The darkest days - the triple tragedy of 1968

INTRODUCTION

It was a day Hull would never forget.
The men on the trawlers Lorella and Roderigo were lost without trace in appalling weather conditions off northern Iceland on January 26, 1955.
Forty years on the last dramatic messages from the vessels still make chilling reading:
The time, early morning. Lorella to Roderigo: Boat deck solid with frozen snow. Lads digging it out since breakfast. Terrible lot on bridge top and they are going out there in daylight if possible.

Roderigo: Same here and the whaleback is a solid mass.
14.21 Roderigo: One side of our aerial is down, weather very bad and freezing.
14.36: Lorella: Heeling over.
14.39 Lorella: Going down, heeling over. Lorella going down, heeling over.

That was her last transmission.
15.53 Roderigo: Calling all ships, we are now taking heavy water.
16.30: Aerials now icing up.
16.45: Can anyone take a bearing on this frequency.
Lancella, which was in shelter and listening into the broadcasts: Bearing as near as can say north east..
16.50 Roderigo to Lancella: Come to us. Position becoming serious now.
16.52 Lancella to Roderigo: We are coming to you.
An American aircraft from the USAF base on Iceland now asked Lancella for Roderigo’s position. Lancella replied:
Roderigo is 90 miles NE of Iceland’s North Cape. Wind NE force 11-12, visibility nil to one cable.
Aircraft to Roderigo: What are your intentions?
17.04 Roderigo: No intentions. Going further over. No visibility. Still going over to starboard.
17.05: Still going over to starboard. Cannot get her back.
17.08: Still going over, going over.
17.09: Roderigo going over. The message was repeated in Morse until after three minutes transmission ceased.
Two vessels lost. And 40 fishermen dead.
The tragedy highlighted one basic and undisputed fact - that distant water fishing was Britain’s most hazardous business. Throughout the 1950s the death rate for British trawlermen was several times higher than that of coal miners. Many others suffered serious injuries including loss of limbs, and chest and breathing complaints from which they would never recover.
Their conditions were like those faced by men in no other industry.
In the darkness of Arctic winter they lived and worked in some of the worst weather on earth. In a ten day period a man could be on duty for as long as 180 hours. And contrary to popular belief the rewards he received at the end of a trip could hardly be described as generous.
The trawlerman’s lot was probably best summed up by the sociologist Jeremy Tunstall in his book The Fishermen, first published by MacGibben and Kay in 1962. He wrote: “The fisherman believes his to be the harshest, the least well remunerated and the least understood job in Britain. Since the occupation, with few exceptions, attracts men who have failed to undergo apprenticeships and acquire skills, and since to start fishing in the first place the men must be willing to work what on shore would be fantastic hours under fantastic conditions, it is not unreasonable to say that all fishermen without exception have a common picture of their job. And since the job takes up three quarters not only of their days, but also of their nights and weekends and shapes the other quarter of their times ashore, fishermen tend to share a common picture of the world.”
Those who crewed the fishing vessels would know exactly what he meant. For, to a large extent, fishing was a job which enveloped whole families. Generations would follow each other to the northern fishing grounds. They knew the dangers and accepted them. It was all a part of their calling.
And dangerous it most certainly was. Between 1948 and 1964 a total of 757 British fishermen died as a result of accidents at sea. It was an occupation ably summed up by a skipper: “We can live through the hurricanes. We ride them out, dodging to the wind. The spray freezes as it hits the rigging at an inch a minute, the masts get top heavy and the rails a solid wall. The funnel gets a six inch coating of ice. You try to clear it and back it comes. She rolls and pitches and you’re scared. But it’s the only job we know. Fear is just a part of it.”
The severe gales and icing conditions which seriously endangered trawlers at sea were accepted as relatively exceptional occurrences. But bad weather is found in Icelandic waters every winter and made the work of the individual fisherman on deck arduous as well as dangerous.
It was a situation summed up succinctly by the Admiralty Arctic pilot: “In the Denmark strait during December to April, inclusive, it is quite common for a north easterly gale to last several days with air temperatures below 29F. North easterly gales preponderate over those from other directions on most of the Icelandic fishing grounds, particularly near the north western coasts, where they not uncommonly exceed Beaufort force 12. In these conditions very high seas are generated, wave heights reaching 50ft and more. Vessels steaming even slowly against such seas ship a lot of water and in sub-freezing temperatures, ice may rapidly form great loads on the upperworks.”
Tunstall, a research officer at the London School of Economics, gave a graphic description of life on a trawler deck in an article for New Society magazine published in 1963. He wrote: “In any sort of a wind spray flies into the men’s faces and fishing is not stopped until the wind reaches nearly gale force. In winter the fish freeze stiff on the deck; the deckhand must bend down for each one, manipulating his gutting knife with cold hands. The hands of an old deckhand are swollen and marked by years of frost and cuts. All the time the deckman is on the deck there is the chance of a freak wave knocking him over into the fish and swirling him away across the deck. After only five hours of sleep the deckhand must turn out for more than 18 hours of this harsh routine. The only respite is provided by gale force winds when a trawler rolls and pitches crazily,”
After the disaster of 1955 and that which was to follow in 1968 measures were at last taken to attempt to cut down the dangers faced by trawlers on the traditional Icelandic fishing grounds. It was a move too late to save 98 men, but at least it was an acceptance of the dangers they faced in their everyday working lives.
Introduced the winter following the 1968 disaster, a “mother ship” became a fixture on the Icelandic fishing grounds, providing an essential weather reporting, hospital and communications service.
But the days of the distant water fishing fleet were numbered. Cod wars led to permanent exclusion from the fishing grounds. The British distant water fleet, once the biggest and best in the world, was dismantled. The plight of the fishermen is now a part of social history. But it is a chapter which must never be forgotten.

St Andrew’s Dock, Hull, March 1997
This is a place of memories.
From here men once sailed to some of the most dangerous waters in the world. They do so no more.
The trawlers in which they sailed have been committed to the scrapyards, converted to rig supply vessels, sold abroad …and forgotten.
The men who sailed them are now home from the seas for the rest of their lives.. Many are without a finger, an arm or a leg, the results of accidents while working on open decks lashed by gales, blizzards and mountainous waves. Others suffer the effects of working over-long hours in some of the most hostile conditions on earth victims of chest and lung conditions from which they will never recover.
And many more are lost for ever, their graves unmarked and unknown, victims of the cruel sea.
This dock was once the centre of Britain’s, if not the world’s, finest fishing industry.
Today the wind whips across a scene of dereliction and decay. The ships are gone, the men are gone, many of those buildings which remain are, for the most part, empty, occupied by the birds and the rats.
Distant water fishermen were for too long the poor relations of British industry. And when their industry finally collapsed they were cynically dumped by a system that held them in little regard. Not for them the generous pay-out to miners or steelworkers.
That, like St Andrew’s Dock, is part of maritime and industrial history. But the stories of these men who worked together, lived together and all too often died together, must be recorded. They are a part of not only Hull’s heritage, but also of the history of the British working man.
For the distant water fisherman the march of progress which split up his community after one hundred years in the Hessle Road area of Hull brought contact with other workers on the vast new estates built around the city. And, in turn, the knowledge of other ways of life and conditions of work brought the inevitable comparison with the fisherman’s own lot.
The spotlight on trawlermen began to focus on their long hours of work under harsh conditions, on the incidence of casualties, on the lack of social security and proper vocational training, on occupational health hazards and the casual system of employment. But such concerns came too late. Economics and politics combined to annihilate the distant water industry. The fishermen were, yet again, the victims,
St Andrew’s Dock made some men millionaires. It brought others only hardship and adversity.
Some still care to remember the deeds of men who sailed to some of the most dangerous waters on earth. Each year they gather at the lockhead on what remains of the Hull Fish Dock to pay tribute to the 5,000 fishermen who in little over a century sailed from this port never to return.
This is the story of fifty eight of them.



St Andrew’s Dock, Hull, January 10 1968
It was an uneventful parting.
With a single blast of her siren she slipped through the lockhead and into the Humber in a well rehearsed procedure practised and perfected by generations of fishermen.
In the early hours of a freezing winter morning few had turned out to see her leave. Goodbyes were said earlier, in the pubs, the clubs and the terraced houses that were home to so many of the men of the Hull trawler fleet.
A freshening northerly whipped up the swirling, muddy waters of the river as the trawler slid easily past the waterfront and down towards Spurn. In the city, frost glinted under the street lamps like a carpet of crystal as Hull slept.
Aboard the trawler 20 men shrugged off the memories of three days ashore and slowly eased themselves into the well-worn routine of making her ready for sea.
Deep below decks the engines that could carry her at a maximum 12 knots purred steadily as she pushed on relentlessly , bound for the Norwegian fishing grounds.
She was called St Romanus and like others of her kind she was rugged, functional, yet strangely stylish, built to a design tried and tested in some of the world’s most hazardous waters.
Eighteen years earlier she had left the Beverley yard of Cook, Welton and Gemmell to be handed over to the Belgian firm which commissioned her and originally called her the Van Dyck. She was now in the ownership of the Hull trawler company Thomas Hamling , who bought her in March, 1964.
For this one trip St Romanus, which carried the number H223 on her side , was under the command of Skipper James Wheeldon, known to those who served under him as careful , prudent man. Normally in command of another Hamling vessel, St Andronicus, he had not particularly wanted the trip. Indeed, he did not have high regard for St Romanus..
The vessel he now commanded was just over 170ft in length, weighed 600 tons, and for this trip carried a crew of 20. It was not a full complement, for there was no radio operator aboard. Instead the skipper would handle communications.
By 7.30pm she was making good time and was , said Skipper Wheeldon in a radio telephone conversation with his wife, Janet,120 miles north, north east of the Humber. He had tried for two hours to make the radio work. During his call reception fluctuated from good to almost indecipherable. The operator intervened and asked him to change frequencies. Above the crackle of static he promised he would call again the next morning. He never did.
As St Romanus was creeping steadily northwards towards Norway a second trawler was also heading out into the North Sea, but she was destined for Icelandic waters. In three weeks she could expect to sail well in excess of 2,000 miles.
She was the Kingston Peridot and she, too, came from the Beverley yard, being built just 20 years earlier for the Kingston Steam Trawling Company. She measured 181ft in length, was over 657 tons in weight and could turn in a speed of 13 knots when pushed to the limits
Like St Romanus, she carried 20 men. One of them was a radio operator.
Slowly, steadily, she worked her way along a coastline by now hidden from view as night crept in.
It had been an unremarkable day.


