FROM the 22nd to the 29th of June, 1960, the B.B.C. broadcast each evening a half-hour programme in the Welsh Home Service. The composite title of the series was Over the Waves, the narrator being Mr. Wynford Vaughan- Thomas. The six items were later repeated in the B.B.C. Light Pro- gramme. Mr. Wynford Vaughan- Thomas, together with a producer, a recording engineer and a cameraman, who was making a film which has since been shown on television, made a series of journeys along the Welsh coast mainly by life-boat. The editor of the Life-boat accompanied them and recorded the following impressions in diary form : 22nd June : Departure at nine a.m. from the slipway at Barry Dock. On our way from the Cardiff hotel we talk of the gales which had been blowing along the Welsh coast throughout most of the previous week and of reports of a difficult service by the Mumbles life- boat over the week-end. Wind now blowing force 5: the sea a dull olive- green tipped with white, and clouds racing across the sky.

Pilots in Crew Barry Dock is a station which I have visited only once, and then briefly. As we talk to the crew we learn that they are not one of the crews of fishermen. Most of them earn their livings in and around the docks. Two of them are pilots, including Coxswain Swarts.

It is not long before we are all well soaked and have become familiar with the feeling comparable perhaps to that of receiving showers of gravel over the face. The water soon seeps down inside one's clothing, and I wonder once again why it is that any- one ever goes to sea for pleasure. I find the coxswain has a healthy dis- like for the sea when it is in an un- friendly mood, which he expresses virulently.

As we round Nash Point we begin to bump fairly violently. . The cox- swain tells Wynford Vaughan- Thomas that if we had left an hour later the sea would have been over the mast. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas asks what would happen then, and the coxswain replies : " She comes up again quite dry as if to laugh at the sea and say : ' What do you think of that ?' ".

Porpoises Rising We pass a trading schooner, Kathleen and May, of the kind known as a Bideford man-o-war, a pretty picture from the past. Porpoises are seen rising, which the crew state is a certain sign of better weather ahead.

We reach the Breaksea lightvessel but consider the seas are too rough for taking recording equipment on board. We do, however, deliver newspapers.

Arrival at the Mumbles about 2.15.

The chairman of the branch, Mr.

David Johns, who is with the honor- ary secretary, Captain E. H. Slayter, and Coxswain Scott, to meet us, tells us of a moment of anxiety felt on shore during the recent service by the Mumbles boat. For a time they were out of R/T contact, and at a station that has known a disaster in living memory anxiety is soon enough felt.

Launch on Television News I hear too late that there was a good picture of the launch from Barry Dock on the television news. Wyn- ford Vaughan-Thomas's broadcast from the Mumbles studio describes the day graphically. Among those with whom he had recorded inter- views was a man who described sail- ing round Cape Horn, when, as he put it, his " ears had been whipped by hailstones as big as gooseberries".

In the evening we meet the Mumbles crew, with whom we are to sail tomorrow. There seems to be strong competition among amateur yachtsmen to be members of the crew.

23rd June : Early departure from the Mumbles.

The wind has dropped to between force 3 and 4, there is more green in the sea, and the clouds are wispier.

We pass the green and grey bareness of the Gower peninsula with no liv- ing things but gulls, cormorants and puffins in sight. Our first call today is at the Helwick lightvessel. Among the lightvessel's crew is a man whom the Mumbles life-boat took off last December in a gale. He tells the life-boat crew that he was in hospital for four months before returning.

No Difficulty Getting Volunteers Coxswain Scott is a most im- pressive, likeable figure. One of our youngest coxswains, soft spoken, almost gentle in manner, his power of command is quite unquestionable.

Other members of the crew include an insurance agent, a fireman and a policeman. They ask me whether they may perhaps be the youngest life-boat crew. In a flourishing yacht- ing centre they find no difficulty at all in getting volunteers.

The sea seems strangely empty.

Not a vessel is sighted for hours except the Trinity House tender, which reaches the Helwick lightvessel at nearly the same time as we do. The second coxswain, a former trawlerman, tells me we have been passing many good fishing areas, but no fishing boats are to be seen. He himself abandoned trawlers some time ago for a job in the steel works.

