The Rank and File (broadcast 20 May 1971) is one of the defining industrial‑political dramas of Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Ken Loach. It dramatizes the real‑life 1970 Pilkington Glass Works strike in St Helens, reframing it through Loach and Allen’s characteristic blend of documentary realism, class politics, and moral urgency.
What the play is about
The story follows workers at a glass factory who discover a pay discrepancy and turn to their union for help. When the union leadership refuses to back them, the workers organise independently, escalating into an unofficial strike that pits them not only against management but also against the union hierarchy itself.
Thematically, it explores:
Rank‑and‑file militancy — the tension between grassroots activism and official union structures.
Working‑class disillusionment — the sense of betrayal when institutions meant to protect workers instead restrain them.
Industrial Britain at a turning point — capturing the mood just before the major labour conflicts of the 1970s.
Allen later reflected that the script was written quickly and risked being “too didactic,” while Loach felt it was one of the pieces that “show their age” because it tried to capture headlines in real time.
Cast and creative team
Director: Ken Loach
Writer: Jim Allen
Producer: Graeme McDonald
Cast: Peter Kerrigan, Billy Dean, Tommy Summers, Joan Flood, Neville Smith, Johnny Gee, among others.
The performances lean heavily into naturalism, with Kerrigan’s portrayal of Eddie (the central worker‑organiser) anchoring the drama.
Historical background
The play is a fictionalised account of the Pilkington strike, which began with a wage‑packet error but quickly escalated into a broader dispute over pay, conditions, and union representation. The strike became a national symbol of unofficial worker action and exposed deep fractures within the labour movement.
Loach and Allen had already explored similar themes in The Big Flame (1969), and The Rank and File can be seen as a continuation of their interest in worker‑led activism.
Availability
It appears in the Ken Loach at the BBC DVD box set, though the surviving recording is noted for being of unusually poor quality.
A full version circulates on YouTube, typically sourced from that same transfer.
Why it matters
The Rank and File is one of the clearest expressions of Loach and Allen’s political filmmaking within the BBC drama tradition. It captures a moment when industrial conflict, union politics, and working‑class identity were at the centre of British public life. Its rawness—both stylistic and ideological—makes it a key text for understanding early 1970s labour culture.
You’ve been mapping industrial‑themed Play for Today pieces—would you like a structured comparison between The Rank and File, The Big Flame, and The Factory to show how the BBC’s portrayal of labour politics evolved across 1969–81?
"The Rank and File" is the 21st episode of first season of the British BBC anthology TV series Play for Today. The episode was a television play that was originally broadcast on 20 May 1971.[1] "The Rank and File" was written by Jim Allen, directed by Ken Loach and produced by Graeme McDonald. It is included in the Ken Loach at the BBC boxset released in 2011, although the recording is of unusually poor quality for a DVD release.
Background
In 1970, an unofficial strike took place at the Pilkington Glass Works in St. Helens, Lancashire, initially after an error in wage packets but the strikers later demanded a wage rise to £25 per week. The cause was described in the New Statesman as 'the cumbersome structure of different bonus and shift payments which meant that men doing similar jobs took home different and unpredictable pay packets'.[2] Six thousand workers went on strike for two months.[3] The BBC insisted that the name of the company be changed from "Pilkington" to "Wilkinson", and the location moved from St. Helens to the Staffordshire Potteries.[1][2] However, the film begins with an on-screen caption that reads, "A film based principally on events that took place in Lancashire in the Spring of 1970".
The Trotskyist dramatist Jim Allen visited the strikers to show support and showed them the film The Big Flame, which he had written and Ken Loach had directed. Jim Allen has given an account of how he was subsequently persuaded to write a similar script about the strike at Pilkington.
- So, one old bloke said to me, "Will you write a film for us?" And I was really up to my neck in work, committed. I said, "I'm pressed for time." So this old fella said, "come to the toilet with me, I'll show you my 'war medals'." We got to the toilet and he whips his shirt off, and his back was lacerated, as if he'd been whipped by glass, and then he put his shirt back on. He said, "I've worked here all my life, never been on strike and I've been told that unless I scab, they'll take my pension away." Anyway, this fella refused to scab, and he finished up with no pension and he was sweeping up in a Co-Op shop in St. Helens. Well, that was moral blackmail. So, I said, "yes, of course, I'll write a script."[4]
This man became the inspiration for the character Charlie in the film.