Isafjordhur, Iceland, January 11, 1968
Thordur Oddsson was relaxed and satisfied.
As first mate of the Icelandic trawler Vikingur 111 he had little to complain about. Catches had been good and the weather had proved kind. A few more hauls and it was back to port. Oddsson idly flipped through a magazine as he rested on the bridge.
It was a quiet time as the skipper and crew were eating. He lit a cigarette and pushed back comfortably in the skipper’s well upholstered chair.
Among the electronic equipment on the bridge were two radios. One picked up the messages passed from ship to ship, constantly bombarding the bridge with voices from Iceland, Britain, Germany and Denmark. The other remained silent, permanently tuned to the international distress frequency.
As he dozed after a long hard day Oddson was brought suddenly to attention by a voice which burst from the hitherto silent second set. Hurriedly he picked up a pencil and grabbed a sheet of paper to write down the message…
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. It is the British trawler St Romanus from Hull. We are leaving now” The voice then gave the position of 63..5 degrees north and 0.4 west. Or at least that was what Oddsson thought it said. Although repeated there was doubt as to the exact position. Was it 0.4 west.? Or could it have been 4.0 west?
Tense now Oddsson listened intently as the link faded. Then he heard it, a second voice. He believed it was British, a trawler trying to contact St Romanus. The voices faded, the set returned to silence.
Oddsson thought fast. By his reckoning the vessel was about 800 miles from Vikingur 111. He reported what he heard to the skipper.
Fourteen days later Thordur Oddsson listened to another radio message. It told him of the loss of the Hull trawler St Romanus.
Reykjavik, Iceland, January 14, 1968
It was midnight and as the Icelandic capital slept the Kingston Peridot slipped into port.
She did not remain there long, just long enough to put ashore William Good, the vessel’s cook who had been injured in heavy seas as she made her way northwards.
It had happened suddenly, As the Peridot ploughed into a trough of water he lost his footing and plunged down a companionway, receiving severe bruising to his head and chest. Skipper Ray Wilson had little choice but to put him ashore.
“I wanted to carry on, but they told me I would not be fit for several days,” he said.
Skipper Wilson was soon back at sea. Mr Good stayed three days in Iceland before being sent home.


St Andrew’s Dock, Hull, January 20, 1968
Everything was in order.
Final checks by the ship’s husband showed that all the crew were on board, hands were called to their stations and the ropes cast off. Slowly, cautiously the Ross Cleveland inched her way past the line of tied up trawlers and out of the lockpit. A few friends gathered to watch her leave, shouting farewells to their mates as she crept into the Humber.
Built in Aberdeen by John Lewis and Sons Ltd in 1949 for Hudson Brothers Trawlers, of Hull, she was 659 tons, carried twenty men and was a good sea ship.
With a final blast of farewell she jutted down the Humber soon to be lost from view to the watchers on the shore. And she sailed into fishing industry history.


The Hull Daily Mail Newsroom, 12.40pm, January 24, 1968

Beneath a huge map of the East Riding Charles Levitt swayed precariously on the back legs of the captain’s chair behind the green metal newsdesk, chewed on a sandwich and carefully perused the columns of market prices in the Financial Times.
For once the phones were quiet, the room peaceful as the morning rush was over. Deep below in the bowels of this gaunt red brick building, purpose-built for the Mail in the Twenties, came the first rumble of the presses they began to roll, pumping out the day’s first edition and gradually picking up speed to send vibrations throughout the labyrinthine corridors of a building which took up most of one side of Jameson Street.
It was not a particularly inspiring work of architecture, but on one point none could argue - it was certainly built to last. Hitler’s bombs had destroyed neighbouring Hammonds. At the Mail not a wall was even cracked.
Equally good survivors were its presses, giant rotaries installed 40 years earlier after being bought from the News of the World. In a single afternoon these noisy giants would spew out over 133,000 newspapers, to be delivered to homes in an area which went as far as Scarborough in the north and Goole in the west.
In the heart of the building lay the nerve centre of the Mail’s newsgathering operations. Once the office of a former editor, who had, it was claimed, hanged himself there, it was wood panelled, grubby and untidy. The parquet floor had certainly seen better days, the walls had lost their gloss for ever, and were now covered with tattered memos, stuck there with fish glue normally used to parcel up newspapers for distribution. Around the perimeter of the room were in-built desks, with hardboard tops. Telephone wires trailed across them and the floor.
Among his peers Charles Levitt was regarded as a no-nonsense journalist, a tough taskmaster who knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. His enthusiasm for the job was undeniable and unshakeable. Today, as always, he wore his trademark yellow pullover and brown suede shoes, now resting on the desktop as he tilted back in his chair and considered the stock market prices.
There were two other people in the room with him, one a young reporter assigned lunch duty, which meant a hour of making routine telephone calls to the emergency services, and an older, balding man who occupied the desk at the far end to Levitt’s
Smoking on the pipe which never seemed to leave his mouth from the moment he entered the office, the floor around his chair was littered with spent matches. Glasses perched on the end of his nose, he tilted his head back to study what he was writing on the battered Royal typewriter. He was Ernest “Tim” Underwood the paper’s chief reporter and its fishing correspondent.
The calm was broken by the shrilling of telephone extension 40. Swiftly he unhooked it, greeted the caller and began to make rapid shorthand notes on a scrap of copy paper.
.
The call over he rose and walked the length of the room to the newsdesk. What he told Charles Levitt soon had the news editor back in action.
Thirty minutes later the Mail’s second edition was on the streets. It carried a story which bore the headline: “Not heard of for 11 days. Hunt for silent Hull Trawler. It was a carefully constructed piece, written with the greatest care so as not to cause undue alarm.
It said: “All ships and aircraft were this afternoon alerted to keep watch in the North Sea for a Hull trawler which has not been heard of for 11 days. The 600 tons St Romanus was last reported seen off the Lofoten Islands on January 13 by another Hull trawler, the St Matthew.
“While the trawler’s silence is officially regarded as no more than a radio failure, a full-scale air and sea search has begun.
And from Mr Jonathan Watson Hall, a director of the owning company came a statement saying there was no need for anxiety. It was, he said a routine precaution to send a message to shipping after they were unable to make contact.
The vessel had been sighted by another Hull trawler, the St Matthew, as she fished off the Lofoten Islands at 11.15 pm on January 15.
The Mail used the report on Page One. Charles Levitt put a note onto the reporters’ daily diary for a follow- up story the next day.



January 24, 1968, HM Coastguard Station, Wick
FROM C.G ABERDEEN TO C.G. WICK. WICK PRIORITY PASS WICK RADIO, D.O.S KIRKWALL, LERWICK AND WICK. FOLLOWING RECEIVED FROM C.G.CROMER. FOLLOWING RECEIVED FROM D.O. FLAMBOROUGH. PLEASE BROADCAST THE FOLLOWING TO ALL SHIPS, BEGINS PAN. INFORMATION IS REQUESTED OF STEAM TRAWLER ST ROMANUS REF NO H 223. DESCRIPTION BLACK HULL WITH NARROW YELLOW BAND, BROWN GRAINED SUPERSTRUCTURE, TWO MASTS, BLACK FUNNEL WITH WIDE RED BAND. LAST HEARD OF LOFOTEN ISLAND JANUARY 13. ANY INFORMATION TO WICK RADIO FOR C.G.CROMER = 231145z.

In the Wick Lookout Coastguard Henderson picked up the message, studied it and then paused to consider what he had read before acknowledging it. At the time neither he, nor anyone else, had any inclination of what it heralded - the beginning of a number of searches which would have a chain reaction across the northern seas as the days went by. That message was to prove the start of what coastguards would later say was the one of the most intensive and exhaustive searches ever carried out by the North Scotland Division of the service. It was also to be a reminder of a signal received by the service three years earlier, in January 1965 telling of the disappearance of an Aberdeen trawler, the Blue Crusader, which was last seen off the Orkneys.
As the search built up for St Romanus many began to seriously consider the implications and the definite similarities to that earlier tragedy. To begin with neither vessel had been heard of by its owners for 10 days before any marine lifesaving organisation had been informed.
And both incidents had happened in January, notorious as the worst month for weather conditions in northern waters,
The Pan - a coding which indicates a signal that must be regarded as urgent - was broadcast not only by Wick, Bodo Radio in Northern Norway and Reykjavik, Iceland. In Russia, too, there was concern, with Murmansk radio being requested to ask the Soviet fleet fishing in the Barents Sea to keep a look-out for St Romanus.
And in England the BBC played its part, playing a message during one of its routine shipping weather forecasts at 2pm on the Light Programme of Thursday, January 25. It was to no avail.

To the families of trawlermen death and injury at sea were no strangers. The long and anxious wait for news of loved ones was something with which the fishing industry had lived for generations. Homes across Hull had known the heartache when a knock on the door brought the news that a vessel had been in trouble, that a man had been swept overboard, that a crew had vanished without trace.
So it was with St Romanus.
As the city went to sleep that night in 20 homes there was only the agony of suspense.
Among her crew were two brothers, both in their twenties. One man was the father of seven and another had four children.
There was a 16 year-old boy aboard her, sailing as deckie learner and his father put into words what the entire fishing industry was thinking: “We are living on hopes. The waiting is terrible. All we can do is pray that everything will be all right.” His son, he said, was “mad keen” on fishing.
One young mother of two was only 17 years-old. She said of her husband had not wanted to make the trip. “But we were buying our own house - we got it last week -and he went to get the money for furniture.”
And the waiting went on…and on…



Hull, January 25, 1968
The rules were clearly laid down. Trawlers at sea should report each day their position and give details of their catch.
It did not happen that way with St Romanus.
For she did not report at all.
As tension built up in twenty Hull homes concern mounted on St Andrew’s dock in the offices of Thomas Hamling and Co. But still the firm clung on to the hope that all, was well
In fact, twelve days after the vessel left the owners were still maintaining an optimistic stance. After asking all shipping to keep a routine look-out for the vessel a statement from them said: “Until about February 2, when the St Romanus is due home, she will be within the limits of a normal voyage. About then we should start to worry, but until then we do not think there is any cause for anxiety.”
The company’s policy was also clearly laid down on another issue - that of radio operators being carried aboard its vessels.. It was the habit of the owners to provide on their vessels wherever possible, a man qualified as a radio operator. When St Romanus sailed no such officer was available to sail with her and in accordance with agreements with trade unions an extra deckhand was carried instead. The radio would be the responsibility of the skipper who had a radio telephone certificate awarded to him two years earlier after an examination by Board of Trade radio surveyors.
Two days after she sailed Hamlings sent a message to her in the form of a telegram via Wick radio asking Skipper Wheeldon to report her position.
What no-one had any idea of at that time was that she had probably already vanished.
For four days Wick radio continued to call, but to no avail. And the owners hung on and waited, unaware of one vital piece of information - that a liferaft had been found.
In fact no-one at that time appreciated that the raft was from St Romanus. It had been discovered fully inflated and was discovered on January 13 by a Danish fishing vessel. But it was not reported to the vessel’s base in Esbjerg until January 20. The only other evidence that St Romanus had sunk came on February 21 when a lifebuoy from the vessel was found on a beach near Hirshals in the north of Denmark.

