The workers set up an unofficial trade union body, known as the Combine, to represent employees across the company’s 17 factories.
The ideas included drawings of wind turbines, energy-efficient heat pumps and hybrid power packs for cars – commonplace now but virtually unheard of in the 1970s.
“We said, your jobs are under threat – if you don’t make weapons what else would you make?
“I tell you what though, if I had my life over I wouldn’t change that Lucas experience for anything,” Asquith said.