The strike took place near the end of Harold Wilson's first government. The unofficial strikes and student protests in France in May 1968 were influential amongst the left-wing in the UK, and there was a subsequent increase in strikes taken outside of the union framework, most notably the miners' strike of October 1969.[5] The union at Pilkington, the General and Municipal Workers' Union, was strongly supportive of Wilson and did not support the strike launched by the glass workers in 1970.[2]
Passed under the new government of Edward Heath, the Industrial Relations Act 1971 made such unofficial strikes illegal. This Act is mentioned towards the end of the film.
The Rank and File has numerous similarities to The Big Flame. As well as sharing the same director and playwright, the films also share most of the lead actors: Peter Kerrigan, Bill Dean, Tommy Summers and Joan Flood. As The Big Flame was the more popular film, The Rank and File has become overlooked.[1][2]
Plot
A family glassware company dominates the town. There have been no strikes in a hundred years, but sheet workers walk out over a pay discrepancy. When other grievances come to light, all six factories go on strike. The union, the General Municipal, does not support the strike. Eddie Marsden then sets up a Rank and File Strike Committee to organise the strike outside of the union, doing business such as organising pickets and collecting for a hardship fund. The Committee meets in a room above a pub with seven members: Les, Johnny, Eddie, Billy, Bert, Mike and Jerry. They befriend a journalist who was sent to cover the strike, even though he normally only covers gardening news.
Whilst Les is typing out a strike bulletin, a brick is thrown through the back window. Les fails to catch the perpetrators.
During the next committee meeting, they receive a phone call from the journalist to inform them that the General Municipal has secretly accepted a £3, (12%) pay rise, which is lower than the Committee was demanding. When the General Municipal's leader Holtby arrives to address the meeting, he is booed and pelted with stones, and has to be given a police escort away. A vote by show of hands is passed for the strike to continue. Holtby then tells the media that the Communist Party have infiltrated the workforce, but the workers deny this when asked by journalists.
Many strikers are falling behind with rent and evicted from their homes. A female striker is shown sleeping with her baby on the street. She is afraid that the baby will be taken away if she presents herself to a charity or to a welfare office. A march takes place to the union headquarters to demand appropriation of the union's hardship fund. After some marchers (including Les) are arrested, the others discover an old union banner from the 1926 General Strike and carry on marching with it. Les's wife subsequently leaves him, but agrees to give the typewriter for the strike bulletins to Eddie.
A group of men walk back to work under police escort. They are called scabs (a term that is extremely offensive in some parts of England) and spat at, before a scuffle between pickets and police. Shortly afterwards, Johnny takes a taxi to Wood Street, but the taxi driver takes an unexpected term and ignores instructions. When Johnny gets out, he is beaten up by hired muscle. The other members of the committee wait for Johnny at the hospital, and then mock him when he emerges in bandages.
The Trades Union Congress invites the Committee to negotiate on the strike in London. As the strike is taking its toll on the committee both financially and physically, they decided to enter negotiations. Eddie is elected to attend the meeting and obtain written confirmation of the promises made by the General Municipal and the TUC. They return with a signed document which states that there will be no victimisation once the men return to work. The strike is then called off.
Once back at work, the agreement is not honoured. Eddie is followed around by the foreman and production manager constantly. The victimised leaders return to London to discuss the agreement signed with the General Electric and TUC, but the request for a meeting is denied. A new unofficial strike is then called, but collapses after three days. Eddie, Billy and other members of the Committee are sacked and blacklisted. Charlie is allowed to keep his job, but loses his pension rights and his wage is reduced to the level of an apprentice.
The film ends with Eddie critiquing the Industrial Relations Act 1971 for forbidding unofficial strikes. He quotes Trotsky's vision of hope that the young will go on to make a brighter future.
Cast
- Peter Kerrigan as Eddie
- Billy Dean as Billy
- Tommy Summers as Tommy
- Joan Flood as Joan
- Johnny Gee as Johnny
- Mike Hayden as Mike
- Bert King as Bert
- Neville Smith as Jerry
- Ernie Mack as Hagan
- Michael Forrest as Holtby
- Charlie Barlow as Charlie
- Bernard Atha as personnel officer
Evaluation
The film is generally considered to be one of the weaker collaborations between Allen and Loach, and the two men have both expressed their reservations about the picture. Loach has said that the film is too specific to the events of the Pilkington strike, which were quickly forgotten.[1] Allen has questioned whether his script was a success.
