Bilocca, Denness, Blenkinsop and Smallbone (later Jensen) formed the Hessle Road Women’s Committee after a mass meeting ended with hundreds of Hull women, led by Bilocca, storming the trawler owners’ offices. It was singer Blenkinsop’s mic and PA system they used at the meeting in the Victoria Hall on Hessle Road. The revolutionaries of the Hessle Road Women’s Committee showed the power of grassroots campaigns. The women had no political experience, all being regular people from a regular city. They affected change at the highest level of government in a matter of weeks. One woman, who was part of LIL the Play, added: “My dad was a fisherman for 50 years. He was 14 when he first went to sea. He was on about four ships that went down. It happened too often.”

Chrissie Smallbone became Chrissie Jensen MBE, the award given for a lifetime’s work in trawler safety, as the first woman in the British Fishermen’s Association. She died in 2001, aged only 62.Owned by Our Readers We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society. Upon their return to Hull, Lillian told the press and the crowds it was the ‘happiest day of her life’. “We’ve done it!” she said. The opening of 1968 was such a time. The Prague Spring coincided with the Civil Rights movement in the US, the anti-Vietnam War riot in Grosvenor Square, the March events in Poland, the occupation at Nanterre, and eventually the May Days in Paris. And to this list we can add the uprising of the Headscarf Revolutionaries, which has now been brilliantly documented in a new book by Brian W. Lavery.

The heroic story of these women in the face of tragedy highlights the fact that change comes from the populace. Comments 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. What a great bit of working class history, thanks for writing! I hadn't heard of that before, so I will definitely try to read the book. I've added it to our working class history calendar as well. a b c d e f Lavery, Brian W. (23 September 2004). "Bilocca , Lillian [Lil] (1929–1988)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/72725. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

The women met with the ministers, after which they learned that Harry Eddom had been found alive. His survival became worldwide news. These four women took on trawler bosses and the establishment and won, making the world’s most dangerous profession — deep sea trawling — safer by far. There are times when history seems to erupt in chorus. Sometimes the cause of synchronicity is obvious, as in the World War that preceded uprisings and revolutions from Clydeside to Moscow, or the economic collapse that by 2011 had sparked revolts as diverse as the English riots and the Arab Spring. At other times, the connections are harder to explain: why was 1848 the year that modernity clashed with feudalism across much of Europe and Latin America? Why did 1649 witness the Ormee of Bordeaux and The Diggers’ colonies in England? Sometimes, it seems, there is simply something in the air. Lillian Marshall was born in 7 Welton Terrace, Wassand Street, Hessle Road, Hull [1] on 26 May 1929 to Ernest Marshall, trawlerman and former Royal Navy engineer, and his wife, Harriet, née Chapman. She left the Daltry Street Junior School, Hull at the age of 14 and worked as a cod skinner. She married Carmelo [Charlie] Bilocca (1902–1981), a Maltese sailor who worked with the Hull-based Ellerman-Wilson Line, and later as a trawlerman. [1] They had two children – Ernest (b. 1946) and Virginia (b. 1950). The family lived in a terraced house in Coltman Street, Hull.

Mary added: “Three women have achieved more in one day than anything that has ever been done in the trawling industry in 60 years.” Maxine Peake has written a play entitled The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca which opened in Hull in November 2017. An earlier play by Val Holmes, who grew up in Hull at the time of the tragedy, was entitled Lil. [4] The Red Production Company is working on a TV drama adaptation of Lil's actions during and after the tragedy. [4] Good news for Rita Eddom, with her little brother, reading about Harry’s survival – papers had dubbed her the ‘36-hour widow’. 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.is the 50th anniversary of 1968 and among all the mass movements and great upheavals seen in that year, there were countless other events that year that made their mark on history. One of these is the struggle of the women of Hull to improve the safety of the fishing trawlers that their husbands, fathers and sons crewed in the dangerous northern waters around Iceland. The beginning of 1968 saw three trawlers sink in one of the most powerful storms that fishers had ever seen. 58 men lost their lives and there was only one survivor. Author Brian W. Lavery has a long association with Hull, and describes this book as being the result of a promise that he would "set the record straight" about Mrs Bilocca. The book begins with an account of life for fishers on the trawlers. This was an incredibly hard job; the work required huge physical effort, long hours and often took place in appalling conditions. The ships themselves were frequently dangerous with safety equipment damaged or missing. Lavery points out that at the time ships from European fleets had better equipment and sailed with a command ship that helped look out for the smaller vessels as well as providing support. Crew members were handsomely rewarded for their dangerous work, though the real profits were made by the owners. For me, their true legacy is the innumerable people here today who might not have been but for their campaign. Their story, like their legacy, now belongs to the world. But the family were called to the rest home in the early hours of Sunday, April 24 where Blenkinsop had passed away.

Indeed, while Prescott, who had some involvement with the campaign as a young trade unionist, may be keen to celebrate what the women achieved, their rebellion had more in common with Danbert from Chumbawamba dowsing Prescott with water at the Brit Awards than it did with facilitating the banking crisis or invading Iraq. Lillian Bilocca never worked in the fishing industry again. Bosses thought her a dangerous nuisance, and some felt that she had shown up the community. It was two years before she found other work. Not only did she play a key role in one of the most successful civil disobedience campaigns of the 20th century but she also spent her life ensuring that the legacy of that campaign would not be forgotten.

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society. They argued trawler bosses were sacrificing workers’ lives by cutting corners and their campaign of women-led activism captured the nation’s attention when it took the women of Hull to the Houses of Parliament. Ten seconds after this radio message in the early hours of 4 February, 1968, the Ross Cleveland disappeared. The women had taken their campaign to Westminster and forced rapid changes to the trawling industry after a meeting with Board of Trade minister Joseph Mallalieu and fisheries minister Fred Peart.