IN his Henry Blogg of Cromer (Harrap I5/-), Mr. Cyril Jolly has undertaken with considerable success the important task of writing the biography of the life-boat coxswain who received the most medals for gallantry and won the greatest national fame.

To tell his story Mr. Jolly has gathered and recorded with care accounts of life-boat services from the journals of the Institution, from local newspapers and from those men who served under Henry Blogg in the Cromer life-boats. As a result there are assembled for the first time in one volume detailed accounts of the extraordinary series of services carried out by Cromer life-boats between 1894, when Henry Blogg first joined the crew, and 1948, when he went out on service for the last time. The services recalled include that to the S.S. Fernebo when fourteen medals for gallantry were won in a day ; the rescue from the S.S. Georgia when the life-boat was saved from disaster twice in two minutes by expert seamanship and returned with a jagged hole in her side and the forepart of her bilge keel ripped off; the fruitless journey in 1927 when the members of the crew had to break up their Christmas Day parties to put out in the worst seas most of them could recall ; the breaking of the back of the Monte Nevoso on the Haisborough Sands and the agonising delay before the captain finally agreed that his ship must be abandoned ; the occasion when Henry Blogg drove the life-boat over the deck of the barge Sepoy.

The retelling of these stories have been only one part of Mr. Jolly's work.

More formidable and more complex has been the task of trying to bring the great coxswain to life. Henry Blogg's genuine modesty, his unwillingness to speak of himself, his life restricted to a comparatively small corner—these form one side of the man's character; another side was revealed in his extraordinary powers of physical endurance and his capacity for moral leadership and inspiration. Mr. Jolly has recalled almost every trifle he learnt about Henry Blogg, ranging from his shaving habits to the names of the professional footballers whom he admired, but at the end the central figure remains an enigmatic one.

Vivid Illustrations At one point Mr. Jolly writes : " Henry Blogg was a man whom everybody had heard of, and nobody really knew. Those who were nearest to him confess how small was their knowledge of his character." It is doubtful whether any reader will feel at the end of this book that he has gained a deep insight into the great man who is the subject of this biography, although a number of the illustrations, particularly the photographs of Henry Blogg's home, of Henry Blogg with the mechanic of the life-boat, of Henry Blogg being presented to H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent, all serve for a moment vividly to illuminate the man.

Copies of Henry Blogg of Cromer can be supplied by the Institution on demand (16/-. post free).