workers had repudiated the decision and chose to remain on strike.

This was after Gerry Caughey of the unofficial Rank and File Strike Committee had claimed that the General and Municipal Workers Union had rigged the vote. The Mirror quoted Lord Cooper, the union's general secretary, saying: "How the hell can we have rigged the ballot?" The answer from 36-year-old Mr Caughey was that the union had signed on 500 men so they could vote for a return to work – something the GMWU strenuously denied.

The big question was how many strikers would return to work at Pilkington factories on Monday morning and would there be trouble in spite of the police protection? The answers came that evening on the front page of the Liverpool Echo. They wrote:

"To shouts of “scab” and some jeering, supporters of the back to work vote in the six weeks old Pilkington strike went back to the seven plants in the St. Helens glass town this morning. They were grim faced as they walked past some hundreds of militants who yesterday voted to remain out. But a strong force of police on duty at the gates gave the returning men some reassurances and there were no reports of troubles as the 8 a.m. clocking-on time had passed. A spokesman for Pilkington Brothers estimated that about 2,000 strikers reported back. But he said it was extremely unlikely that there would be any production to-day. Most of the time would be taken up with reorganisation."

However the Rank and File Committee said less than a thousand had gone through their picket lines – although Pilks later stated that a total of 2,458 workers had returned to their jobs. At the entrance to the Grove Street Sheet Works fifty police officers had lined the pavements and eight mounted police provided additional protection. This was believed to have been the first time in 40 years that police horses had been used for crowd control in St Helens.

The police presence was scaled down during the day but picked up again by the going-home time of 4:30pm. By then a crowd of around 2,000 had assembled in Grove Street, although they'd split up into several groups, with 250 men in the immediate vicinity of the factory exit. Ugly scenes broke out as the pickets attempted to get at a large body of men that were leaving the works. There were running fights and three men were arrested. Meanwhile at the Cowley Hill float glass plant pickets threw pennies and eggs at workers.

On Tuesday the 19th all was quiet as employees reported for work, with a reduced number of pickets on duty – although the 2,516 men and women clocking on was only a slight increase on the previous day. During the morning the trio that had been arrested on Monday appeared in court on charges of using threatening behaviour in a public place. One of them faced an additional charge of assault, after being accused of kicking a policeman. A 28-year-old from Somerset Street was sent to prison for a month, a 17-year-old from Hamblett Crescent was sent to a detention centre for 3 months and a 40-year-old from Chiltern Road in Parr received a suspended sentence.

However there was more trouble in the afternoon as the workers left the Pilkington factories for home. Eighteen arrests were made and they all appeared at a special court sitting during the evening and were bailed until June 4th. The 19th was also the first day of the Court of Inquiry into the strike, which was held in Liverpool. The Employment Minister Barbara Castle had ordered the hearings and its chairman, Professor John Wood, appealed for a complete resumption of work.

The dispute was not just between Pilkingtons and the strikers but also between the union and the unofficial Rank and File Strike Committee. At a press conference on the 20th Frank Cottam, regional organiser for the GMWU union, accused the committee of being "treacherous to every working man and treacherous to the TUC. "A small number of people are using this strike to destroy Pilkington's and St. Helens", he added.

On the same day bricks were thrown through the plate glass windows of the shoe shop owned by Joseph Fitzgerald, who as a magistrate had dealt with strikers on the previous day. Also on the 20th a mass meeting of 3,500 strikers took place at Queen's Recreation Ground – as the park was then known – and they voted to continue the strike.

A further meeting took place in the evening as Gerry Caughey, chairman of the Rank and File Committee, wanted to clear up confusion over a telegram from Vic Feather. The General Secretary of the TUC had offered to mediate in the dispute as long as the strikers returned to work. However only about twenty of those present were in favour of accepting the offer. On the 21st Jim Pears – a GMWU shop steward at Triplex – told the press that the 7-week dispute had led to "anarchy and warfare in the town" and had turned close friends into bitter enemies. On the same day two men were sent to prison for three months for malicious wounding after attacking a 46-year-old glass worker on the previous afternoon.

The second day of the Court of Inquiry was told by Pilkingtons that the company expected a 10 - 15% loss of business in the long term, with 350 workers likely to lose their jobs. That was in addition to the output lost as an immediate result of the stoppage. During the evening of the 21st a further meeting of 3,000 strikers was called to reconsider Vic Feather's offer to mediate in the dispute and the decision was taken to return to work. The end of the strike had come as unexpectedly as it had begun seven weeks earlier through a clerical error. On the following morning the Daily Mirror devoted much of its front page to the banner headline: "Peace At Last In Town Of Fear". The Mirror described how after the vote Gerry Caughey had told the crowd: "You have won. We are going to go back like men, not mice." The crowd then cheered their leader for more than three minutes. However Mr Caughey later told the press that if the Rank and File Committee did not get what they wanted within 21 days of starting negotiations, he would be happy to lead them back on strike.

