ABOUT 2.30 on the afternoon of the 16th of August, 1955, two boys, aged eight and eleven, who were in difficulties when swimming, began to shout for help.

They were then about 200 yards north- north-east of the Appledore life-boat station. A strong tide was running.

The weather was fine and the sea was calm. A light westerly breeze was blowing, and it was about two and a half hours after low water.

Robert Cann, a ten-year-old boy, who is a grand-nephew of the Apple- dore coxswain, Sydney Cann, had at that time just arrived ashore at the life-boat station. He had pulled across the river in his father's 18-feet rowing boat from their sand-barge to go home to dinner.

Robert Cann heard the shouts and immediately manned the rowing boat which he had left moored afloat.

Single-handed he pulled across the four-knot tide and reached the elder boy. With Cann's help this boy managed to climb into the boat. The two of them then rescued the younger boy. This was a more difficult task, and he had to be hauled into the boat by the other two.

Cann, who knew the local waters well, realised that it would not be easy to bring the two boys ashore. He knew that, because of the tide he Ten-Year-Old Boy could not pull back to the point from which he had left, and he decided to carry on and try to reach the far shore.

In this he succeeded.

When the boat grounded, he climbed out and manhandled her up-tide to the westward. Then, when he had reached a point from which he felt he could safely put out again, he manned the boat once more. There was only one pair of oars, and single- handed he pulled the boat back round Appledore Point to a jetty on the east side of the town, where the two boys were landed about 3.15.

The honorary secretary of the Appledore life-boat station, Mr. C. H.

Ash, sent a report to Headquarters on this rescue, in which he described it as being certainly an exceptional per- formance for a boy of ten years of age.

He described Robert Cann's prompt- ness of action, courage and seamanship, and his knowledge of tides, currents and points of local danger, as "faultless".

For this service the Committee of Management decided to award Robert Cann the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum and to present him with an inscribed wristlet watch.

Robert Cann is the youngest person known to have received such an award for a rescue in the whole of the Insti- tution's history..