The North Sea off the Lofoten Islands, January 26, 1968
Below them, the waves,
The lone Shackleton aircraft from No 120 Squadron flew low as its wound its way back to Ballykelly.
Its crew were tired, after hours of fruitlessly searching a vast area of empty sea. In a radio message to the nerve centre of the search headquarters at Pitreavie Castle in Scotland the aircraft’s pilot radioed the terse message: “Nothing to report.”
Other aircraft, too, became involved. Planes from Icelandair, Scandinavian Airlines and others were given a full description of the missing trawler with instructions to report any vessel resembling it. They saw nothing.
On the surface, buffeted by high winds, a flotilla of ships scoured mile after mile of emptiness. Led by the fisheries protection frigate HMS Grafton warships of the Norwegian Navy, fishing vessels and aircraft scoured up to 2,800 square miles of sea a day. Their efforts proved fruitless.
So, too, did continued attempts to call the missing vessel on radio.
The search by now included at least 20 British trawlers, Norwegian fishing boats and amphibious aircraft from the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
And still there was nothing.
In Hull the fishing industry’s welfare officer, Mr Claude Weissenbourne, and Superintendent David MacMillan of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea fishermen went from house to house telling the crew’s families what was known.
And a spokesman for the owners said: “We are assuming nothing as a result of finding the liferaft. The search for the ship goes on.”
It was, said one coastguard, “like looking for a matchstick in a pond.”
At the fishermen’s Mission in Hull prayers were said as the search continued. But time was ticking quickly away…
The Hull Daily Mail Newsroom, January 29, 1968
Bob Wellings had been the paper’s shipping correspondent for more years than he cared to remember. It was a job he loved and one which earned him respect and praise from all sectors of that industry.
He lit a Senior Service and perused the somewhat dull columns of the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List before pulling on a yellow and ageing telephone headset and starting to make his daily calls for the latest developments in the hunt for the missing vessel.
It was becoming a regular routine and one which had to be completed by 10.45am at the latest, giving him just enough time to write a story for the first edition for he was a fast writer, and an accurate one.
As he moved down his list of contacts connected with St Romanus - all written inside the cover of a battered brown file - he spoke, among others, to Jack Ashwell, a local official of the Transport and General Workers Union, which had a branch for fishermen, although they were difficult men to organise having a job which was regarded as casual and therefore rather insecure, and were never at home long enough to find time for union matters.
It turned out to be a conversation that not only made the Mail’s front page that night, but one which was to have considerable impact in shaping events which were to follow.
As Wellings made his calls Hull North MP Kevin McNamara was reading the morning papers as his train pulled into London’s King’s Cross Station. McNamara was a member of the T and G and had been well briefed by them. He had also spoken to the relatives of five St Romanus crewmen who lived in his constituency. As a result he had points to make and questions to ask - if he could arrive at the Commons in time to table them for emergency answer that day.
As McNamara neared London and Wellings began to write his story, high above the turbulent waters of the North Sea United States fighters and reconnaissance aircraft were joining the hunt for St Romanus. On the sea ships of several nations combed a vast area of sea. And still they found nothing
Ashwell and McNamara wanted an investigation into several key points:
1..Why was there delay in reporting the discovery of a liferaft until several days after its had been found?
2. Why the alarm was not raised earlier in Hull.
3. Whether it was true that a wireless operator refused to serve in the vessel, as had been claimed by the Hull district secretary of the radio operators’ union. Men were said to dislike the vessel - and other similar trawlers built for Belgian owners - because the chartroom, radio equipment and operator’s berth were all in one , which prevented the operator, who worked up to 17 hours a day, actually getting any sleep. It had been raised with trawler owners, but so far nothing had been done to tackle the problem.
4. Why it took 10 days to discover that an alleged radio message from St Romanus was picked up off Iceland by Vikingur 111.
5. Why there was delay in reporting of the distress signal on January 12 and why it did not arrive until the previous week.
That afternoon Mr J P Mallalieu, Minister of State at the Board of Trade, told the Commons: “We shall certainly have an investigation the moment that, unhappily, we are forced to assume the vessel is lost.”
Back in Hull Mr Watson-Hall put the finishing touches to a letter which was sent to every family who had a man aboard the missing vessel.
It said: “Her safety cannot be ruled out, but chances of finding her are now very slight.”
The letter mentioned “fading hopes of better news and added: “The search continues, but the prospect of finding any survivors is now so remote that we cannot encourage you with hope…We are deeply distressed over the appalling loss of life caused by this unexplained tragedy to a well found ship, and wish to send you our heartfelt sympathy in your anxiety…”
Four days later came the news that the families of men aboard St Romanus had dreaded.
A knock on the door brought them face to face with Mr McMillan who told them that there was now no hope at all. The vessel must be considered lost.
It was the day she should have returned home.


The Skagagrunn, North Iceland, January 26
The weather was bad - and getting worse. The Kingston Peridot rolled and pitched as she sailed head-on into a biting wind. As the day progressed so the gale increased. From force six it mounted relentlessly in its ferocity, increasing to force nine.
Earlier, as a bleak dawn cracked through the heavy banks of cloud to bring the cheerless daytime twilight of northern waters Skipper Wilson ordered the trawl to be shot at about 7am, but the brake on the winch slacked off thirteen lengths - all the warp - and had to be hauled.
Such was the situation almost four hours later when Skipper Wilson spoke to his friend and fellow skipper Bill Ward, of the Kingston Sardius which was fishing on Iceland’s north east coast…

Affidavit of Skipper William Ward, Kingston Sardius.
“The fact that Skipper Wilson was stowing the trawl below indicated that the weather was bad and he expected worse, as he also said to me that he intended to steam towards me and fish again. One would not normally stow the trawl below when intending to fish again within the next twenty-four hours.
“He also informed me he would have to chop ice before he steamed. It was about 11.10 when I finished speaking to him and my understanding then was that he intended to chop ice for a couple of hours and then steam towards me.
“At about 1900 my radio operator picked up a routine telegram destined for the Kingston Peridot in the Wick traffic list. About 19.45 I told my operator to call the Kingston Peridot and pass the message to him. “The radio operator and myself called him continually from 19.45 to 20.30, but could not raise him and at intervals through the night until 11.45 on the 27th the operator called him, but was still unable to raise him..”
“I was on the bridge all night looking after my ship in the now heavy weather. I was not too happy about having been unable to raise Kingston Peridot, particularly as he had said he would contact me when he got nearer and the weather conditions were bad.
“At 08.00 on the 27th I told the radio operator to try again but our aerials were iced up and we were not getting much of a reading…”
Together with another vessel, the Boston Weelsby Skipper Ward continued to call the Kingston Peridot throughout the following day, but without success. At about 1300 hours on January 28 he received a message from the owners addressed to all their vessels in the area telling them to keep a lookout for the Kingston Peridot. Nothing was seen or heard.

Hessle Road, Hull, January 29
She was, reported one columnist, “a tough, tenacious battleaxe, a cannon of a woman.”
It may have reflected the public view of Lilian Bilocca. The private side was somewhat different.
Certainly she was as down to earth as any other Hessle-Roader, and definitely not afraid to speak her mind. Yet behind the often aggressive facade of this 17 stone Amazon lay a soft centre.
With a 21 year-old son - Ernie - in trawlers and husband Charlie a merchant seaman Lil knew as much as anyone about the hazards of going to sea and the waiting and hoping that all too often came with it for those who remained on shore. Fishing was not an occupation she would have wished her son to undertake. And she also worried about her daughter Virginia. “If she marries a trawlerman, it’ll break my heart,” she told friends.
The drama of the St Romanus played on her mind as she worked in a Hessle Road fish factory where the gravity of the situation had a calming effect on the usually noisy workers. As she thought more and more about it there developed something else, the stirring of anger that fishermen were generally treated badly, had little formal representation, and a job which was never secure, as they were regarded as casual workers. And it was work which put them face to face with some of the worst weather in the world, an occupation which had the highest death and accident rate of any other. If they would not fight for themselves, she reasoned, then someone else would have to.
Armed with a few sheets of paper, a pen and great deal of determination Lilian Bilocca went to “war” against some of the most powerful names in the fishing industry. It was to make her and those who supported her national figures.

The word spread rapidly. Information was at a premium. Newspapers were bought, read, re-read and then read again before being passed on. Truth became embellished as gossip fuelled new stories. Two vessels missing. Thoughts turned back to the loss of the Lorella and Roderigo. Hessle Road remembered. And prayed.

Hessle Road WAS the Hull fishing industry. As one grew so did the other. The four mile stretch which linked Hull with Hessle, a country lane in the mid 19th century, was, 100 years later, one of the most densely populated areas of the city. And then, as now it was strictly working class and proud of the fact. What it has lacked in architectural style it has gained in humanity.
A hundred years earlier builders had embarked on an orgy of house building to cater for the growing number of workers who sailed the fast growing trawler fleet or were employed in the shore based industries which kept vessels at sea and processed their catches. Hessle Road was built on fish.
In the early days of fishing from Hull smack owners used Albert Dock, but even after its expansion into William Wright Dock in 1880 it proved too small to cater for the growing number of vessels, one problem being that the smacks were forced to share berthing facilities with merchant vessels. The need for a proper fish dock was great. As a result St Andrew’s Dock opened to in 1883 and was extended just four years later. The fishing industry had at last a proper home of its own.
With this came a wave of development. Railways, fishing, dock work, all required labour. Hessle Road provided it, becoming one of busiest thoroughfares in Hull. It was later to be described as “a village within a city”. It remained an apt description.
It was that closeness, that shared anxiety, which helped fuel a campaign which was to attract nationwide attention. It was triggered when Lilian Bilocca took her pad and pen along Hessle Road on a cold and busy Friday afternoon. Her aim - to take to trawler owners the views of the fishing community and others on safety measures for men at sea. In particular she was concerned that the St Romanus had sailed without a radio operator. There was nothing illegal in that, for the skipper was adequately qualified to handle all communications. But in her view this was just not good enough. Others soon began to see her point. The scene was set for one of the most remarkable campaigns in British industrial history.

The Icelandic coast, January 26-29, 1968
The message went out just after mid-day on January 26 via Wick Radio to three trawlers from the Hellyer Brothers fleet warning them not to return to Hull for Friday’s market as the previous two Fridays had seen a strike by bobbers and there was reason to believe the same thing may happen again. Two vessels received the message but Wick Radio failed to clear that destined for Kingston Peridot.
The following day, at about the same time, the radio operator on the Kingston Sardius attempted to contact the Peridot but failed. At 1100 hours the skipper sent via Wick Radio a telegram to the owners reporting his position and telling them that weather conditions were worsening. The wind was northerly and it was freezing hard.
And as the hours passed conditions grew worse and worse. In the area around Grimsey Island where the Peridot had been fishing the storms were said to be the worst for 13 years.
It was a message timed 5.20pm on January 30 from Lloyd’s agent in Reykjavik which produced the first real clue that something had gone seriously wrong. He reported to the Mutual Insurance Society in Hull that reports in local newspapers were telling of a heavy oil slick in Axafjordar and that a partially deflated liferaft had been found and identified as belonging to the missing vessel.
Immediately a search was mounted by the National Lifesaving Association of Iceland under its superintendent, Mr Hannes Hafstein. A land search was complemented by the use of small craft and a coastguard vessel and later by a Shackleton aircraft from Kinloss. And as the search continued with the volunteer Icelandic force battling against appalling weather, more evidence came to light. Three lifebuoys marked Kingston Peridot were found, as were two containers with signal flares, hatch planks, a port side lantern and trawl bobbin.
And three months later, on April 22 came further proof that the vessel had foundered when the Icelandic trawler Saethor discovered a ventilator cowl in her net. Experts were later to assert that they were certain that the cowl came from the Kingston Peridot.



The Ross Cleveland, Northern Iceland, January 29, 1968
It was not going well.
From the start the trip had been difficult for both trawler and men. Skipper Phil Gay, an experienced and competent seaman with a good track record had not found the going at all easy.
First there was the weather. He had sailed for the north eastern coast of Iceland, beginning fishing on January 25, but was forced to stop when the weather became unfavourable. Moving across the top of the island the vessel next began fishing off the north west corner of Iceland. Again the weather proved a major problem. Fishing ceased.
Skipper Gay faced another dilemma, too. His cook, Bill Howbrigg was unwell, and apparently growing steadily worse. Difficulties with his breathing became ever more acute, and with pneumonia the most likely diagnosis there was no alternative but to head into Reykjavik to put him ashore.


