On 31 August 1972 the North Wales Area Action Committee held its weekly meeting in the Bull & Stirrup pub in Chester. The committee was a mixture of members of UCATT and the T&GWU. At the meeting there was a request for support from members of the Oswestry action committee. Seemingly there were many sites in their area, which included Shrewsbury, that were still working.
As Des Warren describes in his book, Key To My Cell,
So many sites down there were on the ‘lump’, and still working, that local T&G and UCATT members – thin on the ground – were finding difficulty in getting their case across. They were all experiencing intimidation by employers.
The meeting in the Bull and Stirrup was the first time that many of those that were later arrested had met each other. It was agreed at the meeting that on the 6 September 1972, picketing would take place in those areas. The pickets arranged to meet local trade union members at the Oswestry Labour Club to receive details of the location of the sites at which workers were not on strike, as the pickets were not familiar with the Shrewsbury area.
On 6 September 1972 the first site they visited was Kingswood. Des recalled that:
We were greeted by the son of the contractor on site. He had a shotgun in his hands and was threatening to use it.
One of the pickets took the gun off him and immobilised it. The pickets reported this to the police. They then went to a further seven sites that day. On each occasion the police escorted them to the site. On arriving at each site, the pickets would find the site agent or whoever was in charge and ask if they could call a meeting of the building workers on site to explain the dispute. There are photographs showing the pickets addressing building workers on these sites with the police standing listening to the speeches. Amongst the sites that were visited was one at Brookside, Telford, which was operated by McAlpines. It was to figure prominently in the subsequent trials.
None of the pickets were cautioned or arrested during the whole of the day. As far as the pickets were concerned it was just a normal day’s picketing. The unions did not receive any complaints from the police about the conduct of the pickets. The police did not complain to the union representatives about the conduct of any of the pickets. There is photographic evidence showing that the police were present throughout the day.
The main contractor on the Kingswood site was never prosecuted for threatening behaviour or for carrying an offensive weapon.