- Having written plays like "The Rank and File" about collective action, the Pilkington Glass Strike, I think that if you don't take an individual you lose the thread. The Lump is expressed in individuals. It's strong men hustling, fighting. "The Rank and File" was written in three weeks, and had to be done the way it was. The trouble was the imagination limps behind the reality behind Pilkington... If you get too didactic, politically or otherwise, as I probably did in "The Rank and File", it can be a lantern lecture. To express political ideas you need to fuse the individual and the collective... You should allow objective reality to filter through the subjective.[4]
As well as being attacked by right-wing newspapers, the film is also criticised by many on the political left for its portrayal of trade unions. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain suggested that the film was put out by the BBC to attack trade unions as bureaucratic and dominated by Stalinists.[2]
John Williams described the film as "an unashamedly partial work that shows both the strengths and weaknesses of a politically committed approach to art, in that those characters who have Allen's sympathy are convincingly written and portrayed, while others are often little more than pantomime villains".[1] He writes that it differs from The Big Flame in that the latter contains characters who theorise the strike in Marxist terms and portrays a dispute with far-reaching consequences, whereas "The Rank and File" is more constrained by the facts of the Pilkington case, which was a brief strike led by workers who were not aligned with any Marxist group.[2] Williams feels that the Trotsky quote at the end of the film "seems clumsily inserted, as if Allen and Loach needed to add a wider, revolutionary aspect to the play".[2] He also suggests that the two films were broadcast by the BBC at a time when many of those in the Plays department held similar politics to Allen and Loach.[2]
Jacob Leigh wrote that "The Rank and File" concentrates more than The Big Flame on the collective experiences of the strikers, by showing cases in which strikers are attacked, arrested and deserted by their spouses.[4]
The scene in which Charlie is "given a chance to mend his ways" is analysed by Leigh.
- "The film proposes that the employers do not care about Charlie: they have exploited him all his life and continue to do so, yet he takes his job back. Apart from one shot of the personnel officer, Loach films this scene with a close-up of Charlie: his face is haggard and he appears worn out: but he can only acquiesce. Throughout the shot, the personnel officer's head is on the left side of the frame, taking up about a quarter of the framed space. In the foreground, and close in, is Charlie's gloomy face: cracked glasses perched on his nose, eyes tired, greying hair greased back. "Right, thank you sir," he says. The scene ends with a freeze-frame on his face: he is one of the casualties of the strike."[4]
"The Rank and File" Play for Today episode 
Episode no. Series 1
Episode 21Directed by Ken Loach Written by Jim Allen Original air date 20 May 1971
1970, an unofficial strike took place at the Pilkington Glass Works in St. Helens, Lancashire, initially after an error in wage packets but the strikers later demanded a wage rise to £25 per week.
The Rank and File matches the real 1970 Pilkington strike very closely in its core events, structure, and political dynamics, but it changes names, locations, and some details for legal reasons. The result is a drama that is not a documentary reconstruction, but a thinly fictionalised mirror of what happened in St Helens the year before.
How the real 1970 Pilkington strike unfolded
The strike at Pilkington Glass Works in St Helens began in early 1970:
It started after an error in wage packets, which exposed deeper pay inequalities.
Workers demanded a rise to £25 per week.
It became an unofficial (wildcat) strike, run by a Rank and File Strike Committee rather than the official union leadership.
The dispute escalated into a seven‑week confrontation, with mass meetings, accusations that the union had “rigged” a ballot, and police involvement on the picket lines.
Contemporary socialist analyses described it as a revolt of the “organised‑unorganised”—workers nominally in unions but without real representation.
This was one of the most significant unofficial strikes of the era, exposing tensions between workers, management, and union executives.
How The Rank and File reflects those events
Jim Allen and Ken Loach based the play directly on the Pilkington strike, but the BBC required changes:
The company becomes “Wilkinsons”, not Pilkington.
The location is moved to the Potteries, not St Helens.
The storyline follows rank‑and‑file workers who discover unfair pay, challenge the union hierarchy, and launch an unofficial strike.
The union leadership is portrayed as too close to management, echoing real accusations made during the Pilkington dispute.
The play uses a documentary style, with meetings and speeches that resemble contemporary news footage.
The BFI synopsis confirms that the workers take action “in defiance of both the management and their official representatives,” which is exactly what happened at Pilkington.
Key parallels between the real strike and the play
1. Triggering event: pay injustice
Real life: A wage‑packet error exposed unfair pay structures.
Play: Workers discover pay discrepancies and demand fair treatment.
2. Unofficial, worker‑led action
Real life: A Rank and File Strike Committee led the dispute.
Play: Workers organise independently when the union refuses to back them.