Their demands now included a 1s 6d an hour increase on the basic rate (as a replacement for the management's £3 a week increase), an assurance of no victimisation by the company and the reinstatement of 28 men sacked from Pilkington's Pontypool factory. It had been a highly unusual dispute throughout and this was set to continue as Vic Feather's mediation was essentially between the GMWU union and the unofficial Rank and File Committee – not Pilkingtons. The Liverpool Echo on the 22nd described how the men and women had gone back to their jobs:

"Thousands of Pilkington workers ended weeks of hardship and strife to-day when they returned to work for the first time in seven weeks. The streets of St. Helens were alive at 7.15 a.m. – three quarters of an hour before the workers were due to clock on. At the Triplex works, about 1,000 men and women queued and waited for strike leader Gerry Caughey to take them back in. They congregated a quarter of a mile away at the Black Bull public house and with Mr. Caughey leading them, they marched into the works singing “We shall not be moved”. The scene was the same at the other St. Helens Pilkington factories." The Echo quoted an unnamed housewife saying: "It's as though a big black cloud that had settled over St. Helens has been lifted." In discussing the cost of the strike to the company – as well as to businesses in the town and the striking workers themselves – the Echo wrote: "Their leaders claim to have won a great victory, but the strikers have returned to work on the same wages basis as they had when they went on strike with the addition of the £3 a week extra on gross pay which Pilkington's offered a fortnight ago."

And now some other news. Gerald Normie gave a talk at St Helens Technical College on the 18th about the new Open University. He was its North West Regional Director and Mr Normie revealed that the OU had received 29,000 applications so far, with only 33 coming from St Helens.

The official name of the cinema in Bridge Street was the ABC St Helens but everyone in the town still called it 'The Savoy'. From the 18th the cinema began showing Ken Loach's acclaimed drama 'Kes'. Fans of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns could enjoy a double feature at the Capitol this week with 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'A Fistful of Dollars' both being screened. I was shocked to recently learn that Clint turns 90 very soon – which has made me feel really old! Meanwhile at the Theatre Royal on the 18th, Liverpool's Irish Playgoers made their third appearance in a production of Walter Macken's 'Home is the Hero'.

An article in the St Helens Reporter on the 21st bore the headline: "Whatever Happened To The Carr Mill Dream?" and lamented its present state. The piece began: "Placid Carr Mill COULD have been developed as the pleasure ground of South West Lancashire. This tree-dotted zone – like a slice from Lakeland – has everything in its favour as the day tripper's paradise. The trouble is that the place is now a dump."

Surprisingly no one knew who owned the land surrounding the lake, although the Reporter felt it was worth restoring to its former glory: "Despite its decay and desolation, Carr Mill Dam still manages to be one of the few picturesque corners of unlovely St. Helens." However much work needed to be done:

"There’s the kiddie's corner falling into dilapidation. All that remains of the miniature train ride is a tumbledown arch. A castle-like “refinement” presents a broken roof to the sky. Happy Valley, which was a popular courting spot and picnic area a decade or two ago adopts a weary look now. It must be heartbreak to those who remember Carr Mill in its heyday."

Pictured in the Reporter was Carol Cunningham of Hamer Street who had been voted Miss Bold (Colliery) at the annual dance at Bold Miners Institute. As her prize the 22-year-old hairdresser only received £10 plus a £10 clothing voucher but would go forward to the Lancashire Miners Gala Queen and the Coal Queen of Great Britain contests.

The Reporter also profiled haulier Joe Pickavance. In 1938 as a 21-year-old, Joe had borrowed £15 from his mother and with £15 of his own savings bought a three-ton Bedford tipper lorry. Now based in Sherdley Road he had a fleet of 80 lorries with a turnover of over £1 million and drove to work in a Rolls Royce.

Councillor Eric Kerr was installed as the new St Helens mayor on the 21st, with the ceremony witnessed by M. Langrange, mayor of twin-town Chalon-sur-Saone. During the evening there was trad jazz at the Theatre Royal with the Ken Colyer Jazzmen making their debut appearance.

Next week's stories will include the repercussions of the Pilkington strike, a profile of the "egg and sausage artist" from Duke Street, self-service petrol comes to St Helens, the Whit Monday parades, alterations to Lowe House church and the Carr Mill boy who was a keen tegestologist.