Lerwick, Shetlands. At 3.57 on the afternoon of the 27th December, 1961, the medical officer of health for Shet- land rang up the honorary secretary to say that a three-year-old girl on Fair Isle was believed to have appendicitis.

He asked if the life-boat would bring her to Lei wick, where she could be taken to hospital. No other boat was avail- able, and at 6.7 the life-boat Claude Cecil Staniforth left her moorings with a doctor on board. She made for Fair Isle in a moderate north-westerly breeze, a rough sea and an ebbing tide. She reached the island at 10.40, and the doc- tor went ashore. At 11.30 he and the girl and the girl's father were taken on board, and the life-boat then re- turned to Lerwick, which she reached at 4.30 in the morning. An ambulance was waiting for the girl..