The Headscarf Revolutionaries

In addition to writing an inspiring history of the Headscarf Revolutionaries, Lavery has also written a social history of a world that has largely ceased to exist. With a novelist's eye for colour and detail, he brings alive the fishing industry of the 1960s... The scenes at sea are as vivid as anything in Hemingway or Melville, and winter conditions in Icelandic fishing waters make life at Alistair Maclean's Ice Station Zebra seem tame. ... The Headscarf Revolutionaries is an enthralling read, a fitting tribute to an extraordinary woman, and an important addition to working class history.

- Libcom

Now that a film and TV production company has bought the rights to the book by Dr Brian Lavery, the determination of those ordinary women from Hull is set to make it to the big screen. The story of the Hessle Roaders who took their fight all the way to the corridors of power in Parliament deserves to be known throughout the UK. For too long, the achievement of the women, like the city in which they lived, has been overlooked. Dr Lavery should be congratulated for telling their story in such a gripping way and his achievement in securing the interests of the production company is to be celebrated.

- Hull Daily Mail

In 1968 three trawlers from Hull, the Kingston Peridot, St Romanus and Ross Cleveland, sank within days of each other in storms off Iceland, killing 58 men. When news of the second sinking reached Hull, Lillian Bilocca, whose husband and son worked on trawlers, began a campaign that became international news and completely overhauled safety standards on British trawlers. A compelling and detailed account by local author and historian Brian Lavery of ordinary women changing history. This is a powerful book that gives full voice to the grief and determination of the women who fought trawler owners and forced them to put men s lives before profit.

- Socialist Review