12 Silk Handkerchiefs

Event information

Honoured to bring to Filey with it's own great fishing heritage this inspiring tale of how one woman began a successful campaign to improve safely at sea.
12 Silk Handkerchiefs

A song cycle by Reg Meuross and a multi media show about the Hull Triple Trawler Disaster of 1968 and the revolutionary Lillian Bilocca
Acclaimed singer/songwriter Reg Meuross has joined artistic forces with author Brian W Lavery to present ´12 Silk Handkerchiefs´ which tells in music, narration and pictures the story of Hull’s 1968 triple trawler disaster and subsequent uprising led by fighting fishwife Mrs Lillian Bilocca, calling for greater safety on the trawlers. The song cycle, written by Reg, is performed by himself alongside Hull musician Sam Martyn. The multi-media show includes never-seen-before images, TV, newsreel and radio archive from the time and a series of narrative links by Brian W Lavery from his book.

In January and February 1968 three trawlers, the St Romanus, Kingston Peridot and Ross Cleveland sank in atrocious weather conditions within 3 weeks of each other. 58 men lost their lives and the Hessel Road community was torn apart. The miraculous survival of one man, Harry Eddom, mate of the Ross Cleveland, drew attention to this almost constantly grieving city and the incredibly dangerous industry where health and safety practices were less than basic. The uprising that followed, spearheaded by ´Big Lil´ and her ´Headscarf Revolutionaries´ and their tireless campaign, is now recognised as one of that century’s most successful campaigns of civil disobedience. The result was new safety measures which saved thousands of lives in the decade ahead, at great personal cost to the campaigners (from blacklisting to death threats) before the industry itself went into decline.

Reg said: ‘In March 2017 I was invited to play a concert in Hull. I had already heard about Big Lil´ Bilocca and her fight in the late Sixties to pressure the Government into introducing much tighter safety after the triple trawler disaster of 1968 and I was drawn to find out more while I was there. My research led me to the book ´The Headscarf Revolutionaries´ by Brian W Lavery and to a meeting with Brian’s friend, local musician the late Mick McGarry (who turned out to have been my support, along with Sam Martyn, at the gig I’d just played). Together we went for an in-depth tour of the old fish docks. Mick also gave me a collection of local songs and Brian gave me a copy of his book. The detail in the book provided some really rich source material for a song cycle based on this fascinating and important period of British industrial history.’
Brian added, "I was greatly honoured when I heard the song cycle Reg had written. He is truly a gifted songwriter and it seemed obvious that we should work together on what became ´12 Silk Handkerchiefs´. The title comes from the fact that Lil’s last action was to send her daughter to buy a set of handkerchiefs to give as gifts to those who had treated her is hospital before her death in 1988. Reg’s music honours and complements the story of the Dark Winter that claimed so many of our brave trawler men. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a Meuross song must be worth so much more. With these six wonderful songs, this poet has re-cast a story that took me eighty-thousand words to tell.