Abstract
The Headscarf Revolutionaries tells the story of Lillian Bilocca and the women who worked with her to draw attention to and protest about the dangerous conditions of the trawlers operating in winter off northern Iceland. Her actions were triggered by the loss of three trawlers, the St Romanus, the Kingston Peridot and the Ross Cleveland, and 59 men who crewed them in the January storms of 1968. There was only one survivor, Harry Eddom, who was saved by luck and by astonishing physical strength and fortitude. All three boats capsized in mountainous seas and sank instantly. While the book and Bilocca’s campaign focused on the lack of radio communications and other safety gear aboard British trawlers at the time, no amount of safety gear would have saved such inherently unstable vessels in the extreme conditions they were operating in.
First, let me say what this book is not. It is not an academic volume; it lacks theory or references to a wider literature. It does not situate the events and processes it describes in a wider discussions of the fishery, safety issues and collective action (or lack of it) or the women’s movement in the UK that drew much of its commitment to working class identity and causes from struggles like that of the Hull wives. It lacks the detail that would make it a useful reference – for example exactly what changes in safety regulations the women were demanding and what changes were made or were not made and with what impact on fishermen’s and vessel safety and well-being. It indicates different safety regimes in other fleets fishing in the Icelandic waters, such as the Norwegian and German fleets, but not what the differences were and how they impacted on safety records.
The book relies heavily on information and coverage from tabloid newspapers, which are known for sensationalism, lurid coverage and aggressive strategies; in other words, ‘paparazzi’. The author refers a couple of times to coverage by broadsheet newspapers, e.g., The Times, but disparagingly. The rest of the information comes from extensive interviews with many of the key players or their immediate families, e.g., Lil Bilocca’s daughter. While I do not doubt the extent or validity of this information, I am dubious about the use of supposedly direct quotations from the informants of the people they speak of, often the main players. While the author claims to have checked the text for veracity with his informants it is clear that these direct quotations are, in fact, constructed, and while it adds to the ‘atmosphere’ the author is trying to create it distracts from and creates doubt about the authenticity of the rest of the material. There is also far too much extraneous and probably largely fictional detail about, for example, what the key actors are supposed to have worn on a particular day, e.g., ‘From the wings another glamorous, slim, young woman made her way towards her . . . An “Alice band” kept her coiffed, bobbed hair in place’ (p. 61). ‘A barrage of camera flashes and questions met the pretty, petite blonde cabaret singer’ (p. 164). ‘His full-length mohair overcoat shielded him from the cold of the train station and his trademark bowtie and trilby made him stand out from his peers in the media scrum’ (p. 95).
However, Headscarf Revolutionaries is a good read. There is lots of action and the characters are personalized in a way that makes it easy to remember them. While Big Lil herself is more shadowy, being drawn from her daughter’s memories, many of the other women are presented with sufficient detail for us to identify with them and the nuances of the positions they take up, as well as their relationships with Lillian. Where the book lacks in analysis of the different positions the women took and any connection with the other social movements getting under way at the same time, it is strong in its portrayal of the complex and sometimes hostile interpretations of the women’s actions. The role of trade union support is understated and it would have been good to have some discussion of how the trade union movement as a whole responded to the women’s actions.
The role of the press, especially the tabloid reporters, is toe-curlingly awful. Their desperation to get ‘the story’ leads them into bizarre junketing; forcing entrances to private homes, barging through back entrances to hospitals and the like. In fact, for this reviewer, the revelations about how the tabloid press behave and the lengths they are prepared to go to secure their stories, even seen through the eyes of a sympathetic observer, is the most chilling part of this narrative. It does, however, explain the superficiality of the discussion. Tabloid newspapers aim for the immediate, the sensational, the vivid and the attention-grabbing. This works well for the kind of audience they appeal to, but perhaps less well in a full length book where there is opportunity for some digging behind the headlines and some exploration of the issues behind the immediate events.
I offered to review this book because the name Lil Bilocca and the Hull fishermen’s wives played a significant part in my own development. The UK feminist movement, unlike some others, was rooted in a series of highly significant struggles carried out by working class women in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Hull fishermen’s wives (I can’t imagine anyone calling them the ‘Headscarf Revolutionaries’) and their struggle for greater safety on the offshore trawlers was one of the first of these. Later, the London Night Cleaners’ campaign for better conditions and pay, and the Ford Dagenham seamstresses’ struggle for equal pay, also helped to ensure that the women’s movement focused on the priorities and wisdom of working class women. It is not to be expected that at that point Lil and her associates would claim to be feminists or articulate the kind of analysis that was beginning to emerge. Indeed, it was much later, in the 1980s, that the Miners’ wives became articulate leaders in the feminist and class struggles of that period. None of these references or background appear in this book, and this seems a pity, given how important Lil’s struggle became in the history of the broader women’s movement in the UK.
Read this book for what it is – a romping account of a tragic series of events and a heartfelt and effective response to it – but don’t expect anything more profound.