Our summer holidays by the sea were the thrill of the year and the lifeboat was the thrill the holidays. Whissh-crack! went the maroon, sending the dauntless crew and their punchy little vessel off into the waves to save souls. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has been doing this for 200 years. Mariners and all of us must hope it never stops, because its story is the best of us.
In One Crew, Helen Doe, a maritime historian, writes the official history with verve and precision. She explains that there were 39 lifeboats operating independently around the coast, ‘enjoying varying degrees of effectiveness’, before Sir William Hillary, a ‘bankrupt baron’ self-exiled to the Isle of Man, founded the Royal National Institution of the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck – branding, like public relations, lifejackets and self-righting boats, being in its infancy.
A helicopter pilot described the 1981 Penlee rescue attempt as ‘the greatest act of courage I am ever likely to see’
The institution would advance them all.
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