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The Headscarf Revolutionaries
In the harsh Arctic seas of 1968, three trawlers from Hull's fleet sank in just three weeks. 58 men died. Lillian Bilocca put down her filleting knife, wrote a petition, and stormed into action. With her army of fishwives she took her battle to the docks and led a raid on parliament. They changed the shipping laws.
Lillian Bilocca became an international celebrity. The lone survivor of the tragedies made headlines too. In a tight fishing community, it's dangerous to stand out.
"Mark my words, this could become the next Made in Dagenham. Lily Bilocca was remarkable." - John Prescott
Lillian Bilocca became an international celebrity. The lone survivor of the tragedies made headlines too. In a tight fishing community, it's dangerous to stand out.
"Mark my words, this could become the next Made in Dagenham. Lily Bilocca was remarkable." - John Prescott
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
206 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 11, 2015
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.
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 Headscarf Revolutionaries were a group of women, mainly fishermen’s wives, who in the space of weeks forced major changes to UK shipping laws. 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. Led by the charismatic Lillian Bilocca – known as Big Lil – the women embarked on a campaign of protest and direct action that, as John Prescott acknowledges in the book’s foreword, ‘achieved more in weeks than unions and politicians ever did.’
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.
This is one strand of Lavery’s book. He tells with rich detail how the women rose up spontaneously and took on the authorities with imagination and courage – for instance, the PA system for an early meeting was rushed to the scene by a cabaret singer whose trawlerman father had died at sea four years earlier. The women were led by the fiery Big Lil, first to raise a petition, and soon to invade the docks to try to physically prevent unsafe ships from departing for sea. As Lilian scuffled with police, three young seamen jumped ship preventing the vessel’s departure and effectively initiating a wildcat strike. Quickly, Big Lil and her comrades were invited to London to present their ‘fishermen’s charter’ to the Fisheries Minister. Such was the strength of public opinion that its recommendations were immediately accepted, and that should have been the end of the matter – if only Big Lil had have promptly returned to her proper place.
In addition to writing an inspiring history of the Headscarf Revolutionaries, Lavery has also written a social history of a world that has largely ceased to exist. With a novelist’s eye for colour and detail, he brings alive the fishing industry of the 1960s. Whether describing how the ventilation cowls on trawlers had to be coated with grease as weather protection, or the exact process of cod skinning, Lavery transports us to an unforgiving world of hard labour and macho conservatism. The scenes at sea are as vivid as anything in Hemingway or Melville, and winter conditions in Icelandic fishing waters make life at Alistair Maclean’s Ice Station Zebra seem tame. It’s difficult to imagine the hardships faced by ill-equipped men working 18-hour shifts hacking ice from ropes in force 12 gales on a night so cold it literally prevented speech. As a depiction of human courage and the triumph of willpower, the extraordinary story of the disaster’s one survivor holds its own with Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void or any survival epic.
This is already plenty for any book, but there’s a third strand to Lavery’s story. Lavery – a former newspaper man – pays great attention to the role of the media. These were the early days of late modernity, or postmodernity, or whatever we should call it, and the Headscarf Revolutionaries’ rebellion was played out in the media as much as it was played out on the Hull docks. Lavery describes the media furore as Big Lil and the others were photographed by journalists from around the world. When they visited London, the Evening Standard led with ‘Big Lil hits town.’ Marge Proops ran a feature on ‘The Real Big Lil’ in The Daily Mirror, and even the Daily Mail carried a supportive front page lead. Lil was a guest on ITV’s Eamonn Andrews Chat Show, and, as Lavery puts it, she ‘had the kind of press coverage a pop star would envy.’ Even the phone conversation that reunited Rita Eddom with the one survivor – the husband she’d assumed was dead – was broadcast in full on the evening news.
What enabled this friendly reception was the power of public feeling, but also, perhaps, the stridently apolitical nature of the women’s campaign. Lavery describes a very British rebellion, with that curiously British hostility towards political thinking. As Lil’s comrade Yvonne put it, ‘I just want to get what I can for our men. I am not interested in unions or politics.’ Lavery describes how the British public and media took Lil and the campaign into their hearts, but also how fickle that support was, and how quickly it was removed. At the time, there may not have been a phrase to describe the media’s new power to create instant celebrity, but in the same week that Lil appeared on the Eamonn Andrews Show, Andy Warhol’s first exhibition outside the US opened in Stockholm. In the programme for that exhibition, Warhol coined a phrase: ‘in the future,’ he wrote, ‘everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.’
Lil’s 15 minutes were already up, and she paid a heavy price for her reluctance to retreat back to a woman’s proper place. Despite – or because of – two decades of Keynesian economics, Britain in the ‘swinging sixties’ remained deeply conservative; for instance, the Headscarf Revolution coincided with the government-supported ‘I’m backing Britain campaign,’ which called on workers to work an extra half hour every day without pay. Lil never ascribed to any political ideology, but nor was she yet ready to be silent: when she addressed students at Hull University she advocated abolishing the Merchant Shipping Acts that prevented men from striking, and after addressing leftist students in Glasgow, the media misreported her as proposing a sex strike to force fishermen into militant action.