Boat called a Masterpiece Coxswain Scott describes his boat to Wynford Vaughan-Thomas as " a masterpiece ". He speaks of im- provements in design but adds that the hulls, which could not be better, do not alter essentially. At Tenby Coxswain Thomas, known as Billy Eiler, ferries us in his boat to the slipway.

24th June : Six a.m. departure from Tenby.

Tenby in the early morning with the 483 wide stretches of empty sand, the gaily-coloured boats, the gulls and the houses in which pinks and blues, rare enough on the Welsh coast, vary the traditional pattern of grey is a beautiful sight. We have the pros- pect of a perfect day ahead of us. It will be ideal cruising weather. We appreciate too the relative comfort of the most modern boats. Tea is soon produced with the help of the paraffin pressure cooker, and shelter can be had in the cabin. A journey such as this vividly reveals the steady progress made in recent years in the design as well as in the equipment of life-boats.

The district inspector, Lieut-Com- mander H. H. Harvey, has joined us for this day's trip. Billy Eiler, the coxswain, is a friendly, genial char- acter. The second coxswain, Ivor Crockford, another attractive figure, who has been Deputy Mayor of Tenby, entertains us with stories of Polynesian life and of Zane Grey's yacht in the Pacific.

Bird Sanctuaries and Firing Ranges More rugged grandeur of limestone cliffs with the change after a time to sandstone. We soon begin to see the pinks and purples of the Pembroke- shire coast. Our first visit is to Skomer Island, where we have a report of a gale warning. Grass- holm is covered with gannets so thickly as to suggest a heavy snow- fall. Still an empty sea. We pass the former Aberystwyth life-boat, which is now in the service of the naturalists who go to Skomer. We are also warned by an R.A.S.C.

launch of a firing practice. This part of the Welsh coast seems to be given up almost entirely to bird sanctuaries and firing ranges.

After passing the Bishop Rock lighthouse we visit the Davies family, the only inhabitants of Ramsey Island, a contented, good-looking, happy couple, who have some three or four hundred sheep as well as cattle. As I listen to Wynford Vaughan-Thomas talking to them I reflect on his extraordinary skill as an interviewer and broadcaster, and wonder what is the secret. Some of it lies in exceptional vitality, some in an evidently deep interest in people and places. He is certainly a delight- ful travelling companion with some deliciously funny stories. Alto- gether it is a happy party : Rowland Lucas, the producer, a tall, grey- haired man, had already impressed me in London as someone who knew what he wanted and how to get it with charm ; the photographer, Tom Hylton-Warner, startles me with his intrepidity in obtaining photographs while lying on his back in a pitching life-boat ; the recording engineer, Mansell Davies, has the quiet and easy assurance of the expert technician.

Extraordinary Musical Instrument On arrival at St. David's we are entertained to eggs and bacon and whisky by the chairman of the South Wales Gas Board, Mr. Mervyn Jones, who played a considerable part in the preparatory stages of this programme.

A visit to the Farmer's Arms in the evening. Coxswain Dai Lewis sings songs to the accompaniment of an extraordinary musical instrument which he seems to have developed him- self. Two powerfully built men from the Midlands inform me that their principal hobby is finding ingenious ways of raising money for charity.

One of the delights of this trip is to discover again how very many people are interested in the life-boat service.

Everywhere we go we find people who seem to have listened to all the pro- grammes. Much of this, of course, is attributable to Wynford Vaughan- Thomas's remarkable following.

25th June : Transport by Fast Launch The high winds in the night have died down to about force 4, and there is a good deal of sea mist. The landlord of the Farmer's Arms drives us down to the St. David's slipway.

Coxswain Dai Lewis and ex-Cox- swain William Watts-Williams are there to see us off. Today, because of the distance involved, our transport to Pwllheli is to be by high-speed R.A.F. rescue launch. She is an impressive craft, 68 feet in length, with a comfortable cruising speed of 29 knots. When flat out heading into the sea the boat seems to become air- borne, falling with thumps, which are more suggestive of an aircraft in an electric storm than of a ship in heavy seas. The skipper tells me that in conditions worse than a force 5 wind and a corresponding sea the launch would be of little use. It is sad to reflect that this type of craft seems to have reached perfection just about the time when it is becom- ing obsolete as a means of rescue and is being replaced by the helicopter.

