Trawler Wives

I have finally finished my Trawler Wives/Fisherman's Wives! It seems to have taken such a long time to complete (albeit only 2ish weeks!) but I've had to fit it in amongst my new job.

So I wanted to do a partner image for my Trawlermen and thought what better then their WAGs! When I started to look into the women who stood by their men, even though they where away for such long periods of time, I was amazed at the stories I found. So I tried to incorporate a little bit of the different stories I came across into my image.

The first lady in the bottom left hand corner is holding onto quite a pretty bright and cheerful jacket. Often when Trawlermen came back onto land for a few days with their family, they would get straight down to their local tailor and get themselves an exquisite suit made up from their money earned at sea. This got them the nickname 'dockside dandy's' for their quite out there fashion. However the day the men went back to sea, their wives would form a queue to "hock" a selection of exotic suits at the local pawn shops.

The lady in the back left hand corner is themed on the idea of wives being  'three day princess's' when their Trawlermen came back from sea. They would be taken out to fancy restaurants and treated to new clothing, some would even rent a washing machine for the week to clean the families clothes.

In the middle we have a real local heroine Lillian Belloc. In 1968 Humberside witnessed a triple trawler tragedy, which lost 58 lives.
Big Lil as she was nicknamed organised a 10.000 signature petition calling for better safety condition on trawlers. She even went down to London to meet with the then Primer Minister Harold Wilson!
Big Lil's campaign received international attention and due to her new safety regulations were introduced on the trawlers.
I have depicted her here with her nice big beehive and her petition in hand!

The other two ladies I have drawn out as your general Fisherladies who worked on the docks sorting and gutting fish.

It was so interesting finding out about these amazing ladies, and I'm surprised I didn't know more about them, but I haven't really seen anything locally like in Hull Maritime about them.

Anyhow I hope I have done them some justice here. I have also tried again to show my process, to give you a little insight into how I work.