AT 8.15 on the evening of the 29th of July, 1956, the honorary secretary of the Lytham-St. Anne's station was told that a swimmer was in difficulties on the Southport side of the River Ribble. A fresh north-westerly gale was blowing, there was a rough sea, and the tide was ebbing.

Two of the members of the Lytham- St. Anne's life-boat crew, George Harrison, motor mechanic, and Keith Morris, reserve mechanic, immediately put out in an eight-feet dinghy, which was the only craft they could launch into the river with no delay, and began to row across the estuary. The dinghy was nearly a third of the way across the river when the swimmer succeeded in reaching the far bank.

He ran off immediately. The wind was blowing too strongly for shouts to be heard recalling the dinghy, and because of the rise and fall of the seas the two men manning her could not see that the swimmer had reached shore safely.

As the dinghy approached the far shore she capsized, throwing Morris out and trapping Harrison underneath.

Morris managed to free Harrison, and together they succeeded in righting the dinghy and scrambling aboard. With Harrison pulling the oars and Morris baling out water, they reached the bank.

Meanwhile the owner of a 23-feet motor boat, Mr. George Topping, saw that the dinghy was in danger and put out in his boat. When he reached the bank he took the two mechanics aboard and towed the dinghy back to Lytham pier.

For this service the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum have been accorded to each of the two Lytham mechanics, George Harrison and Keith Morris..