Tag Archives: Harry Eddom
Survival and grief: The story of the Ross Cleveland tragedy
Fifty-five years ago last month the public inquiry into the loss of the Hull trawler Ross Cleveland and the deaths of 18 men began at Hull City Hall. It was the last time Harry Eddom ever spoke publicly about how he survived the disaster that claimed the lives of the rest of the ship’s crew eight months earlier. During the three-week inquiry, his dramatic witness testimony was only rivalled by evidence given by Len Whur, skipper of another Hull trawler Kingston Andalusite, the nearest vessel to the Ross Cleveland at the time of the tragedy. Whur was desperately trying to save his own ship after being caught in the worst storm experienced off the north-west Icelandic coast in living memory when he received a radio message from his cousin Phil Gay, skipper of the Ross Cleveland. Photos, >>click to read<< 08:26
Triple trawler tragedy: The Hull fishermen who never came home
In the space of less than a month at the start of 1968, 58 fishermen based in the English port of Hull lost their lives in three separate trawler sinkings. Thanks to the efforts of a group of determined women, the deaths would change the industry, with the ripples spreading from the Arctic Sea to the steps of Downing Street. – “I am going over. We are laying over. Help me. I’m going over,” skipper Phil Gay pleaded in a final, desperate message from the Ross Cleveland, which sank while sheltering from a storm in an inlet near Isafjordur in Iceland on 4 February. The Ross Cleveland was the third vessel to sink, in what became known as the triple trawler tragedy. >click to read< 21:14
