BEFOHK the middle of October the Institution's life-boats had already rescued more lives this year than they rescued in the whole of 1956, although 19,56 was the busiest year the service had ever known in time of peace.

When the St. Peter Port life-boat rescued the crew of three of the fishing boat Shirley May, of Alderney, on the 9th of October, the figure for lives rescued in 1957 was brought up to 535. In 1956 life-boats rescued 533 lives. These remarkable figures again provide evidence of the steady increase in the tasks which life-boat crews are now called upon to perform. In the last eight years of peace before the outbreak of war in 1939 life-boats were launched on an average 277 times a year. Since the war the yearly average has exceeded 600, and even the advent of the helicopter and the growing co-operation between helicopters and life-boats have not served to reduce the numbers of life-boat services.

GERMAN LIFE-BO AT SOCIETY FORGOES SUBSIDIES The Secretary of the Institution has received a letter from the life-boat society of the German Federal Republic, Deutsche GeseJlschaft zur Rettung Schiffbriichiger, stating that the German society has now decided, of its own free will, to forgo any subsidy from the State.

For some ninety years the German society was financed, like the Royal National Life-boat Institution, wholly by voluntary contributions, but after the last war a State subsidy had to be asked for. The subsidy amounted to an agreed percentage of the voluntary contributions. Year by year a lower percentage was granted, and now the German society appears able to manage without the subsidy.

NORTH-EASTERN DISTINCTION Among the many outstanding recent achievements of financial branches, two from the north-east of England seem to call for special mention. The Bradford and district branch has already succeeded in providing the full sum of money needed for the provision of the life-boat stationed at the Humber and named City of Bradford III. The success of the appeal owed much to the energy and enthusiasm of Alderman Horace Hird and his daughter, Miss Audrey Hird, and also to the services of Mr. Clifford M.

Kershaw, honorary secretary, and Mr. L. H. Sheppard, honorary treasurer, and to the officials of the Bradford Ladies' Life-boat Guild, Mrs.

Silvio Lanfranchi. Mrs. J. B. Thornton, and Mrs. F. K. Lund.

Equally remarkable was the one-day effort organized in the small community of North Sunderlarid-Seahouses, where a fete held on August bank holiday, in which expenses were negligible, raised £1,145. The August bank holiday Seahouses fete has for many years been a resounding success, and from 1954 onwards more than £1,000 have been raised each year.

JOSEPH CONRAD CENTENARY Jozef Korzeniowski, who was known to the world as Joseph Conrad, was born in southern Poland on the 3rd of December. 1857, and his surviving sons have expressed the wish that the centenary of his birth should be marked by a public appeal for a new life-boat to bear their father's name.

Conrad was a profound admirer of the Life-boat Institution. He wrote a foreword to a history of the service published in 1923, and whenever he visited a seaside town where there was a life-boat station, almost his first action was to inspect the life-boat.

He never consciously passed a life-boat collecting box without inserting a coin.

The appeal is being supported by a number of distinguished literary figures and former associates of Conrad, and in connection with the appeal the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral were good enough to allow the collection at Evensong in the Cathedral on Sunday the 6th of October to be given to the funds of the Institution. The Marquis Camden and Mr. T. O. Gray represented the Committee of Management at this service, and members of the crews of the Dover. Margate. Ramsgate and Walmer life-boats were present.

V.H.F. RADIO TO BK INSTALLED IN 40 MORE LIFE-BOATS The Institution has decided to install very high frequency radio telephones into a further 40 life-boats to enable them to communicate directly with helicopters and other search and rescue ail-craft. Seventeen of the life-boats are stationed in England, eleven in Scotland, three in Wales, two in Northern Ireland, two in the Channel Islands and two in the Isle of Man.

Three are reserve life-boats.

In July, 1956, it was announced that a first list of 50 life-boats in which V.H.F. sets would be installed had been selected. Five months later a second list of 50 life-boats in which the sets were to be installed was published..