The Headscarf Revolutionaries statue

Hi I am Ian Cuthbert and I run the social media pages called Headscarf Pride and I am campaigning for a statue of the Headscarf Revolutionaries. In the beginning of 1968 during the worst winter in living memory and in the space of two weeks, three trawlers from Hull were lost at sea. The St Romanus, Kingston Peridot and Ross Cleveland sank with the loss of 58 men. This event has become infamous in Hull as The Triple Trawler Disaster. Just after the second trawler was lost, four local women decided to take action against the poor health and safety regulations and working conditions of the men at the time. Their demands included a change in the law to make it essential that every ship has a radio operator, an independent signalling system and regular communication with the mainland. All this had not been essential in the fishing industry up until then and shockingly, not illegal. Those four women were Yvonne Marie Blenkinsop, Mary Denness, Lillian Bilocca and Christine Jensen (formerly Smallbone). They started with a petition which grew to over ten thousand signatures in just days and two meetings at the Victoria Hall on Hull's Hessle Road which was packed with hundreds of fishermens wives and families and members of the press. The day after the loss of the third trawler, with the help of John Prescott and the massive media coverage this disaster was getting (this knocked the Vietnam War off the front pages), they took their campaign to Westminster and met the minister for agriculture and fisheries and over night those four local women have become legends in Hull forever. They turned an industry on its head and made changes which have saved countless lives and still do to this day. They became known as the Headscarf Revolutionaries. Their story has been told on the stage, in books (most notably 'The Headscarf Revolutionaries' by Dr Brian W Lavery), and a BBC4 documentary ‘Hull’s Headscarf Heroes’. A statue committee is now constitutional, a charity launched and fundraising began to get those women the memorial they deserve for undoubtedly one of the most successful acts of civil disobedience of the 20th century.