Strictly rad, dad!

This year, a century on from the Liverpool Transport Strike of 1911, the city is celebrating its status as a City of Radicals with a programme of cultural events.

Back in 1911 the strike - over pay and conditions - lasted for 3 long, hot, summer months and involved 66,000 dockers, railway workers, tram workers and carters who brought the city to a standstill. It was an event so alarming that the Home Secretary of the day, Winston Churchill, sent a warship to the Mersey to back up the additional 5,000 troops and 2,400 police officers who had already been drafted in to contain the unrest.

Eventually, pressure from the government led the railway employers and moderate railway union leaders to begin talks. A deal was struck, ensuring that all strikers would be reinstated, and the railway workers returned to work on Aug 21st, with a general return to work ordered for the following day.