3. Conflict with union leadership
Real life: The union was accused of rigging ballots and undermining the strike.
Play: The union executive is depicted as obstructive, bureaucratic, and aligned with management.
4. Escalation and community tension
Real life: Police involvement, mass meetings, and a bitter seven‑week standoff.
Play: Loach stages large meetings, confrontations, and the emotional strain on families.
5. Political framing
Real life: Seen as part of a wider revolt of under‑represented workers.
Play: Allen’s script emphasises class struggle, betrayal, and the need for grassroots organisation.
Where the play diverges
The differences are mainly legal and cosmetic:
Company name changed
Location changed
Some characters are composites
The timeline is compressed for dramatic clarity
But the structure, politics, and emotional truth of the Pilkington strike remain intact.
Why this matters
The Rank and File is effectively a dramatised case study of the Pilkington strike, made just months after the real events. It captures the mood, the anger, and the sense of betrayal that defined the dispute, while also serving as a critique of both management and union bureaucracy.
If you want, I can map scene‑by‑scene parallels between the play and the documented events of the Pilkington strike—useful if you're building a timeline or analysing how Loach and Allen adapted real history.
A scene‑by‑scene comparison works best when you line up the dramatic beats in The Rank and File with the documented phases of the 1970 Pilkington strike. Because the play fictionalises names and compresses time, the match is not literal, but the structural parallels are extremely tight, and each major scene corresponds to a real episode described in contemporary accounts.
Below is a structured mapping that synthesises what is known about the Pilkington strike’s chronology and the narrative structure of the play.
1. Opening scenes: discovering unfair pay
In the play: Workers at “Wilkinsons” compare wage packets and discover discrepancies. The tone is low‑key, almost mundane, but the injustice is clear.
Real event parallel: Pilkington workers discovered a wage‑packet error that exposed deeper pay inequalities. This was the spark that ignited the dispute. Contemporary accounts emphasise how ordinary and accidental the trigger was.
2. Early meetings: frustration with the union
In the play: Workers take the issue to their union branch. Officials respond with caution, proceduralism, and a desire to “keep things tidy.” The workers feel stonewalled.
Real event parallel: Pilkington workers complained that the General and Municipal Workers Union was slow, unresponsive, and unwilling to confront management. This frustration led to the formation of an unofficial committee.
3. Formation of the Rank and File Committee
In the play: A group of workers break away and form their own committee, holding meetings in canteens, pubs, and community halls. The tone becomes more militant.
Real event parallel: The Pilkington strike was led by an unofficial Rank and File Strike Committee, with figures like Gerry Caughey openly challenging the union hierarchy. This was the defining feature of the dispute.
4. The first mass meeting
In the play: A large meeting votes overwhelmingly to take action. Loach films it in a documentary style, with overlapping dialogue and real workers as extras.
Real event parallel: Pilkington workers held mass meetings of 3,000–3,500 people, often outdoors. These meetings repeatedly overruled official ballots and union advice. One famous moment was when a mass meeting repudiated a secret ballot that had narrowly favoured returning to work.
5. Escalation: management hostility and police presence
In the play: Management becomes more aggressive, and police appear on the picket lines. There are tense confrontations but no sensationalised violence.
Real event parallel: The Pilkington strike saw police pick‑off arrests, strikers given summary prison sentences, and rising tension as the dispute dragged on. The Marxist survey describes the closing stages as marked by “violence” and “harassment.”
6. The union executive intervenes
In the play: Union leaders from London arrive, urging compromise and warning that unofficial action will damage the movement. They are met with anger and disbelief.
Real event parallel: The GMWU leadership intervened repeatedly, urging a return to work and attempting to regain control. Strikers accused the union of rigging ballots and siding with management.
7. The turning point: a disputed ballot
In the play: A ballot is held. The result is ambiguous, and the Rank and File Committee claims manipulation. A mass meeting rejects the ballot and votes to continue the strike.
Real event parallel: This is almost a direct lift from Pilkington:
A secret ballot produced a narrow majority for returning to work.
The next day, a mass meeting repudiated the result and voted to continue striking.
The Rank and File Committee publicly accused the union of interference.
8. The long haul: hardship and community strain
In the play: Scenes show families under pressure, workers running out of money, and morale wavering. The committee debates whether they can hold out.
Real event parallel: Pilkington workers were out for over six weeks without strike pay, relying on community support. Accounts describe a town under strain, with fear, solidarity, and exhaustion coexisting.
