In 1996 the Workers' Educational Association set up classes for sacked Liverpool dock workers in order to help them set down the history of their battle. Channel 4 decided to commission a work on the event and so began a three year process, involving both Jimmy McGovern and Irvine Welsh, in a labour of love by the Dockers that saw their work becoming a film in the summer of 1999. Dockers is a fascinating story, in both the history it tells and its realisation.