The end of Lil’s story is a sad one. As ships were grounded due to safety laws, workers turned their anger against Lil. A barrage of vicious hate mail, often from those she’d done most to help, was sent to her home and to the press. The content of the hate mail was predictable, filled with class hatred and misogyny: she was fat, common, and – worst of all – a woman. She was sacked from her job as a fish skinner and blacklisted from the industry. When the TGWU formed a ‘wives association’, which had a carefully restricted role, Lil was pointedly excluded. But in any case the industry she’d helped to transform was soon all but gone. By 1975, the industry had become unprofitable as the EEC introduced fishing quotas and cod wars escalated with Iceland. Plus, as Lavery notes, ‘In a cruel irony the expense of all the safety measures the women had won had added to owners’ costs.’ Many of the workers were deemed casual employees, and thus, even after decades of service, were ineligible for redundancy or any financial compensation. It was a blow from which Hull has yet to fully recover.
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 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.
Lavery largely resists analysis, describing events with impassioned objectivity. The book is meticulously researched and his admiration for Lil and the campaign is most revealed by his commitment to understanding the community he’s writing about and describing events as fully and accurately as he can. He saves his analysis for the afterword:
Lily’s Headscarf Revolution may have been a naïve one. But it was a powerful action from the heart that caught the imagination of the world and shamed an industry and a government into action.
It’s hard to disagree with that.
The Headscarf Revolutionaries is an enthralling read, a fitting tribute to an extraordinary woman, and an important addition to working class history.
The Headscarf Revolutionaries by Brian W. Lavery is published by Barbican Press in June.
Review by D.D. Johnston, originally published on libcom.org: http://libcom.org/history/headscarf-r...
http://ddjohnston.org
http://onlinewritingtips.com
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 Headscarf Revolutionaries were a group of women, mainly fishermen’s wives, who in the space of weeks forced major changes to UK shipping laws. 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. Led by the charismatic Lillian Bilocca – known as Big Lil – the women embarked on a campaign of protest and direct action that, as John Prescott acknowledges in the book’s foreword, ‘achieved more in weeks than unions and politicians ever did.’
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.
This is one strand of Lavery’s book. He tells with rich detail how the women rose up spontaneously and took on the authorities with imagination and courage – for instance, the PA system for an early meeting was rushed to the scene by a cabaret singer whose trawlerman father had died at sea four years earlier. The women were led by the fiery Big Lil, first to raise a petition, and soon to invade the docks to try to physically prevent unsafe ships from departing for sea. As Lilian scuffled with police, three young seamen jumped ship preventing the vessel’s departure and effectively initiating a wildcat strike. Quickly, Big Lil and her comrades were invited to London to present their ‘fishermen’s charter’ to the Fisheries Minister. Such was the strength of public opinion that its recommendations were immediately accepted, and that should have been the end of the matter – if only Big Lil had have promptly returned to her proper place.
In addition to writing an inspiring history of the Headscarf Revolutionaries, Lavery has also written a social history of a world that has largely ceased to exist. With a novelist’s eye for colour and detail, he brings alive the fishing industry of the 1960s. Whether describing how the ventilation cowls on trawlers had to be coated with grease as weather protection, or the exact process of cod skinning, Lavery transports us to an unforgiving world of hard labour and macho conservatism. The scenes at sea are as vivid as anything in Hemingway or Melville, and winter conditions in Icelandic fishing waters make life at Alistair Maclean’s Ice Station Zebra seem tame. It’s difficult to imagine the hardships faced by ill-equipped men working 18-hour shifts hacking ice from ropes in force 12 gales on a night so cold it literally prevented speech. As a depiction of human courage and the triumph of willpower, the extraordinary story of the disaster’s one survivor holds its own with Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void or any survival epic.
This is already plenty for any book, but there’s a third strand to Lavery’s story. Lavery – a former newspaper man – pays great attention to the role of the media. These were the early days of late modernity, or postmodernity, or whatever we should call it, and the Headscarf Revolutionaries’ rebellion was played out in the media as much as it was played out on the Hull docks. Lavery describes the media furore as Big Lil and the others were photographed by journalists from around the world. When they visited London, the Evening Standard led with ‘Big Lil hits town.’ Marge Proops ran a feature on ‘The Real Big Lil’ in The Daily Mirror, and even the Daily Mail carried a supportive front page lead. Lil was a guest on ITV’s Eamonn Andrews Chat Show, and, as Lavery puts it, she ‘had the kind of press coverage a pop star would envy.’ Even the phone conversation that reunited Rita Eddom with the one survivor – the husband she’d assumed was dead – was broadcast in full on the evening news.