The Hull Daily Mail Newsroom
The list had just 19 names and addresses. They were those of the skipper and crew of the St Romanus. It was a moment those involved in covering the trawler story had dreaded. It was time to visit and interview relatives of men who must now be presumed missing and most likely dead.
Popular mythology paints the journalist as a hard nosed, interfering, foot in the door merchant who will do anything for a story and to hell with the consequences.
That is a fallacy.
Charles Levitt knew it only too well as he carefully studied the single sheet of paper in his hand and pondered who should call on whom. It was not an easy task.
His choice of reporters made, Levitt summoned them to the newsdesk and gave his orders.
There was to be no pestering relatives. No pushing people into giving statements against their will. Reporters were to politely ask for an interview and a photograph of crewmen from the vessel. If families wanted to give them, then fine. If not, then that was that.
Three reporters were despatched. Each was in no doubt as to what was wanted, or to what the approach should be…


Stuart Russell, recalls an assignment for the Hull Daily Mail, January 1968
There is no doubt that this was the most difficult day we had yet faced. It’s one thing asking trawler firms, union men and dock workers for their comments. It’s another thing entirely coming face to face with people who may - or may not - have been bereaved.
Strangely it was to prove much easier than I at least would have even guessed.
Trawler families knew we would call. One or two even rang the office to ask when we were going round. It was part of the process, a few paragraphs and a picture in the paper was expected. It was part of coming to terms with the tragedy of it all. But even when we were welcomed into homes it was still never easy.
People would have photographs waiting for us, they would select the one they liked the best and ask us to use that one. We usually did, providing it was of good enough quality to print.
Once we had used the picture it was kept in the office safe until it was returned. It was all too easy for a passport sized photograph to get lost and we all dreaded that happening.
People were very good, extremely brave and composed. You felt as if you were intruding at times, but they never berated you for that, they accepted you were there to do your job and they were usually willing to co-operate. Along with my colleague Derek Hilton, who also worked on the Mail, I knocked on many doors in that period and was always well received. But it was never easy. It was something you did because you were told to. You wouldn’t have done it out of choice.”


Victoria Hall, Hessle Road, Hull, February 3, 1968.
Collecting signatures on a petition was one thing. Forcing people in authority to listen and then act was another. Lilian Bilocca decided it was time for action and set about creating it.
The venue was Victoria Hall, a decaying, gloomy relic of better days tucked away off an alley which ran between a shop and St Barnabas Church. On a miserable Friday afternoon an estimated six hundred people, most of them women, packed into this cold and musty building. Harsh unshaded light bounced off green and cream walls, Children scampered around the peripheral of the crowd. Babies in prams squealed for attention, dogs raced through the forest of legs. At the front, directly in front of the stage the Press corps assembled, by now more than 30 strong. Fishing was becoming national news.
A white coated Mrs Bilocca called the meeting to order. She was their leader and she told them straight what she thought and what they should do. It was an impressive performance.
“Right, lasses, we’re here to talk about what we’re going to do after the losses of these trawlers. I don’t want any of you effin’ and blindin’. Remember the Press and TV are here. We want an orderly meeting…”
She was prepared to go to jail if it would help win better and safer conditions for men on trawlers. “I intend to see Harold Wilson (then Prime Minister) next week and I won’t come back until I have seen him,” she bellowed. It met with mass approval.
Many others wanted their say, too. Among them was the father of a young trawlerman lost on the St Romanus, who accused vessel owners of thinking only of “fat profits” and not of their crews.
For one man there was a loud cheer as he stepped onto the stage to tell the meeting that his union - the National Union of Seamen - supported them all the way in their fight against trawler owners who were “in the same mould” as ship owners. John Prescott, later to become MP for East Hull and 29 years later, Deputy Prime Minister added: “For too long the seamen have been second rate citizens.”
There was sympathy from James Johnson, MP for West Hull, whose constituency included the fish dock and who admitted to being “intensely shocked” at the losses.
As speaker after speaker took to the stage came cries of “march on the dock. Let the owners have it.” In the highly charged atmosphere it reflected exactly what most thought must happen.
They filed out within minutes, angry, emotional and determined and united. More than half the audience, a crocodile of pram pushing shouting women and bawling children marched along Hessle Road, down West Dock Street and under the subway onto St Andrew’s Dock. Anxious dock police made a vain attempt to halt the march, which swept past and on to the offices of Hull Steam Trawlers Mutual Insurance Company, Mrs Bilocca entering to demand a meeting with owners of the missing vessels.
After some discussion it was agreed a deputation could go in. Accompanied by fellow campaigners Mrs Rose Cooper and Mrs Mavis Wilkinson, Mrs Bilocca presented a six point safety charter in a 50 minute meeting - but not with the men they wanted to see. They had declined the opportunity to attend. Instead the demands were made to Michael Burton, chairman of the Hull Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Mr Lionel Cox, its secretary, and Rear Admiral John Ievers, manager of the insurance company..
White coated Mrs Bilocca came out unimpressed. “There’s only one way to make these people meet us and hear our case and that’s by taking action,” she declared to the waiting crowd. A few hours later she was to put those words into practice.


Victoria Hall, Hessle Road, Hull February 2 1968
The initial fury had died down. On a cheerless evening a second meeting began to discuss the response of trawler owners. And new faces began to come to the fore.
One of those involved was not unused to being in the limelight. She was Yvonne Marie Blenkinsop, a pretty 28 year-old cabaret singer in Hull clubland and mother of three who went onto a very different kind of stage and delivered a stinging attack on the dangers which she said beset the men of the Hull fishing fleet. Yvonne knew only too well the anguish which faced many of her audience of 200 trawlermen’s wives and girlfriends. Only four years before she had been in a similar position when her father, himself a fisherman, was lost at sea.
In the harsh lights of the damp and dingy hall, many of those present stamping their feet in a vain attempt to keep warm, Yvonne Marie - her stage name in clubland - gave a stirring performance, urging the women of Hull to taken their fight to the Prime Minister if necessary. As for going to sea - non-one would make her do, not for a million pounds a week. “Our men are fools with hearts of gold to do it,” she said. It was a sentiment which was well received.
Also speaking that night was 30 year-old Mary Denness, whose husband was sailing as mate on the Grimsby trawler Ross Vanguard. She was angry, too, and urged united action, condemning as “wrong” the entire system of trawling.. She urged that the time a man had to serve on deck before being allowed to take his ticket should be lengthened to improve his experience.
Honest and open as the women were other people in the room were there to further ends which were far removed from the fishermen’s case.
Politically motivated elements were creeping into the whole affair - and among them came the views of a Hull university lecturer who lashed out at the whole business of trawling, describing the vessels as “coffins” sent out despite the dangers “because a lot of profit is involved.”
Politics, however were most certainly not in the heart or mind of Robert Dockerty that night. He was the father of 16 year-old Robert Dockerty of the St Romanus. And he bitterly criticised the Royal Navy which had only short time earlier turned out in force to search for a missing French submarine.
“But they never looked for my lad…he was just a mere tool. I loved my boy and he loved the sea,” he said.
On that sobering thought the meeting dispersed, but its impact was to turn into dramatic action just a few hours later.


St Andrew’s Dock, Hull, February 3, 1968.
Huddled in a draughty doorway in a vain attempt to keep warm the reporters waited, tired, cold and hungry. The night was black and bitter with snow flurries sweeping across the vastness of he dock on which the trawlers rocked gently straining at their moorings. The lights reflected on the icy pavements the silence almost eerie as the long hours ticked by.
Some crewmen arrived early to board their vessels, due to sail shortly after dawn. One, carried crates with bottles of ale, dropping two of them as he stumbled up the plank and onto his boat. Cursing he probed the black waters with a boat hook, but to no avail.
In this dank and cheerless place there was no shelter, nowhere to find a drink or sandwich. The reporters shivered and cursed. It was, as they had feared, becoming a long night.
The reason for their vigil lay several hours back, shortly after the meeting in the Victoria Hall broke up and Lilian Bilocca and her supporters announced that they would be on the dock “first thing” to stop any more vessels leaving. It was all they could do and they were determined to do it.
Night slowly became day, the grey dawn of early February shrugging its way through thick cloud. And the waiting went on. On any weekday morning he dock would have been bustling with activity from the early hours. It was different at the weekend. There was no fish market, the offices of trawler owners and other business were closed. The dock was calm and peaceful, its customary noise silenced. Even the infamous Lollipop Shop, with its range of “top shelf” magazines was closed. There was no business on a Saturday.
But this particular weekend there was activity of a different kind. At the lockhead they began to gather, a handful of women, a battalion of reporters and photographers, hangers-on and police. As the trawler St Keverne inched its way through and into the Humber the resentment and anger spilled into dramatic action.
With Lilian Bilocca were other campaigners equally determined to prevent vessels from going to sea and to highlight the dangers which faced fishermen. They included Mrs Rose Cooper and Mrs Mary Pye whose husband Herbert was on the St Romanus. And that same day one of Mrs Pye’s five sons - Albert - was due to sail from Hull as mate on the Ross Aquila.
Confrontation came when Mrs Bilocca demanded to know if the St Keverne was carrying a radio operator. Crewmen told her she was not. Grimly determined she attempted to stop the vessel leaving, desperately trying to jump onto its deck, but being restrained by police. As the vessel cleared the lockhead women shouted and screamed in a futile bid to stop her going down the Humber. It was to no avail, but it had helped hammer home their point. Yet there was a touch of disappointment as Mrs Bilocca gave her comments to the assembled Press. Many more women had promised to be present when they had met the night before, but only a handful had turned out. It was, nevertheless, a performance which grabbed attention. National newspapers, radio and television began to look closer into the problems facing fishermen at sea. And one Sunday tabloid reporter came up with a new name for Mrs Bilocca - Big Lil.

As the women’s protest was played out at the lockhead, another, quieter, but equally determined, demonstration was taking place nearby. Among the lines of moored trawlers one should have sailed on that morning’s tide. She was the St Andronicus, a sister vessel to St Romanus. But as preparations were being made to for her to leave came confrontation. The crew refused to sail her…

It began over the state of the lifejackets. True, the vessel carried them, enough to cater for every man. The trouble was, according to the crew, they were just not good enough. The problem had started 24 hours earlier when similar complaints were lodged. The vessel failed to make that day’s tide.
On St Andronicus men demanded that union officials look into their complaints. They would sail only when their representatives were convinced that the lifejackets carried were of the type approved by the Board of Trade.
The controversy fuelled an already heated situation. But much worse was still to come


Isafjordur, Iceland, Sunday, February 4, 1968
They had sought shelter 24 hours earlier after receiving a weather forecast which gave no room for argument or discussion. Things were looking distinctly bad. The high cliffs on either side of the deeply cut fjord should have offered good protection. As the gales whipped up to hurricane force, blizzards raking across the turbulent water they dodged into teeth of the wind. And waited.
Not only the Ross Cleveland had run for shelter. Several other vessels from Hull and Grimsby were there, too. Fishing was suspended. The winds shrieked through the rigging, snow lashed across decks which were becoming thicker and thicker with ice and men worked feverishly to clear it, sweating with physical effort despite the intense cold..
Some of the vessels in the sheltering fleet were probably in a better position than others,. They had arrived earlier than the rest of the pack and had managed to lay up in some of the smaller fjords which adjoined the main waterway. But some, because of a lack of room in which to anchor and seek shelter, were compelled to lay and dodge in the main fjord, as Ross Cleveland had done. There was nothing else to do.
And the weather grew worse.
The trawler fleet was receiving reports four times a day in Morse code from the Icelandic Meteorological Service. For vessels which had no radio operator a radio telephone service was available and frequently used by British trawlers for getting a reliable and regular service from Reykjavik.
And still the weather grew worse.
Chopping the ice became impossible, for crews could not operate in conditions which were by now said to be the worst in three decades.
Skipper Len Whur, then in command of the Kingston Andalusite, was among those weathering the storm. He said later he had never known trawlers ice up as badly. One or two were in such a critical condition that their crews had to heave their gear overboard to clear the deck as the ice was level with the rails and casing.
He had seen ice before on many occasions, forming in even a force four wind. But this was the worst he had ever encountered. He was to say later: “I have never seen ships in the state they were in Isafjord in the icy conditions at that time…I have fished in the same ship in force seven and eight winds and taken water and never heeled over like we did in those conditions.”
On shore, Icelanders who dared to venture from their homes were unable to stand in the gales which were by now at hurricane force - 120mph - and were forced to crawl. Houses became covered with ice 40-50 centimetres thick. A radio beacon, wireless aerials, power lines and telephone lines crashed to earth as the storm reached its peak, covering fence posts with 23 centimetres of ice. And with it came more blizzards, sweeping down from the north-north east. The seas were mountainous, even in the fjord, the surf lashing the shoreline and bringing with it haddock, catfish and shellfish, the first time this had been known to happen since February 7 and 8, 1925.



