Analysis: 240 bright sparks of light in dark times

The 240 women who fought to keep their jobs at Lee Jeans captured the imagination of the country at a time when it was being crushed by unemployment.

Scotland's unemployment rate was over 13 per cent - and in some areas of Greenock and Port Glasgow it was as high as 25 per cent.

The women who worked at Lee Jeans had seen the impact this had had on their fathers, brothers and husbands and were often the sole earners in the household. So they weren't working for pin money, they weren't prepared to compromise, they just wanted to - needed to - keep their jobs.

It is easy to underestimate the scale of the challenge they faced, and not just in taking on their American masters. At a recent reunion of the Lee Jeans workers, one of the women told me about her young husband's incredulous reaction when she told him she wasn't coming home because she was sitting in.

"Who is going to make my tea?" was his astonished response. Needless to say, that man soon learned his way round the kitchen.

They did not expect to be there for seven nights, but ended up staying for seven months.