Scots fishing tragedy widow in tribute to 'miracle worker' Alex Salmond

Shirley Henderson said she owed a huge debt of gratitude to the ex First Minister and has told how Salmond performed a miracle to bring the bodies of her husband and four other crew members home.

A widow of one of the fishermen who perished in the Sapphire fishing tragedy told how Alex Salmond performed a miracle to bring the bodies of her husband and four other crew members home.

Shirley Henderson said she remains grateful to the former MP after her husband Robert Stephen, 24, Adam Stephen, 29, Bruce Cameron, 32, and Victor Podlesny, 45, died when their vessel sank 12 miles off the Aberdeenshire coast on October 1, 1997.

The UK government refused to finance the recovery of the bodies from the sunken trawler.

Salmond, then the MP for Banff and Buchan, spearheaded the campaign to raise £600,000 to pay for the ship to be lifted from the seabed.

Shirley, now 51 and still living in Peterhead, said: “He did it for us because it was the right thing to do.

“Alex achieved something that was so out of the ordinary and beyond belief for our four broken families.

“We could not have done it without him. He achieved miracles for us. We will never ever forget what he did.”

Speaking in 2017, Salmond said: “If I go to the pearly gates and my maker says, ‘What did you ever do with your life as an MP and all the rest of it?’ I might well say, ‘I helped raise the Sapphire.”

The Sapphire was raised from the ocean bed on December 14, 1997, and the bodies of the crew members, including Robert, taken back to Peterhead.

Salmond went to Shirley’s home to break the news they had recovered the boat and had found Robert and the three other men. He went on to attend all of their funerals.

An MAIB report later blamed water pouring into open hatches and a faulty fish hold hatch for the tragedy. Only the skipper survived after scrambling through the wheelhouse window.

Shirley, who had a two-year-old daughter, Darcie, told how Salmond kept in touch with the families via Christmas cards and even sent her a present when she remarried.

The former FM also attended a fundraiser in 2017 to mark the 20th anniversary of the sinking.

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