What enabled this friendly reception was the power of public feeling, but also, perhaps, the stridently apolitical nature of the women’s campaign. Lavery describes a very British rebellion, with that curiously British hostility towards political thinking. As Lil’s comrade Yvonne put it, ‘I just want to get what I can for our men. I am not interested in unions or politics.’ Lavery describes how the British public and media took Lil and the campaign into their hearts, but also how fickle that support was, and how quickly it was removed. At the time, there may not have been a phrase to describe the media’s new power to create instant celebrity, but in the same week that Lil appeared on the Eamonn Andrews Show, Andy Warhol’s first exhibition outside the US opened in Stockholm. In the programme for that exhibition, Warhol coined a phrase: ‘in the future,’ he wrote, ‘everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.’
Lil’s 15 minutes were already up, and she paid a heavy price for her reluctance to retreat back to a woman’s proper place. Despite – or because of – two decades of Keynesian economics, Britain in the ‘swinging sixties’ remained deeply conservative; for instance, the Headscarf Revolution coincided with the government-supported ‘I’m backing Britain campaign,’ which called on workers to work an extra half hour every day without pay. Lil never ascribed to any political ideology, but nor was she yet ready to be silent: when she addressed students at Hull University she advocated abolishing the Merchant Shipping Acts that prevented men from striking, and after addressing leftist students in Glasgow, the media misreported her as proposing a sex strike to force fishermen into militant action.
The end of Lil’s story is a sad one. As ships were grounded due to safety laws, workers turned their anger against Lil. A barrage of vicious hate mail, often from those she’d done most to help, was sent to her home and to the press. The content of the hate mail was predictable, filled with class hatred and misogyny: she was fat, common, and – worst of all – a woman. She was sacked from her job as a fish skinner and blacklisted from the industry. When the TGWU formed a ‘wives association’, which had a carefully restricted role, Lil was pointedly excluded. But in any case the industry she’d helped to transform was soon all but gone. By 1975, the industry had become unprofitable as the EEC introduced fishing quotas and cod wars escalated with Iceland. Plus, as Lavery notes, ‘In a cruel irony the expense of all the safety measures the women had won had added to owners’ costs.’ Many of the workers were deemed casual employees, and thus, even after decades of service, were ineligible for redundancy or any financial compensation. It was a blow from which Hull has yet to fully recover.
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 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.
Lavery largely resists analysis, describing events with impassioned objectivity. The book is meticulously researched and his admiration for Lil and the campaign is most revealed by his commitment to understanding the community he’s writing about and describing events as fully and accurately as he can. He saves his analysis for the afterword:
Lily’s Headscarf Revolution may have been a naïve one. But it was a powerful action from the heart that caught the imagination of the world and shamed an industry and a government into action.
It’s hard to disagree with that.
The Headscarf Revolutionaries is an enthralling read, a fitting tribute to an extraordinary woman, and an important addition to working class history.
The Headscarf Revolutionaries by Brian W. Lavery is published by Barbican Press in June.
Review by D.D. Johnston, originally published on libcom.org: http://libcom.org/history/headscarf-r...
http://ddjohnston.org
http://onlinewritingtips.com
October 5, 2018
2018 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.
The tragedy hit the close-knit working class community hard and in the aftermath of the sinking one woman, Lillian Bilocca, launched a petition that rapidly became a national movement demanding improved safety equipment aboard the ships. Mrs Bilocca's son was one a trawler at the time (though not one that sank) and she knew, as did many other women, that it could easily have been her son. One key demand, and it seems incredible today that it wasn't a legal requirement, was to have a qualified radio operator on board each ship. Another was against the use of "Christmas Cracker" crews - inexperienced crews sent out over the winter when more experienced crew members wanted to remain at home with their families.
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.
Full review of this excellent book here: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
The tragedy hit the close-knit working class community hard and in the aftermath of the sinking one woman, Lillian Bilocca, launched a petition that rapidly became a national movement demanding improved safety equipment aboard the ships. Mrs Bilocca's son was one a trawler at the time (though not one that sank) and she knew, as did many other women, that it could easily have been her son. One key demand, and it seems incredible today that it wasn't a legal requirement, was to have a qualified radio operator on board each ship. Another was against the use of "Christmas Cracker" crews - inexperienced crews sent out over the winter when more experienced crew members wanted to remain at home with their families.
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.
Full review of this excellent book here: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
January 5, 2026
An excellent read, tells the true story of the Hull fishing industry in the late 60s where 3 tragedies demanded change. The women who made that change happen and the long term consequences.
