AT 4.45 on the morning of the 8th of September, 1954, Edward May, a 44- year-old steel worker from Scunthorpe, waded into the sea at Cap Gris Nez.

He planned to swim to Dover unes- corted and thereby become the first man to achieve this particular feat. He took food and rum with him on an inflated inner tube. He had a compass strap- ped to his wrist.

May hoped to reach Dover about six o'clock that evening, but the weather grew steadily worse, and as the day went on aircraft and ships of a number of organisations were diverted from their normal duties to go to his help.

About eight o'clock in the evening the tanker San Vito wirelessed that she had seen a man in the sea near the Goodwin Sands. The Deal coastguard passed this news to the Walmer life- boat station at 8.5. The position was given as eight miles south-east of the coastguard station.

Five minutes later, at high water, the life-boat Charles Dibdin, Civil Service No. 2 was launched. The sea was then moderate and a light southerly breeze was blowing. The Walmer life-boat began what was to be a long search.

The San Vito lost sight of the man who had been seen and who was pre- sumed to be May, and aircraft, R.A.F.

launches and a warship all joined in the search. No sign of May was seen.

At 4.9 on the 9th of September the Sandgate coastguard telephoned the Dover life-boat station and the life-boat Southern Africa put to sea. She reliev- ed the Walmer life-boat at daybreak and joined in the search, but she too found nothing.

At eleven o'clock the search was abandoned. The Dover life-boat re- turned to her station at 12.50. The Walmer life-boat had reached her station at 7.5.

May's body was washed ashore near Amsterdam three weeks later. He left a wife and nine children.

The cost to the Institution, for the search, in rewards amounted to £52 lls: £40 8s. for Walmer and £12 3*. for Dover..