A former city woman who had to punch nurses and flee a hospital to keep her baby in 1947 told her story on national television last night.

Dorothy Stephenson, then aged 17, wanted to marry a Polish sailor who was the father of her son.

But Mrs Stephenson's dad - a skipper, living in the city's fishing community - wouldn't hear of it.

He promptly packed his daughter off from the family's home in Hessle Road, west Hull, to an aunt's in Dundee, Scotland, to give birth there.

Mrs Stephenson recalled how she had to run away from the hospital with a policeman chasing her to save him from adoption.

"She (the nurse) tried to drag him out of my arms so I hit her, and accidentally put my hand through a window," she said.

"I picked him up and ran through Dundee with my baby, covered in blood, to my aunt's flat."

Eventually her parents adopted the boy, Walter Scarah, who is now aged 51 and lives in Cornwall.

In the documentary, Married Love - Sex on Demand, shown on Channel 4, Mrs Stephenson tells of how many fisherwives in the Hessle Road community dreaded their husbands coming home from sea.

"These women managed without men, they were early feminists," she said.

Later, Mrs Stephenson, who now lives in Pendock, Gloucestershire, married another man, but divorced him after five years of abuse.

Mrs Robinson said she often visits relatives in Preston, East Yorkshire, and Orchard Park, north Hull.

"I do miss the community spirit of the fishing communities, with everyone helping each other out," she added.