November 8, 2017
Having grown up in Hull I am familiar with the hardships endured by trawler men ( although no one in my family worked in the fishing industry) and I can recall the 1968 triple trawler disaster at the heart of this book. But I did not remember the critical role played by the women of West Hull - fishwives- in campaigning on behalf of their men and securing better safety standards for the industry. This book tells the story in a compelling and fascinating way. The author has great sympathy and admiration for the women and their ringleader Big Lil but he does not shy away from describing the way that the community eventually turns against her; resenting her public profile and accusing her of emasculating the tough fishermen that she seeks to protect. It is a vivid and important story which reminds us how far we have come in the workplace in terms of safety but reminding us that it has always been difficult for women to stand up and stand out.
December 29, 2019
I would have read this book much quicker had I more time for reading... Seriously, this is a brilliant book, regardless of your genre preference (this being one I don't normally spend a lot of time reading). It is based on real, tragic events that changed Hull's (Yorkshire) fishing/trawler industry forever and to some extent Iceland's. It was written really well enabling it to remain an enthralling, engaging read from cover to cover. I will admit to being so caught up in it I would occasionally forget it was real people/circumstances. Mostly, my heart goes out to Lillian Bilocca and everything she endured (and those that stood with her).
August 12, 2021
In 1968 three trawlers from Hull, the Kingston Peridot, St Romanus and Ross Cleveland, sank within days of each other in storms off Iceland, killing 58 men.
When news of the second sinking reached Hull, Lillian Bilocca, whose husband and son worked on trawlers, began a campaign that became international news and completely overhauled safety standards on British trawlers.
This is a compelling and detailed account by local author and historian Brian Lavery of ordinary women changing history.
http://socialistreview.org.uk/404/hea...
When news of the second sinking reached Hull, Lillian Bilocca, whose husband and son worked on trawlers, began a campaign that became international news and completely overhauled safety standards on British trawlers.
This is a compelling and detailed account by local author and historian Brian Lavery of ordinary women changing history.
http://socialistreview.org.uk/404/hea...
March 29, 2021
An interesting recounting of the fisherman's wives fight following the "Hull triple trawler tragedy" that follow the leading women of the movement, their quick and successful campaign and the downfall of their leaders due to media coverage.
I wasn't totally sold on the "creative non-fiction" angle which is quite new to me and really different from my usual historical readings, so I read most of the reconstructed dialog with a pinch of salt.
I wasn't totally sold on the "creative non-fiction" angle which is quite new to me and really different from my usual historical readings, so I read most of the reconstructed dialog with a pinch of salt.
March 20, 2019
I had some great music, inspired by the book, to listen to while reading namely, Reg Meuross's song cycle, Joe Solo and the Unthanks. I was brought up in a coal mining area and so many of the stories of danger, the lack of safety, and the camaraderie resonate with me. This is an important story well told. Using the words in the dialect of the people involved brings it to life.
April 4, 2020
I feel a little bad for giving this book just two stars because it’s probably actually very good. I just lost interest in it half way through and made the mistake of picking up another book before finishing it. As my interest had wained I never picked it up again to finish it. From what I had read I thought it was well written. Just not the book for me I guess.
March 23, 2020
Shocking and riveting account of 3 trawler disasters of 1968.
October 29, 2021
This book is an absolute eye-opener which illustrates the dangerous working conditions for the trawler men of Hull. A true story which everyone should read.
September 8, 2015
Every Hull person old enough knows something of the story of the loss of three trawlers and the campaign of Lillian Bilocca. However, I realise I knew very little. Lavery takes us through the whole episode in detail, describing the sinkings and the reaction of the fishwives. It's sympathetic to Lil but doesn't duck the reasons that people turned against her. As an East Hull person (a different tribe) I remember more the hostility than the tremendous achievements of Lil and the other women who campaigned for trawler safety.
Lavery is sometimes rather too imaginative in his description of scenes, and there are a couple of factual errors, but I'm grateful to the neighbour who loaned me the book.
Lavery is sometimes rather too imaginative in his description of scenes, and there are a couple of factual errors, but I'm grateful to the neighbour who loaned me the book.
February 11, 2016
Page turning read, which you'll need a tissue box for. The true story of the Hull trawler disasters and the fishermen's wives who marched on Whitehall and won. Lily Biloca is a larger than life character who leads the fishermen's wives (headscarves revolutionaries) in to demonstrate against the dangerous conditions that the Hull fishermen face everyone they go to sea. The author makes reading about the conditions at sea and trawling fascinating, taking the reader into the frightening conditions of North Sea trawling without health and safety, proper communications and insufficient lifeboats. It's also the gripping tale of one man's survival, and role of the press. You are taken into the action as if you're reading an action novel. Tragic without being sentimental. This book a punch.
October 13, 2020
I can’t believe I didn’t really know this story even though I’m from Hull. It was a great read, it took me quite a while but mainly because i was busy, not because it I didn’t want to pick it up. If you’re from Hull, definitely give it a read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews