THE oldest existing life-boat station in England lies half-hidden behind a scrap metal yard on the Sunderland docks. The road to the life-boathouse twists and bends between low-lying warehouses and shipyard buildings towards the river Wear, and the landscape is a study in monochrome: dark grey hulks of wharfside sheds against grey water, tall and brutal cranes puncturing the grey sky.

Abruptly the road ends, several tons of rusting metal on the bare patch of ground ahead, a ship repair yard on one side. A life-boathouse - but where'? Major N. Dugdale, honorary secretary of the station, turns to a small gateway on the left of the scrap metal yard. A narrow path of trodden earth is separated from the rusting metal by high palings. A few yards along it, unbelievably, can be seen the familiar Persian red and cream paint of the boathouse.

"Sunderland is the oldest station in the country, established by 1800, but very few people in Sunderland know where the life-boat is," says Major Dugdale.

SHIPYARD MEN COME RUNNING Those who know the station best, apart from the life-boat crew, are the shipyard men who work nearby. As soon as the maroons are fired they come running. "If the life-boat is called out in the daytime you get any number of men round the docks who are ready to go out," says Bill Milburn, the life-boat mechanic. "They come out of curiosity and they're willing to help." There is a crew of 14 at Sunderland - almost twice as many as needed to man the 47-foot Watson life-boat William Myers and Sarah Jane Myers but a wise doubling-up when many of the crew live a few miles from the station. Coxswain Dick Lisle lives nearly four miles away and often thumbs a lift to the docks when the life-boat is called out. "I've arrived here in a 'black Maria' when the police have brought me. I've had a lift in an ice-cream van and once I came in a hearse." Several other members of the crew, living two to four miles away, have their own cars.

Members of the Sunderland crew are "very close, with hardly a wrong word between them" as one of them explains. Every Tuesday evening they meet at the boathouse to clean their life-boat, then reward themselves with pint glasses - "very strong beer we've got in Sunderland" - at a local bar.

MISCELLANEOUS BUT A GOOD TEAM In the summer they go away together on a day's outing, at Christmas-time they hold a crew dinner. Together in a group they banter and joke, quick on repartee, usually poised for laughter.

The spirit that exists between them is the more impressive because they come from occupations of wide dissimilarity. The coxswain is a school caretaker, John Todd, the second coxswain, is a crane driver, while Jimmy and John Todd, his brother and son respectively, are butchers by trade. Leslie Davison is a works manager whose family have been members of the crew for over a century.

George Whitfield is a postman, Kenneth O'Neill a cabinet maker. Others include two shipwrights, a forgeman, and a dock gateman. "We are a miscellaneous crowd but a good team when we get together," Coxswain Lisle once said.

Years ago, before the second world war, most of the crew were fishermen, but Sunderland's fishing community gradually dwindled as its sons looked to the shipyards and factories for a less rigorous livelihood. Today not one member of the life-boat crew is a fisherman, although the coxswain did earn his living by fishing before the war.

FAMILY WITH A CENTURY'S SERVICE Many, like Leslie Davison, join because they come from families with long traditions of life-boat service. Leslie Davison's grandfather was coxswain of the Sunderland life-boat for 35 years and another of his ancestors, Coxswain W.

Davison, was awarded the Institution's silver medal for long service hi 1858.

The Davisons are distantly related to the Todds, and Leslie Davison's grandfather was John Todd's uncle.

The oldest member of the crew, Tommy Wake, joined in the 19305 in the time of the depression. "I joined when coal was us. 6d. a half ton - and I could earn I2S. 6d. a quarter as signalman," he explains.

Tommy Wake can remember the Henry Vernon, the life-boat which served the station between 1918 and 1935 but those who wish to delve deeper into the station's past must consult Major Dugdale. "When I became honorary secretary I thought I ought to learn something about the history. With the help of old records and books on Sunderland I have put together a short history of the lifeboat station." Major Dugdale has a copy of the first balance sheet of the Sunderland life-boat fund. It dates back to May, 1800, and shows that the town's first life-boat had already been delivered to her station. The boat was built by a Monkwearmouth man, William Wake, for the sum of £185 os. io d.

