ONE of the happiest and most success- ful of annual Life-boat functions is the summer Road "Exercise and Launch of the Cullercoats Life-boat at Whitley Bay. On that day the Fishwives of Cullercoats, headed by Mrs. Mary Scott, th; Coxswa'u's wJe, organize a Life-boat Collection of their own, and carry the whole thing through with such enthu- siasm and success that we wish we could send them on tour through the country.

The Collection started in 1922, the fishwives not only organizing and carry- ing it out, but paying all expenses them- selves. In that year they collected over £58 ; in 1923, £92 ; in 1924, £101 ; and this year £122. The star collector is Mrs. Polly Donkin, whose portrait appeared in the issue of The Lifeboat for December, 1923, in an article on the first two years of the Fishwives' Day.

In that year Mrs. Donkin collected over £13. This year she has collected nearly £23, a wonderful achievement for an old lady. Life-boat workers may wonder enviously how she does it. We can only quote what the Honorary Secretary writes about her. " This amount," he says,'' was, of course, not collected wholly on Saturday, as she has been collecting from the county and country houses quite far afield for the past fortnight, and she has such a pleasing personality that it is difficult to refuse her. Altogether she got five boxes tightly filled." It is not only the Fishwives who take part in the Day, the men showed the same enthusiasm, though in a rather different way. We quote again from the Honorary Secretary : " Further, the younger men in the village formed them- selves into a Jazz Band, and have been practising for the last few weeks, and they also added their efforts to the occasion." But the Fishwives were not satisfied with Jazz alone. As in 1924, the New- castle Highland Pipe Band—thirty pipers and drummers—gave their services.

Finally, a resident at Whitley Bay entertained the Bands and the Fishwives to tea at a restaurant—140 guests in all.

A very gay and happy Day ! And as a film was taken both of the road journey of the Boat and of the Launch, many thousands of people will have seen how the Fishwives of Cullercoats work for the Service.

Times change, but not the spirit of the men and women on our coasts. So any visitor at Cullercoats on that day would have realised if, after watching the Exercise and Launch, and the busy band of Fishwives, he had gone into the Dove Marine Laboratory, for there he would have seen the coble (presented to the Institution twelve years ago by Lady John Joicey-Cecil), in which the most famous of the women of the Northumbrian coast, Grace Darling, performed her splendid service..