When the maroons are fired at Ilfracombe, on the North Devon Coast, everyone has a good chance of seeing the new life-boat, Lloyd's II, which is kept in the life-boat house below Lantern Hill, going on its carriage through the heart of the town to the launching point. Obviously, from the publicity point of view, this is ideal.

When, during a visit to Ilfracombe in September, 1966, for the naming of the new life-boat (see the December, 1966, issue of THE LIFE-BOAT), I asked Mr.

F. G. Reed, the honorary secretary, for any publicity tips, he said that he was a strong advocate of a visitors' book for the life-boat house.

VISITORS' BOOK 'People', he said, 'love to come and see our gallery of photographs and pictures, and we have found over the years that a well placed visitors' book and a well placed collecting box are an ideal combination. People, you know, like to leave a record that they have been to the life-boat house.' Here again the life-boat house is, in a way, in an ideal position from thepublicity aspect. For it nestles from the Atlantic winds at the foot of Lantern Hill. On its summit is the fishermen's chapel of St. Nicholas, so named after the saint who, among other miracles, was said to have 'answered the prayer of some storm tossed sailors and, joining them in their boat, to have quieted the fury of the seas'. Long ago it was customary for seamen to assemble in this lilliputian chapel before setting out on voyages.

A SPANISH GALLEON In fact, as I learned during my visit of more of these stories of the port of Ilfracombe, I was sure that it had everything, at least in the summer, to woo the visitor to think of the local life-boat service.

Round about this piece of coast there is more of this kind of atmosphere. For 24 miles from Ilfracombe lies Lundy Island. At the south west corner of the island rises the Great Shutter Rock - the great rock which Charles Kingsley immortalized in 'Westward Ho!' as the place where the Spanish galleon was wrecked with all hands lost.

Ilfracombe life-boat station - its first life-boat was put there in 1828 under local management and came under the control of the Institution in 1866 - stands today overlooking a haven which, it is said, was probably first used by a few primitive craft as early as the xoth century. The port reached its peak of import- ance as a harbour for sailing ships in about 1800.

The first R.N.L.I. life-boat at Ilfracombe - the Broad-water - was on service there for about a quarter of a century. She answered her first rescue call on 20th April, 1867, to the Boston full rigged ship Nor-Wester.

THE LIFE-BOAT HOUSE The original life-boat house, which was constructed in 1866 at a cost of £180, was eventually demolished and the present one put up in 1893 at a cost of £360.

This life-boat house, I learned, had a slip leading from it to the water at Warp House Point until the present pier was built. This is the reason why it isnecessary today to take the life-boat to its present launching point - to be launched over the spot on which the original life-boat house stood. Ilfracombe has, of course, always been troubled with a big rise and fall in tides.

A year after the opening of the second life-boat house, and hi the course of launching the life-boat on service, 'one of the boat house doors fell on John Pollard who was seriously injured'.

All through the history of the station its life-boats have rendered valuable service. For example, in March, 1915, Ilfracombe life-boatmen landed 33 survivors; in July, 1926, a round 50.

Let's take a look at a comparatively recent rescue in detail - the rescue of 23 members of the crew of the s.s. Monte Gurugu, a Spanish vessel, on I3th Novem- ber, 1949. Between Lundy Island and Hartland Point, in tremendous seas the like of which had not been seen for years, her rudder was smashed. A leak developed and soon the sea got into her hold. Her crew of 37 barely had time to transmit an S.O.S. message. Then three life-boats answered the call - Appledore, Clovelly and Ilfracombe.

FILLED TO THE GUNWALES It is said that, as the Ilfracombe life-boat, Richard Silver Oliver, left the harbour under the shadow of Lantern Hill, she was filled to the gunwales several times before reaching the open sea.

The then Coxswain Cecil G. Irwin, who knew the coast like the back of hishand, made a quick decision and decided to run down Woolacombe Bay close to the breakers in the hope of sighting wreckage and possibly men. A ship's boat was soon found only a few yards from the breakers and the terror of the surf. The Spaniards with only four pairs of oars - the boat contained 23 survivors - were trying to keep their ship's boat head on to the seas. A grapnel was thrown by the life-boat and caught the bows of their boat. Coxswain Irwin, who was subsequently awarded the silver prize medal of the Spanish Society for Saving the Shipwrecked, then reversed the engines and towed the boat back to deeper water - and salvation. He then made all speed with the exhausted survivors to Ilfracombe, landed them, and then ploughed out through the raging seas in search of further survivors from the Spanish vessel. He was, on this occasion, unlucky, and I believe nine of the Monte Gurugu's crew are buried in Ilfracombe cemetery.

Incidentally, all the life-boats concerned in this desperate rescue bid were honoured in some way.

During my day with the Ilfracombe life-boat I had the pleasure of a short trip in Lloyd's II over the bar. Coxswain Edward G. Williams, who joined the crew in 1928, was at the helm and he did his best, I am sure, to edge her out so that I could obtain some seascapes. But it was just choppy enough to make things difficult and - well the double exposure on page 108 tells its own story!.