Walton and Frinton, Essex.—At 9.25 on the evening of the 23rd of July, 1953, the Walton-on-the-Naze coast- guard rang up to say that the Harwich police had reported that a man and a woman were stranded on a sandbank in Dovercourt Bay opposite a holiday camp. At 9.40 the life-boat Thomas Markby, on temporary duty at the station, put out in a moderate sea with a light north-westerly breeze blowing.

She was guided to the position by the police, who used the headlights of a car. The stranded man flashed his cigarette lighter, and the coxswain, seeing this, took the life-boat as close to the sandbank as he could. A life- boatman then waded to the sandbank with a line and rescued the people, and the life-boat took them to Har- wich. An ambulance met them and took them to hospital where the woman was detained. The life-boat arrived back at her station at 1.25 early the next morning.—Rewards, £16 6s..