The day after our promotional photoshoot for On the Line, Questors’ new play about the 1976 Trico equal pay strike, I returned to the exact same spot in Boston Manor Park . This time, the strikers we had been portraying on stage were there in person. They were meeting Unite the Union to make a short film marking 50 years since their strike.
The story
Trico was a major manufacturer of car parts, including windscreen wipers, based on Brentford’s Golden Mile. This stretch of the Great West Road was also home to Firestone, McVitie’s and McCleans factories. During the strike the women picketed for five months, along the road and by the factory’s back gate in the park. Like 2026, 1976 was a long hot summer. The grass dried out and the ground grew hard and cracked as the, mostly female, strikers fought for their legal rights. The strike made national headlines and created lifelong friendships.
The theatre
The Dagenham strike of 1968 was immortalised by the film and musical, Made in Dagenham, but until now the longer Trico strike has had much less coverage. With its 50th anniversary this year, hopefully that will change.
Earlier this year, the story The Questors Playback team told through STRIKO, written and directed by Tony Chapman. It was performed at The Questors and, with the support of the Hadley Group, at the site of the Trico factory. The historical docudrama told the story through the voices of those who experienced it. It drew from Sally Groves and Vernon Merritt’s book, Trico: A Victory to Remember, as well as interviews with the strikers – including Bob, Eric, Peggy, Phylis and Sally, who returned to the park with the Unite team.
On the Line takes uses those testimonies and local history as its foundation but through a fictionalised lens – a la Made in Dagenham. Inspired by a real headline from the time, Mrs Striker and Mr Blackleg, it explores the personal consequences of the strike on a married couple.
Same place, different time
The location itself has changed. The Trico factory was replaced by the Glaxo building, which is now undergoing further refurbishment managed by the Hadley Group. Even the strikers and cast had to work around a very modern problem: a music festival taking place in the park that week.
While the surroundings have changed, the issues raised by the strike remain. Equal pay continues to make the news in 2026. And, when we met in the park, it was clear that the friendships forged by the strikers, both men and women, 50 years ago are still going strong.
