In the midst of force eight winds and boiling seas with 3-metre waves, Helmswoman Aileen Jones of Porthcawl was instrumental in saving two fishermen from certain calamity. ‘I had a rough idea where he fished,’ she said, ‘so we headed up that way, towards the top of the Nash Bank, which is where we saw him. It wasn’t a nice place to be. The water was coming in at all angles, his engines had failed, none of his anchors would hold. Whatever the sea decided to do to him, he had no control over it.’ fishing vessel. The whole episode had lasted three-and-a-half hours. Characteristically, Aileen Jones shies away from being made a heroine because of this, and this attitude is typical of all lifeboat crew members.

THE LIFEBOAT STORY

In many respects the story of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the story of men and women exercising the highest standards of bravery and selflessness seen anywhere. The story began about 180 years ago, when an idiosyncratic Quaker, Sir William Hillary, founded a charity dedicated to ‘the preservation of lives and property from shipwreck’. The year was 1824 and the boats were powered and steered by oars and could only operate close to the beaches. Its affairs were managed on a part-time basis by enthusiastic amateurs.
    In 1849 the Institution reached the lowest point in its fortunes. Its founder had just died, and one of the principal lifeboats had gone down with the loss of 20 of the 24 crew. Such disasters trigger considerable sympathy in the public, and it was clear that the time had come for a change in the Institution. In 1854 the Institution became the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the name by which it is still known today. Fundraising increased markedly, and income rose from around £5,000 in 1850 to £70,000 in 1882. In this period, sail power started to replace oars, with a corresponding improvement in speed and monoeuvrability, and by the turn of the twentieth century steam boats had taken over, shortly to be joined by petrol-driven craft.

MASONIC INVOLVEMENT

Masonic involvement in the affairs of the RNLI, particularly fund-raising, dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time, although individual Freemasons and lodges gave their support, the United Grand Lodge of England failed to respond to editorial comments in The Freemason. The Editor said that his publication was ‘looking forward with some impatience to the provision of a Masonic Lifeboat. Surely,’ he continued’ ‘a body so numerous, important and wealthy as The Masonic can have little difficulty in raising the necessary funds to complete the purchase of a Lifeboat’.
    In 1871 J.R. Stebbing, the Deputy Provincial Grand Master for Hampshire and a former Mayor of Southampton, took a proposal to Grand Lodge ‘for a grant of £50 towards the provision of a Masonic Lifeboat’. The motion was put to Grand Lodge and carried, and so the links with the RNLI were forged. The consequence of this was that, in 1872, a lifeboat named ‘Freemason’ was launched at North Berwick before an array of RNLI and Grand Lodge officials.
    In 1876 a special committee was set up by Grand Lodge to mark the safe return of the Prince of Wales from India. This committee proposed that the sum of £4,000 be voted for the RNLI to found two lifeboat stations ‘in perpetuity’. This was passed by Grand Lodge in March 1877. The sites chosen were Clacton in Essex and Yare in Devon. A lifeboat was to be provided at each station, and they were duly named Albert Edward and Alexandra, after the Prince and Princess of Wales respectively.
    So it was that the Craft moved from an impartial interest in the RNLI to a committed responsibility to maintain two lifeboats, carriages and boat houses. These boats were launched 270 times and saved 556 lives. In 1896, yet another boat was financed, to be called City Masonic Club. This boat was stationed at Poole, the present headquarters of the RNLI, until 1910.
    All these boats, and others financed by Freemasons, were from time to time replaced as the need arose. Then, in 1980, Grand Lodge voted a sum of £300,000 for the purchase of a 54ft. Arun Class lifeboat, to be named Duchess of Kent. This was the eleventh masonic lifeboat to be presented. Up to 1987 masonic lifeboats had been launched over 500 times and saved a total of 995 lives.

A MODEL OF EFFICIENCY

Today, the RNLI operate over 400 high-powered craft from over 200 stations round Britain and Ireland, providing a swift and efficient rescue service. Every year it answers about 6,000 calls and rescues the lives of some 1,000 people.
    Although its management and administration are run in a professional and competent way, it is still a charitable organisation, with no financial support from the government. It relies on largely unpaid crew members who are all volunteers, only 5% of whom come from a maritime background.
    The RNLI’s annual running costs are around £119m – over £325,000 per day and, as a registered charity, the organisation continues to rely on voluntary contributions and legacies for its income. Its one clear purpose is to save lives at sea. They provide a 24-hour search and rescue service out to 100 nautical miles from the coast of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and since it was founded their lifeboat crews have saved more than 137,000 lives.
    HM Coastguard and the Irish Coast Guard initiate and co-ordinate civil maritime search and rescue in the UK and Irish sea regions. During maritime emergencies on cliffs, beaches, shoreline or at sea each of these authorities calls on RNLI lifeboats and hovercraft.
    Crew members come from many walks of life and are prepared to exchange leisure, comfort and sleep for cold, wet, fatigue and sometimes danger. Lifeboat crews spend many hours of their own time training, and because of their willingness a very high proportion of the RNLI’s money can be spent on lifeboats and equipment, not on wages. They owe a debt of gratitude to over 45,000 indispensable volunteer fundraisers, from all over the British Isles, who help to raise the money needed for the RNLI to go on saving lives at sea.
    The RNLI fleet consists of all weather and inshore lifeboats and, at selected stations, hovercraft. They operate four lifeboat stations along the tidal reaches of the Thames (Tower Pier, Chiswick, Gravesend and Teddington). The charity also operates lifeboat stations covering major inland waters at Lough Derg, Republic of Ireland; Enniskillen (Lough Erne) Northern Ireland; and South Broads, Norfolk.

HOVERCRAFT

The RNLI introduced hovercraft to its fleet in December 2002, to enhance inshore search and rescue operations. The craft operate in areas of shallow water and mud, which conventional lifeboats cannot navigate. RNLI hovercraft are developed in conjunction with the RNLI’s technical department specifically for search and rescue purposes. The hovercraft is 7.75m in length, carries a crew of three and has a top speed of 30 knots with a range of 3 hours at maximum speed. In 2004 the RNLI hovercraft at Hunstanton launched 9 times, the hovercraft at Morecambe launched 21 times, and the hovercraft at Southend-on-Sea launched 15 times.
    They are always searching for new ways of saving lives at sea and after a successful pilot scheme in 2001, 2002 saw the introduction of a beach lifeguard service on 43 of the country’s busiest beaches in south and south west England, expanding to 59 by 2005 – a very successful service that they hope to widen over the next few years. Today more and more people are using the sea for leisure and crews are responding to an increased number of incidents relating to recreational pursuits. Last year they launched 7,656 times, an average of more than 21 times a day and saved 433 lives.
    Research shows that 4 out of 10 adults in the UK don’t know the RNLI is a charity, but in fact they rely on voluntary contributions and legacies from the public for income.
    Grand Lodge gave £30,000 to the RNLI in 1995, but the donations from private lodges and from Provinces continue to flow: over £14,000 in 2003, £28,000 in 2004 and £27,000 in 2005. Their Royal Patron is the Grand Master, HRH The Duke of Kent, and their Treasurer for the past six years is the recently retired Deputy Grand Master, Iain Ross Bryce.
    Here we have one of the outstanding examples of the best that Britain can do in voluntary work, and at the same time provide a vital national resource, vital on so many planes. It relies for its effectiveness on volunteer crew and voluntary fund-raising, and demonstrates what resourcefulness, courage and hard work can achieve.

For more information about the Train One; Save Many campaign, visit www.rnli.org.uk/crewtraining or telephone 0800 543210.