AN hour's programme on the Life-boat Service was broadcast by the B.B.C.

in its Home Service on- Sunday, the •23rd of November, under the title "On Life-saving Service." It told the story of the Service from the building of the first life-boats up to the present day, and in introducing the programme the announcer said: "We dedicate this programme to the coxswains and crews of the Royal National Life-boat Institution, to the men and women who help to launch the life-boats, and to the memory of the countless seamen who have given up their lives on life-saving service." The programme was written by Mr.

Martin Chisholm, and produced by Mr. Maurice Brown. The narrator was an honorary secretary of a life-boat station and was played by Mr, Charles Lefeaux. The other parts in the broadcast were played by Mr. Felix Deebank, Mr. George Bishop, Mr. Jack Morrison, Mr. Derek Hart, Mr. Stephen Jack, Mr. Victor Platt, Mr. Ian Catford, Mr. Deryck Guyler, Mr. Laidman Browne, and Miss Myrtle Rowe.

Among those whose voices were 'heard were Lionel Lukin, describing how to make a boat buoyant with •empty casks; William Wouldhave, at work on his model of the first selfrighting life-boat; Sir William Hillary, making his appeal for a life-boat service; The Archbishop of Canterbury and William Wilberforce speaking at the meeting in 1824 at which the Institution was founded; and Joseph Conrad, paying his tribute as a sailor to the life-boat crews.

Records from the Coast The programme also included a wrecking scene, in the days before lifeboats ; an account, read by a Welshman, of the service by the Moelfre pulling and sailing life-boat—for which two gold medals were awarded—to the ketch Excel in October, 1927; the engineers' report of the Margate life-boat's work on the Dunkirk beaches in 1940; and recordings made on the coast during the summer of 1947. In these recordings the listeners heard a foreman-shipwright and the Institution's resident assistant surveyor of life-boats at Cowes examining a partly built lifeboat; women launching the life-boat at Newbiggin; a launch by tractor at St.

Ives; and the Margate life-boat at sea.

Of this last recording the narrator said: "You'd like to know what the actual work of rescue is like, wouldn't you, not just to hear life-boats launched? We can't quite give you that. When there are lives to be saved there's no room aboard a life-boat for microphones and recording gear. Every inch of space is needed and every man on board must pull his weight. We couldn't go afloat then. But during a practice it is different, and here is just what might happen any day or'night when one of the Institution's life-boats is called out on1 service." The broadcast ended with a Northumbrian woman speaking Sir William Hillary's words: "From the calamity of shipwreck no one can say that he may at all times remain free.".