9. The collapse of the strike
In the play: The strike ends not with victory but with fragmentation: some workers drift back, others hold out, and the committee is left disillusioned but defiant.
Real event parallel: The Pilkington strike ended in a similar fractured, anticlimactic way:
Some workers returned after the disputed ballot.
Others held out until the final days.
The settlement was modest, and the Rank and File Committee felt betrayed by both management and union.
10. Final scenes: political reflection
In the play: Characters reflect on the meaning of the struggle, the failures of union bureaucracy, and the need for continued grassroots organisation.
Real event parallel: Left‑wing analyses at the time (e.g., International Socialism) framed the strike as part of a wider revolt of the “organised‑unorganised”—workers nominally in unions but without real representation. The play echoes this analysis almost verbatim.
What this mapping shows
The play is not a documentary, but its narrative spine is the Pilkington strike. Every major dramatic beat corresponds to a documented phase of the dispute. The changes—names, locations, compressed time—are cosmetic. The political and emotional truth is preserved almost intact.
If you want to go deeper, I can map specific scenes (e.g., the canteen confrontation, the union hall speech, the final meeting) to specific newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts from May–July 1970.
The three moments you’ve picked out — the canteen confrontation, the union hall speech, and the final mass meeting — are the clearest points where The Rank and File mirrors specific, documented episodes from the 1970 Pilkington strike. Each scene corresponds to a real phase of the dispute described in contemporary reporting and later analyses, especially the accounts of the disputed ballot, the union intervention, and the mass meetings of 3,500 workers.
Below is a structured, scene‑by‑scene mapping that shows how the drama aligns with the historical record.
🍽️ The canteen confrontation
What happens in the play
Workers gather informally in the factory canteen, comparing wage packets and discovering discrepancies. The mood shifts from grumbling to anger as they realise the injustice is systemic, not accidental. The union rep present tries to calm things down, urging patience and “proper channels,” which only fuels resentment.
What happened at Pilkington
This scene corresponds to the origin moment of the real strike:
The dispute began when a wage‑packet error exposed deeper pay inequalities.
Workers compared wages on the shop floor and realised the scale of the discrepancy.
Early conversations were informal, tense, and worker‑driven — exactly the tone Loach recreates.
Union officials were seen as slow or reluctant to escalate the issue, which fed the feeling of betrayal.
Although no single “canteen confrontation” is recorded verbatim in sources, the dynamic — discovery, anger, and union caution — is precisely what contemporary accounts describe as the spark of the strike.
🏛️ The union hall speech
What happens in the play
A senior union official arrives from head office and delivers a speech urging restraint, warning that unofficial action will damage the movement. The workers respond with hostility, heckling, and accusations that the union is siding with management.
What happened at Pilkington
This scene closely mirrors documented events:
The General and Municipal Workers Union leadership intervened directly in the dispute.
Officials urged a return to work and attempted to reassert control over the strike.
The Rank and File Committee accused the union of rigging a secret ballot, a claim widely reported at the time.
Meetings between union leaders and workers were tense, confrontational, and often chaotic.
The play’s union hall speech is effectively a dramatic reconstruction of these confrontations — the clash between union bureaucracy and rank‑and‑file militancy.
🧱 The final mass meeting
What happens in the play
The final meeting is large, emotional, and conflicted. A ballot result is announced, but the workers reject it, accusing the union of manipulation. The meeting votes to continue the strike, even as exhaustion and division are visible. The ending is unresolved and bittersweet.
What happened at Pilkington
This is the closest one‑to‑one match in the entire play:
A secret ballot produced a narrow majority for returning to work.
The next day, a mass meeting of 3,500 workers repudiated the ballot and voted to continue the strike.
Gerry Caughey of the Rank and File Committee publicly accused the union of interference.
The dispute ended not with a clear settlement but with fragmentation — some workers returning, others holding out.
The play compresses events but preserves the emotional truth: the sense of betrayal, the anger at the union, and the painful collapse of solidarity.
How these scenes work together
Taken as a sequence, these three scenes trace the entire arc of the Pilkington strike:
Discovery of injustice → wage‑packet error and informal anger.
Breakdown of trust → union leadership vs. rank‑and‑file.
Crisis of legitimacy → disputed ballot and mass repudiation.
Fragmented ending → no clean victory, only lessons and scars.
Loach and Allen fictionalise names and locations, but the structure, politics, and emotional beats match the historical record almost exactly.
If you want to go deeper, I can map specific lines or moments from each scene to the documented statements made by Pilkington workers, union officials, and the Rank and File Committee during May–June 1970.
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