Bilocca received death threats from some of the trawler owners and telegrams telling her not to interfere in men's work. Another Hull trawler — the St Finbarr — had been lost little more than a year earlier on Christmas 1966 off Newfoundland.

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. Their demands were for full crewing of ships, radio operators to be on board every ship, improved weather forecasts, better training for trainee crew, more safety equipment and a "mother ship" with medical facilities to accompany the fleet.She personally made sure each trawler had enough men onboard to deal with a disaster and reportedly threw herself onto one vessel who refused her demands. On 22 January 2022 a blue plaque was unveiled on Lillian Biloca's former home, in Coltman Street, off Hessle Road in Hull. With fellow activists Christine Jenson, Mary Denness and Yvonne Blenkinsop, they became known as “ The Headscarf Revolutionaries”, the name coming from the fashionable headscarfs the women wore. Their rebellion was in response to a triple tragedy that devastated Hull’s fishing community in three weeks at the start of 1968: in separate incidents, three trawlers were lost at sea and 58 fishermen died. The Kingston Peridot was subsequently lost – probably on the night of 26/27 January – in icy winds and was reported as probably lost with all 20 hands on 30 January.

Lavery notes in his detailed account of the ‘Headscarf Revolutionaries’, the Secretary of the Hull branch of the Transport and General Workers’ Union encouraged any men not at sea to assist the ‘fighting fishwives’—they had drawn more attention to the issue in a few days than the union had managed in years. 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. James Johnson, Labour MP for Hull West, repeatedly raised Bilocca’s blacklisting in Parliament, but to little avail—national attention had moved on. Lillian Bilocca (née Marshall; 26 May 1929 – 3 August 1988) was a British fisheries worker and campaigner for improved safety in the fishing fleet as leader of the "headscarf revolutionaries" – a group of fishermen's family members.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. Maxine Peake has written a play entitled The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca which opened in Hull in November 2017. This was an incredibly hard job; the work required huge physical effort, long hours and often took place in appalling conditions.