THE full record of the life-boat service in the past year was a truly remarkable one. In no other year since the Institu- tion was founded in 1824 have life-boats been called out so often to vessels in distress at sea. The total number of launches on service in 1961 was 960. It is true that this figure was exceeded in 1940 when there were 1,081 launches, but in that year a high proportion of the calls were to aircraft which had been shot down in the Battle of Britain and in other engagements in the air. The year in which the third highest figure, either in war or in peace, was recorded was 1959, when there were 866 launches on service. Since the end of the last war there has been a steady growth in the number of calls made on life-boat crews year after year, but some impression of just how exceptional a year the last one has been may be gained from the fact that up to 1961 the average annual figure for launches in the post-war period had been 660.

HELP TO FOREIGN VESSELS A feature of the work of life-boats in 1961 was the remarkable number of ser- vices to vessels of foreign nations. Dur- ing the year life-boats went to the help of 78 vessels belonging to 17 different coun- tries, rescuing 21 lives from them. Of these vessels 22 were registered in the Netherlands. Tradition and the accident of geography have created over the cen- turies a close association between the maritime nations of the British and Dutch, and there has been a particularly strong bond between the life-boat societies of the two countries. In the Netherlands the life-boat service is also a wholly voluntary one, and it is the second oldest life-boat society in the world. In recent years the personal con- tact between officials of the R.N.L.I.

and the Dutch life-boat services has been extremely cordial, and there have been many useful exchanges of ideas.

The Institution is therefore particu- larly gratified that in the past year its life-boats were able to render such effect- ive aid to Dutch seamen.

THE INSTITUTION'S FINANCES In both 1959 and 1960 the Institu- tion's expenditure exceeded its receipts, and reserves had therefore to be drawn upon. In 1961 the trend of the two pre- ceding years was happily reversed and there was a credit balance. At a first glance the figures for receipts and pay- ments in 1961 appear distinctly satis- factory, but a more careful analysis soon reveals why there are no grounds what- ever for complacency. The great bulk of the increase in receipts did in fact come from legacies, which amounted to £179,421 more than they did in 1960, and receipts from legacies do inevitably fluctuate. The tendency over the years has been for the amounts left to the Institution in legacies to increase, but an examination of figures year by year shows sharp rises and falls. With steady increase in calls on life-boats, of which the year 1961 provided such striking evidence, and with the continual adop- tion of new designs, new devices and new forms of equipment, the cost of the life-boat service must inevitably rise in real terms and not merely in accordance with changes in the value of money.

The receipts from the living, as opposed to the dead, although increasing slightly in monetary terms, are still not rising as fast as the cost of the Institution's un- avoidable commitments.

DEATH OF A SHORE HELPER The death of Mr. James Pentreath, which is recorded on page 202 and which occurred when the Penlee life-boat was being rehoused on the 30th December, 1961, calls attention to the fact that the life-boat service may present dangers at all times to those who are engaged in it.

The work of the many shore helpers at life-boat stations is not perhaps fully appreciated by the public at large. The services of those who man the life-boats make a natural appeal to people who hear and read of men at sea battling with the elements, but little credit is generally given to those others on shore, without whose efforts the life-boat ser- vice would in fact be paralysed. The shore helpers too have to turn out at all times of day or night and in any conditions of weather.

Mr. Pentreath,who was killed in action, was one of an appreciable number of helpers whose devotion to the service is comparable to that of the men who put out in the boats.

NEW COMMITTEE MEMBER The appointment reported on page 205 of Mr. P. Denham Christie, who is ! the coxswain of the Tynemouth life- boat, as a member of the Committee of Management of the Institution has prompted a number of people to ask whether he is the first coxswain on whom this honour has been bestowed.

Mr. Denham Christie is not in fact the first life-boat coxswain to serve on the Committee of Management. Earlier in the century there was a most distin- guished committee member who served in a life-boat crew for more than forty years. This was Major-General J. E. B.

Seely, later Lord Mottistone, who was at one time Secretary of State for War.

He first joined the life-boat crew at Brooke in the Isle of Wight in 1894, and from 1933 to 1936 he was coxswain. He became a member of the Committee of Management in 1901 and served on it for 46 years until his death. His book on the life-boat service, Launch, which is now unfortunately out of print, gives a vivid first-hand account of what ser- vice in a life-boat meant in the early years of this century..