Yet this happens to be one of the days in which launches could be more effective than helicopters because of the bad visibility.

The skipper, Flight-Lieutenant Burgess, is a young ex-Merchant Navy officer. This branch of the R.A.F. service affords little prospect of promotion, for there is only one group-captain in the division, yet according to Flight-Lieutenant Bur- gess the men are a contented lot.

The service has solved the problem facing so many married seamen of how to have a shore-based job and yet be able to go to sea.

Like Crouching Beasts After calling at Fishguard harbour we race northwards. Through the mist St. Tidwal's Islands rise green and in the shapes of crouching beasts.

The Pwllheli coxswain, William Gould, guides us to a point where we can anchor. He and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas immediately begin talking Welsh. We are with our first life-boat crew who normally converse with each other in Welsh.

In the evening 1 ask the barman at our hotel why there is no life-boat collecting box in the bar in view of the importance of the life-boat station in Pwllheli. He tells me that there is and points to a collecting box for the Missions to Seamen. When I sug- gest he may have made a mistake he answers : " It's all the same thing ".

26th June : Seven a.m. departure from Pwllheli.

The mayor has come down to the boathouse to see us off. Our first launch on this trip by tractor. I am impressed once again with the smoothness of this complicated operation.

Mist Settles on Sea Coxswain Gould, who is about to retire and who may even be on his last trip in the life-boat as coxswain, confirms the impression he gave, when I saw him in his own boat yesterday, of a man to whom a boat seems the only natural setting. There is practically no wind, and the mist settles over the sea. Visibility is about one hundred yards. There is a bad moment when the mist is at its thickest and the tide is running strongly, for there is trouble with the starboard engine. Fortunately the mechanic puts it right, and we reach Bardsey Island. Captain Jones, who meets us there, tells us the strange story of the abandonment of the island. He describes it as having had " a perfect community, where a door was never locked and no work was ever done on a Sunday " ; yet the population suddenly decided to leave it and migrate en masse.

The mist clears in the afternoon, and it is pleasant to have half-an- hour's sleep on deck in the sunshine.

The B.B.C. party, whose main job has to be done on arrival, seem to work nearly a seventeen-hour day.

Entertained at Golf Club There is a considerable reception committee at Porthdinllaen, including the honorary secretary, Mr. John Roberts, a powerfully built farmer.

Porthdinllaen has as lovely a setting as any life-boat station I know. Our afternoon entertainment is at the golf club, to which most of the crew seem to belong.

27th June : We leave Porthdinllaen at seven o'clock with Mr. Roberts aboard.

The crew seems to have an extremely happy and friendly atmosphere. The coxswain, Tom Moore, wears his authority lightly. Mr. Roberts tells me that when the crew discovered that he had served as honorary secretary for twenty-one years they made a collection and presented him with a barometer. One member of the crew tells me of a service in which they took a negro seaman, who had been struck in the jaw by a piston, oft" a ship. He adds that never before had he been so glad to be in the life- boat service. " The man meant nothing to us ", he said, " but we saved his life ".

The scenery today is perhaps the most magnificent of any. We pass the Rivals and in perfect weather come close in under the cliffs with Snowdon capping the hills in the background.

Transfer to Hoiv head Boat We reach Holyhead harbour, where we transfer to the Holyhead boat. This time we have not only the honorary secretary but the chair- man of the branch and the honorary secretary of the Cemmaes Bay branch aboard. We have too short a time to come to know the crew at all well, but their pride in their boat is apparent. One could quite well use the brasses as shaving mirrors.

We call at the Skerries lighthouse, where one of the keepers gives me much interesting information about the habits of terns and oyster- catchers. Then the final stretch to Moelfre. We pass the still visible wreck of the Hindlea. It is difficult to believe on this peaceful day that she was the cause of perhaps the greatest life-boat service for a decade.

Old friends in the Moelfre crew, who came to London earlier in the year for their medals, are there to greet us.

Tom Corrigan, the honorary secre- tary, and his wife entertain us in their home.

In the final programme Wynford Vaughan-Thomas asks me what my strongest impression has been. I tell him it is the quality of the men who serve in our life-boats, which I describe as " a perpetual redis- covery ". It is..