SUNDERLAND'S CELEBRATED LIFE-SAVER Down to that last halfpenny the money for the life-boat came from a fund raised primarily by Lord Dundas. Had he not been impressed with the lifesaving exploits of Martin Douglas, a Sunderland keelman and self-styled "celebrated life-saver", Sunder land's claim to being the oldest life-boat station in continuous service since 1800 might never have been possible.

One stormy day in 1799 the 30O-ton collier Ajax, sailing on her maiden voyage from the river Wear, was wrecked in the sudden violence of a storm.

She was driven on to rocks a mile north of Sunderland harbour.

Martin Douglas and three others put out in their cobles and with one notable exception - the customs house officer - saved the crew of the Ajax from drowning.

Douglas, a man of no immoderate modesty, later described the rescue in a privately-published account of his "life and adventures".

"I was," he writes, "a young man of undaunted courage and great skill as a pilot. I boldly ventured to go right out to sea in a coble. Nothing could stay me in my eagerness to save life, though experienced seamen warned me that nobody could live in such high seas." On the last of his three trips to take off the crew of the wrecked collier he claims that his coble was under water with only the heads of the occupants showing above the surface. He and the other seamen clung to the thwarts below the water and were swept into the harbour by the sea.

BOATS EMPTY WITHIN A MINUTE Extravagant his claims might be - but his exploits drew the attention of Lord Dundas and others who gave him £300 and asked him to have a life-boat built.

Little is known of Sunderland's first life-boat nor of the two which followed.

The second was built in 1808 at the cost of £106 and the third was built in 1817 for £128 I2s. id. Sunderland life-boats in general, however, were said to differ in principle from many others and it was claimed that when they were filled with water they could empty themselves in one minute. The interiors of the life-boats were divided into watertight compartments and in the bottoms of the boats were four apertures which opened to disperse the water and closed when the water had drained away.

Captain Manby, who invented the line-throwing mortar, visited Sunderland and reported, "The life-boats here are particularly worthy of notice, having a superior advantage over every other boat I have seen or heard of." RUN BY FISHERMEN AND SHIPOWNERS The early life-boats were run by local committees of shipowners and seamen, but in 1865 the R.N.L.I. supplied a 33-foot life-boat Florence Nightingale at the request of the Sunderland fishermen whose two boats were out of order. The Sunderland branch of the Institution was founded in the same year.

In the following year there was a cholera outbreak in the town. The lifeboathouse was temporarily used as an isolation hospital at the request of the health authorities and the life-boat lay afloat.

In 1871 the Institution took over the local life-boat society run by the shipowners, who handed three life-boats and the sum of £150 into the management of the R.N.L.I. Soon afterwards a new life-boathouse and slipway were built at the south entrance to the Sunderland docks and a 36-foot, 12-oared boat was added to the Sunderland life-boat fleet in 1872. From 1873 until 1887 four life-boats were stationed at Sunderland simultaneously.

The first experimental motor life-boat in the Institution's fleet was sent to Sunderland in 1911. The J. McConnell Hussey was fitted with a 12 h.p. twocycle motor and had a speed of six knots. Previously she had been stationed at Folkestone and Tynemouth, and she remained at Sunderland until the first world war.

TOOK PART IN HOSPITAL SHIP RESCUE At the end of the first world war the Henry Vernon., a 4O-foot, 40 h.p. life-boat, was sent from Tynemouth where she had taken part in the famous rescue of people from the hospital ship Rohilla in 1914 together with the Whitby life-boat.

The Henry Vernon was replaced in 1935 by the Edward and Isabella Irwin which during the 28 years she was at Sunderland saved over 80 lives. The present life-boat William Myers and Sarah Jane Myers arrived on her station in May, 1963. Like her predecessor, she is high in the crew's affection. "A little angel," says Coxswain Lisle..