The Ross Cleveland, Isafjord, Iceland, February 4, 1968
On the rails the ice built up relentlessly. On the decks, the hatches and the bridge the blizzards deposited an ever thickening carpet of white. The wind screamed as it tore down the fjord, whipping the waters into creamy foam.
And men fought a desperate battle to save their ship.
Mate Harry Eddom was later to recall: “We used axes to get it off and were kicking it off. We had to use axes to break it off the ship’s sides. There is no specified equipment. There are axes, battens from the ice room, big spanners…anything that will knock ice off.”
All day they fought to chop the ice, splitting into teams of two men on the whaleback, two on the winches and two working down the sides. Ice re-formed as quickly as it was chipped off
And the battle went on. and on…
A continual problem for Skipper Gay as he fought to keep the vessel on a steady course, dodging into the gale was that of ice on the radar scanner. Even when men had to leave the deck because conditions were too bad to work it was vital to have the radar functioning. Eddom was dressed to carry out the task, wearing long cotton underpants, but no vest, a khaki shirt, moleskin trousers, thick jersey knee length stockings, a “duck” suit of plastic material consisting of trousers and smock -type cover made for him and Dunlop thigh boots. It was to prove sufficient to save his life.
When the end came it was swift, decisive and dramatic. There was no warning, Communications were severely limited. Despite the fact that other vessels were within a short distance no-one could do anything. The Ross Cleveland died alone, but in the company of friends.
At about 2330 hours the Kingston Andalusite which was two cables to starboard was asked to pass information obtained from her radar to the Ross Cleveland.
The Ross Cleveland had just ten minutes to live.

From the report of the inquiry into the loss of Ross Cleveland, concerning events in Isafjord on Thursday, January 30, 1969…
“Just as the Ross Cleveland’s radar had got into operation again, the Ross Cleveland and the Kingston Andalusite which had been laid with the wind on her starboard side, determined to get head to wind and dodge across to the eastern side of the fjord in order to avoid being set aground on the western side. With her wheel hard a starboard and with engines working at half speed ahead the skipper of the Ross Cleveland endeavoured to bring his vessel head into the wind. She, however, failed to respond. The engines were rung at full speed ahead and the Ross Cleveland heeled over to port and lay on her port side, capsized and sank in a position some three miles off Arnanes Light…”

On the Kingston Andalusite Skipper Whur looked on in horror as the blip on the radar screen vanished.
Second before, across a quarter of a mile of hurricane lashed water came the final dramatic message from the stricken vessel. He had shouted into radio a desperate message: “Keep her going full speed, Phil and keep up with me..
“I was going full speed ahead to the wind and keeping radar watch for the Cleveland and myself as we were going to dodge before we laid. Then Phil shouted “Help us Len, she’s going” and we stood looking out of the bridge window and watched him. We saw his lights and the horizontal lights on the bridge went vertical and all of a sudden they were out. I looked on the radar and saw no echo whatever on the port beam. We called Ross Cleveland several times on VHF and hot no reply whatever. We saw the ship turn over and lost her on our radar screen.”
A short time later the news was relayed to trawler owner Charles Hudson at his home near Hull. He poured himself a large brandy and prepared for a long night.
In the streets of Hull the last stragglers from the clubs and pubs picked their way home on frosty streets. The city was cold, silent and still.
And in the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen David MacMillan prepared to go knocking on doors across the city…

Isafjord, Iceland, February 5, 1968
It took just seconds - some said as few as seven, others estimated 30 - for Ross Cleveland to die vanishing from the radar screens of other vessels which tried in vain to contact her. And as she died three began a battle to survive.
Harry Eddom was to later say he had no recollection of how he reached the raft which was to play such a crucial role in what was to prove one of the most remarkable stories ever to come out of the British fishing fleet. It was a question raised at the official hearing into the Ross Cleveland’s loss. The report signed by Judge J.V.Naisby and wreck assessors R.A.Beattie and W.F.Wright recorded events as seen by the inquiry: “The mate, who stated that he was in the starboard side of the wheelhouse, said that the vessel heeled over to port and that he was able to get our of the starboard door and climbed aft along the casing where he saw two members of the crew in the process of launching one of the inflatable liferafts…”
And according to a memorandum by Sub Lt H.J.Matthews RN, Surg Cmdr E.E.Mackay RN and Surg Cmdr J.F.Ryan RN who later interviewed Eddom at the Equipment and Survival Training School at Seafield Park: “When the trawler heeled over, Eddom followed the third hand out of he bridge and over the side. As he went over, Eddom noted that one of the liferafts was inflating. He has no recollection of how he reached it as his next memory is of being inside the liferaft. There was no head injury or other explanation for his amnesia…”



The Coastguard Station, Wick, Monday, February 5,1968
It was a quiet morning after an equally quiet night. The watch had little to report. Things were normal.
It was at precisely seven minutes past six as the darkness of night still refused to give way to the greyness of a damp and depressing winter morning the message came from the Flamborough station. It was short, stark and dramatic: “HULL TRAWLER ROSS CLEVELAND REPORTED THREE MILES OFF ARDENES IN ISAFJORD DEEPS, ICELAND, DISAPPEARED OFF RADAR SCREEN AT 000 HOURS. BLOWING FULL GALE.”
The report had originated from the Icelandic Coastguard vessel Odinn and from trawlers in the vicinity of Isafjord. And it triggered a spate of messages, said by one coastguard to have been received “with frightening rapidity.”


The Hull Daily Mail Monday, February 5, 1968
Pandora’s Box was full and for the reporters that meant a less than inspiring start to the week.
The box, a battered grey file, had received its name years before. It contained news cuttings, invitations and documentation which required working on that day. It was, some wag had maintained, the container of all evil. On a grey and miserable Monday it was a fitting description.
As the newsroom began to fill with people, its musty atmosphere quickly becoming heavy with smoke, Charles Levitt gave instructions to the reporters covering the trawler tragedy. It was to be a busy day, he said. There were likely to be more problems with crews refusing to sail. Mrs Bilocca and other women’s leaders had a meeting arranged with trawler owners. Checks were needed with politicians and union officials regarding the mounting campaign for increased safety at sea. There was a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.
As the reporters began to shrug off the effects of the weekend and prepare to meet the challenges of a new week in the adjoining room sub editor Peter Moore carefully thumbed his way through a pile of overnight copy and began to make decisions on what stories should go where in that evening’s edition.
It was a task to which he was no stranger, but today it had assumed greater importance. Recent promotion had seen him appointed deputy chief sub editor and as he stood in for his superior who normally ran the department, this was his first time in control of the paper’s production. Even so, when Charles Levitt barged through the door, tie slackened off, top shirt button undone, and sleeves rolled, his voice tense to announce “another one’s gone” it was received with some degree of scepticism. The sub editors initially looked on in disbelief as Levitt crisply and hurriedly outlined what was thought to have happened. Within minutes the day’s planned pages were scrapped as the paper prepared for a day no-one who worked on the paper would ever forget.

St Andrew’s Dock, Hull, Monday, February 5, 1968

The rumours began to circulate before dawn. By the time Hull went to work the city was buzzing with speculation and gossip.
On the dock a small knot of reporters had gathered outside the offices of Hudson Brothers Trawlers Ltd., They, too, had heard the whispers and told their offices. Reporters in newspaper offices, radio and television stations were putting in calls to northern Iceland, but to no avail. Pressure of demand blocked lines, and some were down because of the storms. The word was that a third Hull trawler had been lost. The stories spread like wildfire, but there was, as yet, no confirmation.
Repeated attempts by the waiting newsmen eventually brought a response from the company. They would not see the whole press pack, just one representative who could then pass information on to the rest. At about 9am veteran Daily Express reporter George Hill was elected as spokesman for the “pack” and made his way through the doors…




Hull Daily Mail Newsroom
Bob Wellings, a heavy smoker carefully arranged the items on his desk, as he prepared to make his morning round of calls. On the left were his tobacco - St Bruno - his cigarettes - Senior Service - and his matches. On the right the file with his contact numbers. He carefully lit a cigarette, picked up the heavy black telephone headset of extension 49 and dialled…
He, too, had heard the rumours. But that was all they were so far - rumours. It took less than five minutes to confirm they were much more than that.

Queen Mary Hostel, Hull, February 5,1968
With a cup of tea in huis hand and still wearing a trademark flat cap despite the warmth of the hostel cook Bill Howbrigg spoken quietly of the ship and the mates he had come to know well, having originally sailed in the latest missing vessel when she was known as Cape Cleveland.
At 59 William Leon Howbrigg was no stranger to the sea and to Icelandic waters in particular. He had, after all, sailed for over 40 years. Now as he sipped hot tea in the hostel which had become his home when ashore - he was unmarried - Howbrigg spoke of his final hours on board. “It was a good ship. Everybody was happy. Skipper Gay was respected by all. Even when I was aboard ice was crippling the ship. All hands had to be constantly on deck chipping huge blocks of ice away with axes, spanners or anything they could lay their hands on. Nobody could sleep. It was a living nightmare.
“Skipper Gay wanted to put me ashore two days earlier than he did on January 26. I carried on working until he told me to rest…”
Before he left Howbrigg performed one final service for his mates - he baked them bread.



