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THE loss of 58 fishermen in three weeks devastated a city – but grief and shock quickly turned to seething fury.
Families had lived with knowing dads, sons and husbands risked their lives every time they went to sea.
But after three trawlers sank in as many weeks with such loss of life, the women refused to take it any more.
Hull’s Headscarf Heroes were born – women dedicated to fighting for decent health and safety in one of Britain’s most dangerous industries.
The gutsy group, led by Lillian Bilocca, Yvonne Blenkinsop, Mary Denness and Christine Jensen, mounted one of Britain’s most successful civil action campaigns.
Now, 50 years after the triple trawler tragedy, a BBC4 documentary tells the epic story of the fishermen and celebrates the women protesters of Hull’s Hessle Road community.
Lillian, known as Big Lil, organised a petition, signed by 10,000 people in three days, calling for change.
She l ed a delegation to Parliament where they eventually met then Prime Minister Harold Wilson. They held mass meetings and marched on bosses’ offices.
They also stopped the unsafe trawlers going to sea.
Storm
Lillian did not realise that while she was protesting, her young son Ernie was caught in a storm and fighting for his life.
He recalled: “I thought we were going to sink. We were lying at an angle. I didn’t know if we’d come up again.
“I was so exhausted by the work and long hours I didn’t have the energy to get out of my bunk.
“If the ship had sunk, I’d have still been laid there.”
Yvonne, the last surviving leader of the women, was inspired to fight for change following the death of her father at sea a few years earlier.
She said: “Nobody expected him to die. It was like a bolt out of the blue. He needed someone who knew what they were doing. The skipper wasn’t a doctor. I could have still had my dad.”
The Headscarf Heroes’ actions may have saved thousands of lives.
Yvonne said: “I’m so pleased and proud that I did it. I just wanted to do a job and do it properly because our trawlermen more than deserved it.”
In the Sixties Hull was home to the world’s greatest deep-sea fishery.
Trawlers based at St Andrew’s Dock landed up to a quarter of a million tons of fish every year – 25 per cent of Britain’s total catch. But Hull’s trawlermen had to take enormous risks. There was little regard for their health and safety and an estimated 6,000 Hull men lost their lives at sea.
On January 11, 1968, the first of the three trawlers was lost.
All 20 crew members died when the St Romanus went down in the North Sea, 110 miles off the East Yorkshire coast. Fifteen days later another 20
men lost their lives when the Kingston Peridot sank off Skagagrunn on the Icelandic coast.
On February 4 the Ross Cleveland, seeking refuge from a storm off Isafjord in northern Iceland, was lost, along with the lives of 18 crew.
Three made it to a life-raft but two were killed by the bitter cold. Lone survivor Harry Eddom was washed ashore after 12 hours and found help at a remote farmhouse.
The youngest widow was Denise Wilson, a 17-year-old mum-of-two.
Two men came to her home to break the devastating news that they had lost contact with her husband’s ship.
She said: “They’re hoping everything will be okay. You’re living in a dream, you feel sick and don don’t t want to eat. You loo think he’s got t “I was thin overboard? Wa Was he shoutin bairns? Was he f it quick?’ You t Headscarf pr dad was pulled o was caught was neve Jean moth foun his m J husb an happ knoc pin.” L kn