A spokesman for the CEGB declared: "We are in a state of siege". The picketing was largely without incident and relations between pickets and police were good. Reginald Maudling, the Home Secretary, accepted that, despite exceptional instances of disorder, "the bulk of the picketing that has taken place has certainly been peaceful." Where police and pickets did clash, the confrontations were characterised as "scuffles", amounting to "spirited pushing and shoving." However, tension between pickets and strike-breaking lorry drivers rose on 3 February when Fred Matthews, a miner from the Doncaster area, was struck and killed by a lorry speeding out of Keadby Power Station, near Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. Matthews was one of 50 miners manning the picket line. The lorry mounted the pavement, "scattering pickets", and failed to stop after hitting Matthews. Police officers on duty at the picket line had to use cars belonging to miners to pursue the lorry, and brought it to a halt around a mile from the scene of the incident. As news of Matthews' death began to spread that evening, Tom Swain, the MP for Derbyshire North East, demanded that the Home Secretary return to Parliament immediately to make a statement. Swain warned: "If there is not an immediate statement by the minister I will go back to my constituency tonight and advocate violence, violence, violence." Members of print union the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants 'downed tools' and halted production of national newspapers for an hour in protest at Matthews' death. When the Home Secretary returned to Parliament late that night to address the House, Shirley Williams, the Shadow Home Secretary, demanded to know what instructions were being given to strike-breaking drivers and urged the government to intervene in the dispute between the miners and the NCB "before it was too late." Although the confrontation has come to be known as the "Battle of "Saltley" Gate", the picketed depot was located in the adjacent ward of Nechells. Robert Kellaway said: "Many commentators have discussed the mythology surrounding the "Battle of Saltley Gate" yet its most obvious myth – its name – has often been overlooked. The confrontation actually took place at the gate for Nechells gas works. The Saltley gas works and its "gates" were on the other side of the Saltley Viaduct adjacent to the Nechells works.