The tragedy was all Hull’s. And the nation joined the city in mourning.
The fishing industry was, by tradition, tightly knit, a community on its own which shared it own grief. Now it was joined by tens o-f thousands of others. Hessle Road had never known anything like it.
But for many there was anger alongside the sorrow. Now fifty nine men were dead. The fishing community wanted action and it wanted it as a matter of urgency.
The bereaved and the campaigning found their greatest allies were the hordes of pressmen who now scoured the city. Often reviled they now became the fishermen’s champions. One national newspaper - the Daily Telegraph - summed it up for all:
“Today there were none of the all too familiar groups of relatives huddled around the offices of a trawler company, shivering in the wind and with the emotion of anxiety. Many were wakened by the welfare officer of the Hull Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association who broke the news that nothing short of a miracle would bring their menfolk back. For the remainder it was told over breakfast tables or as orphaned children prepared for school.
“Hessle Road and the Fish Dock have gone about their business with that awesome quiet of a community absorbing the unbelievable and, as so many of them in this city learned to do in the wartime blitz, preparing to carry on. Emotion has driven deep, far too deep for dockside demonstrations. Yet ,most of even these folk, hardened as they are to disaster, gave way to the relief of tears at the news.
“There can scarcely be a single family now, for these fisherfolk have been close knit for generations, which has not been touched by the tragedies of the St Romanus, Kingston Peridot or the Ross Cleveland.
“And yet on the morning tide more trawlers steamed down the river for the fishing grounds, their skippers and crews only too well aware of the hazards, but now perhaps more than ever determined to face them. Their wives and families have had the last two or three days free of the nagging fears which fishermen’s people know. Now they will go back to haunting the radio sets, buying the papers, listening to every whisper in the street, desperately anxious for any news of their menfolk and even more concerned that news shall not be such as that which shattered this city today…”
But words, however pungent, however sympathetic could not disguise the anguish and torment which swept through the fishing community. The loss of one vessel was catastrophic. The loss of three was unimaginable.
As news of the disaster filtered through families and friends mourned men who would never return, among them a bridegroom-to-be, a man said to have “fishing fever,” a boy who had sailed against the wishes of his parents, a man who had promised his wife just before sailing: “I will give it up.
A widow summed it up simply and graphically, reflecting what so many others felt and thought: “When my man came back tired and exhausted he said he would never go back on trawlers. But like all fishermen he could not give up the sea… all the trawlermen complain about conditions and the food, but they always go back. So did my husband. He told me that no-one who has not experienced it for themselves can really know what it is like trawling in the winter. He returned from one trip and told me that one of his mates had an arm torn off in an accident when a giant wave hit the trawler. A long time ago I decided that our two boys were not going to be fishermen…”
And in the churches Hull prayed for its men. In St Wilfrid’s Roman Catholic Church 300 people heard Canon Lindy Hall tell them: “In a world where so much is cheap, false and shoddy, these people are bigger and an inspiration to us all. I think it is a pity the womenfolk have been so often qualified as hysterical and only interested in security for their husbands, brothers, sons and sweethearts. I think it is a pity that a skipper should be classed as callous and the crews looked upon as slap happy and irresponsible. I think it is a pity that the owners should be qualified as interested only in the financial, aspects of fishing. It is unfair because it is so utterly untrue.
“These men are gentlemen in the best sense of the word. These women are worthy of any tribute.
“So many people who do not live here look upon this part of the world as rather uncouth. It is such a pity because there is found here in this fishing community the virtues and values without which no society, whatever it is, can prosper.”

Hull Fish Dock, February 5, 1968.
It was not the best day for a meeting.
But the wives had arranged it and were determined to see it through.
For one in particular it was a harrowing occasion. Mrs Christine Smallbone went to meet Mr Mark Hellyer, director of the owners of the Kingston Peridot alongside Yvonne Blenkinsop, Lilian Bilocca and Mary Denness carrying the terrible shock of knowing that only ten hours previously her brother Phil Gay had gone down with the trawler he commanded.
During the three hour meeting Mrs Smallbone broke down and was taken home.
The meeting discussed and reached broad agreement on three key points:
1. Trawlers must report to their base once every 12 hours and if this was not done all efforts should be made to contact them. After a 24 hour silence search and rescue services should be alerted and wives told of the lack of communication.
2. Vessels must have a pre-trip item by item check on all safety equipment, the list to be signed only when an inspector was satisfied of its effectiveness.
3. The British Government should build at once and commission at least one mother ship for the fishing fleet to act as a hospital and rescue vessel.
Also present at the meeting were Hull TGWU officers David Shenton, Jack Ashwell and Mike Neve.
It ended amicably with Mr Hellyer telling reporters: “There was no bitterness at all. The wives of the fishermen have decided they will get for their menfolk what the unions have been unable to obtain up to now. They do not want strike action or anything like that, but they insist something should be done.”
Mr Bilocca was less diplomatic. As she arrived for the meeting at Hellyers’ offices she told the waiting reporters: “Another one’s gone down…more lads have died.” And with tears running down her face she shouted to fishermen who waited near the office: “Don’t go lads. No-one gives a damn about you.”


Isafjordhur, Iceland, February 5, 1968
As Ross Cleveland vanished from the radar screens another trawler that night began a battle to survive. She was the Grimsby based Notts County and later after an escape some would describe as “miraculous” the crew reflected on the worst hours of their lives which saw their vessel grounded. one man killed, having frozen to death in an upturned liferaft only yards from safety and five others, among them Skipper George Burres, in hospital after a 15 hour ordeal.
Deckhand Frank McGuinness recalled: “Conditions out there were the worst I have ever seen. The mast was just one block of ice. It was terrifying. Both our radars were knocked out. The Ross Cleveland was guiding us to shelter when she went down. We were on our own.”
When the vessel went aground, the Icelanders moved in, the gunboat Odinn braving blinding blizzards and mountainous to stand by her. Just one mistake and she, too, would have grounded.
Despite the dangers and the intense cold the Icelanders managed to put a lifeboat and dinghies alongside the 441 ton Notts County - and take the men off and to hospital in Isafjord where a medical team awaited them.
On the afternoon of February 7 they arrived back in Glasgow where deckhand Gilbert Cook broke the silence of the rest of the crew to tell the whole dramatic story…
“I have been 23 years at sea never before have I seen anything like this weather. We had been cutting and axing ice formations on the deck and had just stopped for a cup of tea when it happened. The trawler grounded. We did not know where we were because our radar scanners were out of order because of the ice. We had to reply on signals from the trawler Kingston Emerald which was near us and whose radar was working “

Conditions were so bad that no-one even knew the direction in which the vessel was sailing.

“Every hand was on deck axing the ice. The blizzard was so thick we could not see the coast or the mountains even after we had grounded. The first thing we did after the ship grounded was to lower a lifeboat and rubber dinghies.”

At the inquiry into the vessel’s loss mate Barry Stokes took up the story: “I went onto the boat deck and helped the crew to get the starboard raft out. When that was launched I went across to the port side when the ice came down on top of me and injured my ankle.. I couldn’t stand up so I ordered all the other men to get the rafts ready. I dragged myself along the casing handrails. By this time the skipper came out and told all hands not to leave the ship because he had been in touch with the Odinn which would be at the scene within the hour.”

Mr Cook said that one crewman jumped into the lifeboat, but as he did so it capsized. Desperate efforts were made to rescue him before the raft was washed on board by the wind and sea. Mr Stokes told the inquiry: “I heard from some of the men that he refused to come out of the raft. He kept telling them ‘leave me alone’ and crawled back in..”

Conditions in the fjord were the worst that deckhand Frank McGuinness, an experienced seaman, had ever seen. “The mast was just one block of ice. It was terrifying.’’
To make matters worse when the vessel hit the rocks its lights and heating went The ship was in complete darkness until emergency lighting was pressed into service. On the bridge the crew huddled together, shivering with the cold and with fear, with not even enough fresh water available to make themselves a warming drink. And for 15 hours the waiting went on.

Relief came in the form of a tiny raft seen ploughing towards them in seas whipped into creamy foam by the gale. Aboard it were two sailors from the Odinn, standing by nearly a mile away. This heroic action by men from a ship which just four years later was to terrorise British fishermen who dared to venture into Icelandic waters during the second Cod War, brought praise from Notts County cook Harry Sharpe: “Those Icelanders were risking death themselves to get us off. The raft could easily have overturned…”

Battling against the elements, the Icelanders managed to inflate two rafts and ferry the men to safety. The ordeal was finally over.

Hull, January 26 - February 5, 1968
As campaigners stepped up their demands for better conditions on trawlers and politicians pondered over their next moves in homes across Hull and the surrounding area families faced up to the terrible reality that men they had loved would never return.
The disasters had highlighted the dangers men faced while at sea. They also threw new light onto the lives of trawlermen when they were ashore. At its heart the tragedy was not only about conditions, it was also about people.

By the nature of his job the fishermen had traditionally led a dislocated family life, spending three quarters of his time away from his wife and family. Three days ashore and back to sea again for another three weeks was the normal procedure in a job which was not so much an occupation, but more a way of life. The blunt truth was that fishermen worked in conditions which would not have been tolerated by shore workers. Never before had this been so clearly highlighted. But it offered little comfort to those who now mourned their men.
Among those missing was a boy who was now mourned by nine brothers and sisters, a man who had promised to give up the sea in two years time after a lifetime of sailing on trawlers, a young man who had planned to stay at home until March when his wedding was to be held and another making his trip to Iceland purely by chance, having been asked to sail by the skipper earlier than he had planned.
Another man was said to have “fishing fever,” insisting on returning to sea and never missing a trip and a 15 year-old boy on his first trip had done so against the wishes of his family.
All were mourned by a community which all too often had been forced to face up to the harsh realities of loss of loved ones at sea.
And as the news filtered through about the conditions on the fishing grounds the nation mourned with Hessle Road. Fifty eight men were gone. Three ships had sunk. And all in a fortnight.
News of the third tragedy was passed around in a whisper on Hull Fish Dock. Men waiting to sail talked quietly in small groups of the mates they had known. No-one said much, perhaps they could not find the words.




The House of Commons, 3.15pm, Monday, February 5, 1968
On the famous green leather benches they waited in tense anticipation of the ministerial statement, particularly those members from the great fishing ports of Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood and Aberdeen. In the fishing communities grief was communal, touching each and every port. On the fishing grounds rivalry was keen, intense at times. In times of loss came unity.
The statement came from Mr J.W.P.Mallalieu, the minister responsible for shipping at the Board of Trade. It was delivered quietly and calmly, without emotion. He told the house that a preliminary inquiry into the loss of the Ross Cleveland would be held, followed by a formal investigation. Of her loss he said simply: “It would be wrong to hold out hope for the crew. And urgent consideration was being given to what restrictions should be imposed upon the operation of trawlers having regard to their size, the area of operation, the seasons of he year and their stability and freeboard.
James Johnson, the MP for West Hull, whose constituency included the fish dock and Hessle Road, told the Commons of the “numbing despair felt by the people of Hull at this third tragedy in so short a time.” And with his sympathy for the families of the men lost came a plea for a close season for fishing and the setting up of a commission to investigate the industry.
The house listened in silence. For the moment there was no more to be said.



