Tag Archives: Ross Cleveland
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
55 years on, brother remembers skipper, 26, lost in the Triple Trawler Tragedy
The St Romanus went down in the North Sea, where, is still not known. Vic was 22 and fishing, but at home with a crushed finger, over the weeks the tragedy unfolded. He recalls the “numbness” that set in and the fading hope that the ship’s radio had broken down. “As time goes on and the life raft is found and a life ring, you do realise that the end was there,” he said. Vic, the vice chairman of fishing heritage charity Stand, says the loss of his brother is “still very raw”. Jim “like any older brother (was) a role model and hero”. >click to read< 07:55
