A PASSAGE up the Thames by the new Walmer life-boat in March, 1959, gave civil servants in appreciable numbers an opportunity of inspecting one of the boats which has been provided for the Institution by the civil servants' own remarkably successful fund. The Walmer life-boat, which is named Charles Dibdin (Civil Service No. 32), is in fact the thirty-second life-boat to have been provided by the voluntary gifts of civil servants. Sixteen of the life-boats were pulling and sailing boats and sixteen were motor boats.

Ten of the motor life-boats are in service to-day: at Blyth, Hartlepool, Holyhead, Margate, Portrush, Thurso, St. David's, Southend-on-Sea and Whitehills, as well as at Walmer.

The Civil Service Life-boat Fund, which was established in 1866, was virtually the creation of Charles Dibdin, himself a civil servant in the Post Office Savings Bank until he joined the Institution as Secretary in 1883, a post he held until his death in 1910.

While the Walmer life-boat was at Westminster pier she was visited by the Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Sir Harold Gillett ; the Minister of Transport, Mr. Harold Watkinson ; the Chairman of the Port of London Authority, Lord Simon ; several members of Parliament of both Houses and a number of other distinguished visitors in addition to civil servants of all grades. On the 17th of March the life-boat visited Twickenham, Kingston and Richmond, where receptions were held by the mayors of the three boroughs.

CLOSING OF A LIFE-BOAT STATION A life-boat station which has been in existence for 139 years is to close this year. This is the station at Poolbeg in County Dublin, which was taken over by the Royal National Life-boat Institution in 1862, after an agreement with the life-boat committee established in Dublin. Poolbeg life-boats were designed for rescue work in the Liffey estuary and were not normally expected to go beyond the lighthouses on either side of the entrance to the river. With the establishment of motor life-boats, which could be speedily manned at both Dun Laoghaire and Howth, the need for a life-boat at Poolbeg diminished steadily.

To-day both Dun Laoghaire and Howth life-boats can reach casualties at the river entrance more quickly than the life-boat at Poolbeg, and the last occasion on which the Poolbeg lifeboat was called out was in 1955.

Since the Institution took over the station Poolbeg life-boats have rescued 59 lives.

The provision of a new 42-feet beach type life-boat at Aldeburgh and improved launching arrangements have virtually eliminated the need for two life-boats at this station, and for this reason it has also been decided to close the Aldeburgh no. 2 station.

MEDAL SERVICE CERTIFICATES On the occasion of the remarkable rescue carried out by the Longhope life-boat, which appears on page 222, it will be seen that medal service certificates were to be issued to three members of the crew. This is the result of a decision taken by the Committee of Management in 1955, when it was resolved that whenever the coxswain of a life-boat was awarded a medal for gallantry, except for a purely personal act of bravery, certificates should be accorded to every member of the crew to record the fact that they played their part in the rescue operations. The standards which the Institution maintains in the granting of its awards are rigorous, and a certificate indicating that a man carried out his duties in a life-boat in a service meriting one of the Institution's medals is a possession which can well be highly prized.

THE END OF THE "TRANQUILLITY" A vessel which seems to have given rise to more calls on life-boats than any other in the Institution's history finally met her end in February 1959.

This was the fishing boat first named Tranquillity, whose name was later changed to Patte. In January 1954 she was towed in by the Workington life-boat ; in March of the same year she was towed in by the Fleetwood life-boat ; and the Barrow life-boat had to tow her in first in July and then in September 1954. In January 1956 the Workington life-boat towed her in again, and little more than two years later, in May 1958, the Barrow life-boat took her in tow to Fleetwood, after her propellers had become fouled.

She finally sank after going aground on the Kirkcudbrightshire coast.

FRENCH AND IRISH LINK A friendly link has been formed between the life-boat stations at Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin, and Boulogne- sur-Mer. This was the result of a visit paid by the Dun Laoghaire honorary secretary, Dr. J. de Courcy Ireland, to Boulogne, where he met the chairman of the Boulogne life-boat committee, M. le Garrec, a trawler owner who more than fifty years ago was rescued by the Courtmacsherry life-boat from a French barque. The two life-boat stations have agreed regularly to exchange annual reports, reports of services, photographs and other information..