From a report by Dr Lewis Pugh prepared for the British Medical Journal and later given as evidence to the formal inquiry into the loss of Ross Cleveland:


“The men sat on the sides of the (life)raft and baled out the water with one man’s seaboots. One entrance was torn, the other incompletely closed…C (the youngest survivor) was shivering violently and soon began to fail. A (Eddom) rubbed and smacked his limbs to try to keep him warm, while B (the vessel’s bosun) went on bailing. At last there was only a little water left, perhaps 4inches (10 centimetres) slopping about. C gradually lost consciousness and slipped down onto the floor of the raft. They laid him on the thwarts, but he soon died. Death occurred within one to one and a half hours of boarding the raft. B soon began to fail, too. His speech was slurred and incoherent and he gradually lost consciousness. He died one to two hours after C.”
From an interview with Harry Eddom, March 1968 by Sub Lt H.J.Matthews, Surg-Cmdr D.E.Mackay and Surg-Cmdr J.F.Ryan
“Eddom eventually felt the raft ground on some rocks. His hands felt numb, but otherwise his condition was good. His thighs felt cold and ached a little. He clambered out and pulled the raft containing the bodies of his two shipmates, clear of the water line and then scrambled clear of the rocks. He knew he was in a bay or fjord and, when he looked around, he could see lights across the water so he decided to walk round the bay.
“The raft had gone about six miles downwind, a surprisingly short distance in the weather conditions.
“Before starting his walk Eddom, who was wet through to his skin, decided to take his stockings off to wring them but, after coping with one he did not attempt the other because it was difficult to remove his thigh boots with his cold hands. He made his way for eight to nine miles through snow during the short daylight hours to the head of the farmhouse and thought the worst was over. On approaching closely, however, he found it was deserted and he failed in his attempts to break in. (In fact it was a house shut up for winter)…”
Throughout the night Eddom remained on the lee side of the building, not daring to sit down for fear of falling asleep, but shivering violently and intermittently. In the morning, from the cold dim dawn of an Arctic winter came salvation…
“He saw a young lad tending sheep nearby and he managed to attract attention after some difficulty as his voice was weak. He was supported and half carried because he was unable to walk properly owing to numb feet. His hands were now so swollen that the two rings he wore could not be seen…
“Mr Eddom is a level-headed, phlegmatic individual aged about 30, of stocky build about 5ft 4ins in height and an estimated 11 stone; he does not carry much fat…he withstood two classic dangers, immersion hypothermia and so-called exposure. His plastic ‘duck suit’ which he bought himself for £7, undoubtedly saved his life.”

Evidence of Harry Eddom to the inquiry into the loss of the Ross Cleveland, October 1968 as reported by the Hull Daily Mail…
“We just laid over to port and never came back. When we took the first sea he (Skipper Gay) put her at full speed but she made no attempt to get back and piled more water on top. She just piled more water on top of the water we had had and never attempted to come back up or anything. We were going full, but she never attempted to come back up. The wheel was hard to starboard.
“I was jammed against the telegraph and said ‘Come on, we don’t want to be here now’ and we went along the casing after getting out through the starboard door of the bridge. They were getting the raft, the bosun and Barry Rogers and some others. I could not see whether the skipper came out.
As the liferaft was inflated she threw me into the water.”
The next thing he knew he was pulled into the raft.
The trawler’s port side was under water and the port liferafts could not be reached.
“She swilled me to the after end of the ship where they were getting the raft out and Barry Rogers pulled me in. The bosun had on a jersey, a pair of trousers and wellington boots. Barry Rogers had a T-shirt, a pair of John L’s and I don’t think he had any boots on. We closed one end of the liferaft but the other end had got torn and we could not close that.”
He was practically swilled out of the water-filled raft trying to launch a flare. They then tried to bale out with a canister.
“I was awake all the time we were on the raft. I saw nothing more of the Ross Cleveland after we got into the raft. I had no idea where it was we came ashore, none at all.”
He dragged the liferaft up the beach as far as he could.
“I saw a light and I just walked round the shore until I got to a farmhouse. There was no-one in it. I stood behind that until daylight the next morning. This was when the lad found me. I just kept dozing and had no proper sleep. The lad found me and took me to his farmhouse and then they took me round by ship to Isafjord…”


From the Hull Daily Mail, Tuesday, February 6, 1968
“Britain’s fishing industry is facing what could be its biggest ever upheaval. Emotions over the St Romanus-Kingston Peridot-Ross Cleveland affair are high. And the shock waves which have hit Hull in the past two weeks are beginning to spread out across the nation.
“The fear, anger and bitterness which is sweeping Hessle Road is beginning to turn into an industrial and political rebellion over safety and working conditions aboard trawlers.
“Between 1948 and 1964 over 750 fishermen died at sea. Figures show that a trawlerman has two and a half times the chance of losing his life at work than a miner. It is this, the death rate and the risks of fishing in mountainous seas and some of the worst weather conditions in the world which have brought the wives of Hessle Road into action.
“Today they are going to London to meet the men who can grant their demands.
“The sincerity of the wives is absolute. They tremble as they address a meeting. Their voices shake and falter. But the sincerity shows all the way.
“The wives, led by 39 year-old Lilian Bilocca were laughed off at first by many in the fishing industry. But now it is accepted that they mean business. What could have turned out to be a hysterical, disorganised protest is now becoming regarded as something of a fighting machine, backed by hundreds.
“There is no doubt that the tragedy has made the trawler people nervous. Women say they live in fear when their men sail. One said she would leave home altogether if her husband made another trip.
“Their men’s jobs have been called the most dangerous in Britain. Besides the obvious hazards caused by the weather, a man can be caught against a winch if he loses his footing on a rolling ship, gashed by broken cable, washed overboard and swept away, knocked into the Arctic waters where he will die within four minutes from the cold.
“The dangers are there on every trip. And for facing them a deckhand gets a basic £13 7s. a week, plus poundage of £7 per £1,000 on the catch.
“The main questions posed by the loss of the St Romanus and Kingston Peridot have been those concerning the system of reporting and inclusion of a qualified radio operator. But until the two ships were reported missing, few Hull fisherman had expressed any undue concern.
“Now, however, they are coming round to the women’s way of thinking.
Increasing anger is now being voiced about the hours men work. “Would you work 18 hours in a gale and a blizzard for seven days?” women ask. And another argument is growing over the use of “Christmas crackers” - men who are taken on at Christmastime and who do nor normally sail.
“At the moment the men are content to follow the women’s lead. They certainly back the wives in any action they propose. When the campaign for better conditions began fears were expressed that extremist elements would seize the opportunity to make political capital out of the whole affair. But so far this has not been the case. The wives are united. They know the course they are taking. Any outside intervention would be quickly crushed.
“The wives are militant and determined. “When women make up their minds about anything, it takes Heaven and earth to shift ‘em,” said one deckhand.
“And so the battle moves into gear. The echoes from Hull’s worst trawler tragedy in living memory are likely to be heard around St Andrew’s Dock for a very long time to come.”



The Ministry of Agriculture, London, February 6, 1968
It was the moment the campaigning wives of Hull had fought for and prayed for.
They left a city in mourning on the 8.55 train - and left behind one of the delegation who should have joined them.
Not with the party which arrived for a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture Mr Fred Peart and The Minister of State at the Board of Trade, Mr J.P.W.Mallalieu was Mrs Christine Smallbone. She stayed at home to grieve for her brother, Philip Gay, the skipper of the Ross Cleveland.
For Lilian Bilocca, Yvonne Blenkinsop and Mary Denness the meeting was a magnificent achievement. The campaign launched on the streets and terraces around Hessle Road had won over the hearts and kinds of some of the most powerful people in Britain.
The result of the meeting which lasted 110 minutes - a series of proposals which would bring revolutionary new measures for safety at sea.
These included a recommendation that trawler owners should keep vessels away from Iceland in extreme weather, tighter regulations on reporting procedures for vessels at sea, a suggestion that a mother ship sail with the British fleet providing hospital, rescue and weather forecast services, safety checks on trawlers’ equipment before vessels sailed.
It was, said Mrs Bilocca, the happiest moment of her life. Mrs Denness told the pack of pressmen awaiting the delegation as it left the ministry: “Three women have achieved more in one day than anything that has ever been done in the trawler industry in 60 years.”

Hull Daily Mail Newsroom, Tuesday February 6, 1968
At the end of a rough day Charles Levitt at last began to relax. The tension was by now getting to most of his staff directly involved in the disaster. Reporters had spent days and nights on the fish dock and around the Hessle Road area and were tired to the point of exhaustion. He, too, was feeling the strain. It is often claimed that being news editor is the single most difficult job on any newspaper. The situation had helped underline the conjecture as fact.
Just after 4,30pm the room was at last quiet as the staff had, for the most part, left. Levitt tidied his desk, made brief notes in the margin of a copy that night’s paper relating to stories which needed to be followed up the following day and checked the diary entries. In the heat of the moment the other news must not be forgotten, either.
The Mail’s coverage of the disaster had been brilliantly organised, the paper priding itself on having the most detailed and certainly the most accurate reports of a situation which now saw every national newspaper with a team of reporters based in Hull. TV stations and national BBC radio, too, threw staff and equipment into the city. In its hour of mourning Hull was under siege from the media.
In the days when regional TV had only started to make any sort of impact on the early evening schedules and when local radio was still but a figment of a BBC man’s imagination the local paper remained the supreme conveyor of news of any matter of local interest, however insignificant. On a major issue such as the loss of three trawlers and 59 men the Mail was, as always, Hull’s daily “Bible” with over 390,000 readers every evening. Five editions of the paper carried the news to the city and surrounding county areas every day, the last one, distributed only in central Hull finally rolling off the presses at 5.05pm.
When the newsdesk phone rang at 4.40 that afternoon no-one could possibly have anticipated the impact, not only on the newspaper, but on the city and then the world.
The message was brief but undeniably sensational. A survivor had been found alive in Iceland from the lost Hull trawler Ross Cleveland.
There was no time for deep thought. Within seconds the late duty sub-editor was pressed into instant service to write the headline, the story was dictated to a linotype operator and minutes later the front page was ripped apart, by now carrying the banner headline “Trawler disaster survivor found alive.”

Harry Eddom’s home, Cottingham near Hull, Tuesday, February 6, 1968

The grey telephone in the hallway rang and broke the silence of mourning.
Reporters and cameramen were there to record the moment that Rita Eddom spoke to the husband she believed to be dead. In a six minute call made from his hospital bed in Isafjord and being taken by Rita at 6.40pm, Eddom simply told her: “The ship’s gone down and all my mates have gone.”
Reporters scribbled busily in notebooks as Mrs Eddom, crying and twice breaking down, bombarded her husband with questions: “Harry, is it you? I can’t believe it…I can’t… Are you all right? What happened? When are you coming back? Are you going back to sea?
In the early hours of the following day Mrs Eddom left Cottingham to board a plane for Iceland, accompanied by her young brother Dennis and Mr Eddom’s brother, Michael and parents.
On leaving the hospital after an emotional reunion she was to tell reporters: “I was half afraid to see Harry. I felt it would be like seeing a ghost.”
The Press were there before her, many of them dashing to Iceland in chartered planes as soon as the news broke.
And at Glasgow reporters and photographers were joined by radio broadcasters at Mrs Eddom and her family boarded the plane. She told them: “All my life I have seen the menfolk come home for a few days and then be off to sea again. I knew exactly what sort of a life I could expect when I married Harry. I have no regrets. There is such pride among trawlermen and women feel this pride.”


Abbotsinch Airport, Glasgow, February 7, 1968

Sixteen crewmen from the Grimsby trawler Notts County came home from an ordeal none would ever forget. As they stepped from the aircraft their thoughts were with two men they had left behind in hospital, Skipper George Burres and mate Barry Stokes. There were memories, too, of a third man who died as he scrambled to float a liferaft.
One crewman, John Davidson, of Sheffield, told a national newspaper: “We had to use our hands like picks to hack the ice away and get onto the rafts. I’m not religious, you know, but that night I prayed `Please God let me see my little lad again..’


London, February 8, 1968
The Government wasted no time once it began to appreciate the full implications of the disaster. Trawler owners, skippers and trade union officials were among 50 delegates from 16 organisations who gathered at the Board of Trade.
It was a meeting which was to have far reaching effects. The Government agreed that all British trawlers should be withdrawn from the Isafjord area until a naval vessel or modern freezer trawler which could provide support facilities was on station.



