A DOCUMENTARY detailing Sir Sean Connery's visits to Glasgow shipyards is to be aired next week - 53 years after its original debut.

The Bowler and the Bunnet saw the late Scottish actor examine the new working practices at the floundering Fairfields shipyard on the River Clyde.

Sir Sean, who directed and starred in the film, said his experience at the Govan yards "awakened all sorts" within him.

The film, which was produced by STV studios - then known as Scottish Television Enterprises - had its international premiere at the Rome Film Festival in 2006.

In the programme, which was filmed in black and white, Connery observes: “To the worker’s bitter eye, the situation looks clear – the boss takes the gravy when the going is good, and when things look bad, he sells out, takes his money and vanishes.

“And that’s the crux; the gulf is complete – the gulf between the Bowler and the Bunnet.”

Sir Sean Connery worked with Glasgow scriptwriter Cliff Hanley on the film, which focuses closely on the famous Fairfield Experiment – a test of new industrial management methods, supported by the then Labour government, which were introduced at Fairfields in the mid-1960s.

In a 1967 interview with Bernard Braden to promote The Bowler and the Bunnet, Connery said: “I’d never considered myself a particularly political animal at all, but when I went up to Scotland to look at this Fairfield Experiment, it awakened all sorts of dislikes and likes that had obviously been dormant in me.”

It will air on STV on December 7 at 11.05pm more than one month after the star's death aged 90.