APPENDICITIS PATIENT Islay, Inner Hebrides. At 10.20 p.m.

on 2 ist July, 1964, a local doctor told the honorary secretary that an appendicitis patient was in urgent need of an operation.

The air ambulance service could not operate because of thick fog so the doctor requested the use of the life-boat. At 10.35 the life-boat Francis W. Wotherspoon of Paisley proceeded to Oban after picking up the patient at Port Askaig, arriving there at 4.30 a.m. On the return journey she was asked to divert to Mc- Arthur Head lighthouse to pick up a sick lighthouse keeper and she conveyed him to Port Askaig. The life-boat returned to her station at 1.30 p.m..