Isafjord, Iceland, February 9, 1968
A half laughing, half crying Rita Eddom ran into the arms of the husband she had believed dead. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged him.
As she left flashguns blinded her and other members of Eddom’s family and television cameras recorded every second. It was a furore which angered Dr Ulfur Gunnerssonn who told an Icelandic newspaper: “I have never seen anything like this. We have had so much disturbance that we have had to postpone several operations. Journalists and cameramen were co-operative individually, but when they got together they lost control and some violated the sanctuary of the hospital.”

The Royal Station Hotel, Hull, February 15, 1968
From late afternoon the place was packed with journalists from newspapers, radio and television. Cables snaked across carpets, cameras were lined up before a table. Journalists chatted and smoked as they waited.
Shortly after 8pm the moment they had gathered here for finally arrived. Harry Eddom came home to Hull.
Hours earlier he had landed in Glasgow and then travelled south by car - complete with a police escort.
Once at the hotel where he arrived at 7.45pm he was given a brief medical examination by the medical officer to the Hull trawling industry and then put before photographers for just three minutes. Reporters were given five minutes, the room silent as Eddom told more of his story. Earlier it had been agreed by pressmen that only one journalist would ask questions. It was brief, to the point and final. After that last interview Harry Eddom was to remain silent until his full story was told at the official inquiry into the Ross Cleveland’s loss.

Eleven weeks after returning home Eddom left for the fishing grounds again, departing from St Andrew’s Dock on the 661 ton Ross Antares under Skipper Gordon Jopling. His wife said: “At the bottom of my heart I always knew he would go back and I would not really stop him…”





Holy Trinity Church, Hull, Friday, March 8, 1968

The lone tenor bell boomed out its dismal message over the rooftops of the Old Town, the sound being borne on a light Spring breeze towards the Humber.
They gathered just before 3pm to remember husbands, fathers, sons and friends who would never return.
In the great church over 800 people in all, struggled with their emotions as they honoured their dead.
The church itself was a mass of colour from the scores of bouquets and wreaths placed there by families and friends. Each bore a simple, moving message… “to a darling husband”… “to my daddy”… “to our dear son”…
Outside huge silent crowds watched as the mourners arrived for what was to be one of Hull’s most poignant hours.
In the church stifled sobbing broke the intensity of the silence as staff of the Royal National mission to Deep Sea Fishermen rose to read the names of the dead and then to pray for all seafarers.
In one corner of the vast, soaring church, a dark suited fisherman bowed his head and remembered. His name was Harry Eddom.
The Bishop of Hull, the Rt Rev Hubert Higgs, in a brief address dug deep into the heart of the tragedy, reflecting on its repercussions. Nothing, he said, should be spared which could humanely make the fisherman’s job more endurable and safe from foreseeable dangers. In such matters the Government, the public and all concerned with the fishing industry had a duty to the men involved.
It was a view shared fully throughout Hull.

THE service in memory of those who lost their lives in the Hull trawlers St Romanus, Kingston Peridot, Ross Cleveland, Holy Trinity Church, Kingston upon Hull, Friday, March 8, 1968 at 3pm.

Order of service
1. All stand for the hymn Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure:
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

2. Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil thy laws’ demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow.
All for sin could not atone:
Thou must save, and thou alone.






3. Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy Cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the mountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

4. While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyelids close in death,
When I soar through tracts unknown,
See thee on thy judgement throne;
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.

Then shall the Minister say, all still standing
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Congregation will kneel for prayer

Minister: Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy Holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

All: Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

All sit for the lesson read by Skipper Laurie Oliver O.B.E.

Revelation 21, verses 1-7
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.
“And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold I make all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this for these words are trustworthy and true.’ And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.”

All stand for the hymn
1. Lead us heavenly Father, lead us
O’er the world’s tempestuous sea;
Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,
For we have no help but thee;
Yet possessing every blessing,
If our God our father be.

2. Saviour, breathe forgiveness o’er us:
All our weakness thou dost know;
Thou didst tread this earth before us,
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
Lone and dreary, faint and weary
Through the desert thou didst go.

3. Spirit of our God descending,
Fill our hearts with heavenly joy,
Love with every passion blending,
pleasure that can never cloy:
Thus provided, pardoned, guided,
Nothing can our peace destroy.

All kneeling, the minister shall say

Let us remember in silence and in gratitude those who lost their lives in the Hull trawlers St Romanus, Kingston Peridot and Ross Cleveland.


After the silence the names who lost their lives will be read by the staff of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and the Fishermen’s Bethel. The prayers will be said by Anglican, Free Church and Roman Catholic representatives

Those who lost their lives in the St Romanus

James Wheeldon, Raymond Mearns, Kenneth Suffling, Cyril Ashton, Alan Nicholas, John Walker-Roberts, John Brooks, Herbert Pye, Terence Walton, Alan Court-Bohan, David Redfern, John Williams, Robert Rockerty, George Rutter, Melvyn Williams, John Hutchinson, Walter Snaddon, Brian Wilson, Ronald Jackson, David Stott.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously we pray thee, with those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Those who lost their lives in the Kingston Peridot

Raymond Wilson, William Heelas, George Rose, Adam Ali, Martin Larsen, Peter Smith, Charles Blanchard, Leonard Ledingham, Robert Smith, Eugene Carney, George Matfin, Kenneth Swaine, Henry Fowler, Peter McGowan, David Warley, Stephen Giblin, Henry Riches, Enoch Watson, Alfred Hartley, Robert Rivett.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously we pray thee, with those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, the may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Those who lost their lives in the Ross Cleveland

Philip Gay, Keith Hookem, Maurice Petman, Michael Barnes, George Keal, Barry Rogers, Kenneth Brandtman, George Ketley, Frederick Sawdon, Douglas Hairsine, Dennis Mayes, Maurice Swain, Alan Harper, James McCracken, Rowland Thomson, Walter Hewitt, Michael Morris, Trevor Thomson.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously, we pray thee, with those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

All kneeling the minister shall say:
Let us pray for all seafarers.
Almighty God, whose way is in the sea and whose paths are in the great waters: Be present we beseech thee, with our brethren in the manifold dangers of the deep; protect them from all perils, prosper them in their course and bring them in safety to the haven where they would be, with a grateful sense of Thy mercies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Let us give thanks for all God’s mercies, remembering especially the survival of Harry Eddom, the mate of the Ross Cleveland.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving kindness. And we beseech thee, give us such a sense of all thy mercies that our hearts may be truly thankful; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

All say together
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.
All stand for the hymn

1. The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want;
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green; he leadeth me
The quiet waters by.

2. My soul he doth restore again
And me to walk doth make
Within the paths of righteousness
E’en for his own Name’s sake.

3. Yea though I walk through death’s dark vale
Yet I will fear none ill;
For thou art with me and thy rod
And staff me comfort still.

4. My table thou hast furnished
In presence of my foes;
My head thou dost with oil anoint
And my cup overflows.

5. Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me
And in God’s house for evermore
My dwelling place shall be.

All sit for
The address by the Bishop of Hull

All stand for the hymn

1. Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep:
hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.

2. O Christ, whose voice the water heard
And hushed their raging at thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amid the storm didst sleep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.

3. O Holy Spirit, who didst brood
Upon the waters dark and rude,
And bid their angry tumult cease
And give, for wild confusion, peace:
O hear is when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.

All kneel for

The Blessing

All remain kneeling and sing as a prayer

O Trinity of love and power,
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them whereso’er they go:
Thus ever more shall rise to thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.


The Victoria Galleries, Hull City Hall, October 9, 1968
In the dignified calm of a formal hearing Judge John Naisby and assessors R.A.Beattie and W.F.Wright began the first of three hearings into the loss of the vessels. The first was into the disappearance of St Romanus. Kingston Peridot followed and finally came the drama of the Ross Cleveland with evidence from its sole survivor.
The inquiries were thorough and far reaching, technical and at times, highly emotional. This was the last formal act in tragedy which had engulfed an entire community.
The findings came three weeks after the first one began. The court found that St Romanus was in all respects seaworthy but it could not find what caused her loss. There was, however, no evidence to suggest that it was due to the wrongful act or default of anyone.
One mystery surrounding the loss was never adequately explained - the mystery message picked up by the Icelandic trawler Vikingur 111 on January 11. The incident was “open to some doubt” according to the inquiry findings.
The court added: “All the members of the court gained the impression that the first mate of the vessel was endeavouring to tell the truth, but his recollection in its entirety cannot have been correct. In the first place it was impossible for St Romanus to have been anywhere near the position stated by him and although it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there should be some freak atmospheric conditions obtaining there were many shore stations permanently manned on the distress frequency and a good number of other ships which must have been nearer to St Romanus than Vikingur 111… no trace has been found of any such station or ship having received any Mayday message about that time.
The court also took up the question of radio operators being carried on fishing vessels, a question which had been at the heart of the wives campaign. The official report says: “It was the habit of the owners of the St Romanus to provide on board their trawlers a qualified radio officer whenever possible. The evidence established that at the time when the St Romanus sailed no such officer was available and in accordance with the agreement with the union an extra deckhand was shipped.
“The evidence clearly established the value of a radio officer…in the view of the court a radio officer should be carried whenever possible and consideration might well be given to the problem as to how to increase the supply of radio officers willing to sail on trawlers.”
Kingston Peridot was found to be fit for a voyage to Iceland waters under normal conditions likely to be encountered there. But, the court found, her stability was insufficient to stand up top the relatively exceptional occurrence of a combination of winds of storm or hurricane force with corresponding sea conditions and a substantial period of heavy ice formation on her superstructure.
The loss of the vessel was not found to have been caused or contributed to by the wrongful act or default of anyone.
The same finding applied to Ross Cleveland. From information available to the court she was fit to sail to Icelandic waters but was unable to withstand a relatively exceptional combination of winds of hurricane force with corresponding sea conditions even in the shelter of a fjord and a prolonged period of heavy ice formation on her superstructure.
The hearing also produced the following suggestion for the future safety of fishermen:
“It is clear from the evidence in these three inquiries that it is of the utmost importance that the owners and builders of trawlers should co-operate wholeheartedly with the Board of Trade on questions affecting the safety of trawlers and that no-one should delay or sit back when any question affecting the safety of trawlers and their crews at sea is raised and rely upon someone else to take the initiative. There was evidence of some such co-operation in the past, but there was also further evidence that it had not always taken place. Furthermore, in the opinion of the court it has been demonstrated that there is a need for all parties to the fishing industry, owners and builders of trawlers and of skippers and crews, to play their part in making what must be a hazardous occupation as safe as possible.”

The dangers facing fishermen were also uppermost of Admiral Sir Derec Holland-Martin who headed the Committee of Inquiry into Trawler Safety, set up in March that year and which in an interim report published on September 27 recommended an experimental weather advisory and communications service be operated as an experiment that winter from a ship at sea in the area north of Iceland.
Two months later, on November 29, the fishing fleet’s first “mother” ship, the Hull trawler Orsino under Skipper Ted Wooldridge sailed from St Andrew’s Dock. Conversion work included extra accommodation for specialist personnel and the creation of a small hospital and room for additional equipment.. Aboard was a weather advisory officer.
The lessons had been learned. The price of fish had been far too high.

Written by The Editor - 19/01/2003 09:20:10

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