The Headscarf Revolutionaries: Lillian Bilocca and the Hull Triple-Trawler Disaster

Product Information

Yvonne Blenkinsop, the last survivor, was made a Freeman of the City in 2018. The others were posthumously recognised. Yvonne later accompanied Hull’s three Labour MPs to parliament, to mark the 50th anniversary of the campaign. She was met by Jeremy Corbyn – and John Prescott, who had fought alongside her in 1968. When the sinking of the Ross Cleveland, skippered by 41-year-old Phil Gay, was announced, the bosses, who had earlier snubbed the women, now wanted to meet.

Days later, trade unionists and Labour politicians arranged for the women to meet with ministers. The then Labour prime minister Harold Wilson was in the US but was kept updated with progress of the talks.Analysing the events Lavery describes, one might reach two reasonable but contradictory conclusions. Pessimistically, one might note – as John Prescott accepted once in power – that capitalism can’t be reformed. More optimistically, one might add that direct action gets the goods – in a few weeks a few women won changes that for their sector were at least as significant as the concessions earned a few months later by millions of French workers who rendered the state helpless and momentarily forced the government to abdicate.

Photos of the 17st housewife fighting police, who prevented her from boarding, made headlines. A Sunday tabloid dubbed her ‘Big Lil’. From then on she was lionised and patronised in equal measure by the media – like a cross between Boudicca and Nora Batty.

Blenkinsop and three co-campaigners, led by Bilocca, rose to fame after the Triple Trawler Disaster of 1968 in which three trawlers, from the city’s Hessle Road fishing community, sank in as many weeks in atrocious North Atlantic seas. Incredibly, the St Romanus, skippered by 26-year-old Jim Wheeldon, had no radio operator. More incredibly, this was not illegal. If a skipper had a telegraphy certificate, he could double up. But the wheelhouse VHF radio had a reach of up to only 50 miles, whereas the UHF radio in the operator’s room could reach worldwide. Upon the four women’s return to Hull, Denness told the waiting press: “We have achieved more in six weeks than the politicians and trade unions have in years.”