ALL SPICK AND SPAN • I should like to record my appreciation and thanks for THE LIFE-BOAT which reaches me from time to time. It is full of interest and having absorbed the contents I circulate it around my ship.

It is pleasing to learn that Y.L.A. continues to prosper and I shall do all that I can to assist it to flourish. It is understandable that rising costs in every direction cause concern in the future operation of the R.N.L.I, and it is to be hoped that public support such as that enlisted by the Y.L.A. will be sufficient to preclude the necessity of calling upon Government sources of income. It does appear, however, that there is a growing public awareness of the difficulties which are regarded with concern and sympathy and I never yet knew of anyone questioning a donation on R.N.L.I, flag days.

As you will be aware, New Brighton is a first-class life-boat station with many famousrescues to its credit; I think that locally we are all quite proud of it. Some of the crew members are my personal friends and sometimes, when I am at home on leave from sea, I am invited to join the boarding party for a routine inspection of the boat which as you will understand is a bit of a busman's holiday but which nevertheless is accepted with pleasure.

Boarding your boat as a professional seaman I never fail to be quietly satisfied by the conditions and state of things I find. Not that it would be my place to inspect, but you will understand that any proper seaman is never quite off-duty—the eye roves and seeks from long habit. I never yet saw anything the least detail of which was not exactly as it should have been. So I suppose that's why I enjoy these rare visits knowing that it will be a pleasant time and I will not find any reason for discontent which I would perforce have to keep to myself.

Indeed I find things are always seeming to bethat much better or stronger or safer than one would imagine they need to be.

Only last week—the day before I left home to return to my ship at Greenock—the New Brighton life-boat brought off a beautiful double. If you get an account you might think it was nothing out of the ordinary—but in my view it was great. About 6 p.m. on 9th August, the rain started sheeting down and visibility was about a quarter of a mile at the best. There seemed to be a low moving in and centring over the area. My wife and I looked across the Mersey and down the Crosby Channel from our windows and remarked that ships would be having a difficult time of it. It was a suddenly freshening breeze that might make things nasty for small craft caught outside.

Ten minutes later the maroons sounded and soon off went the boat—we couldn't see, the visibility being by now about nil. Away down the channel they come upon the casualty—a small motor fishing boat with engine failure.

Duly collected—good work with the radar I imagine—this boat is taken in tow, when suddenly distress flares are spotted from the banks off Formby. How these were seen in the conditions I'll never know. Anyway, the first boat is made fast to the nearest buoy and off charges the life-boat to the next customer —a 46-foot yacht on passage to Majorca. She is ashore on the banks and not in a very good situation. All hands are disembarked and the life-boat returns, collects the first casualty, and lands the lot at New Brighton.

From the point of view of good, basic, practical seamanship, I think that effort is hard to beat, for the conditions were bad for a small boat and the visibility was fearful. There was the usual account in the Liverpool Daily Post the following morning, but I wonder how many reading it could imagine the skill and ability that saved those unfortunate people? So you will see that I am proud to be involved in what might be regarded as the off-shore, deep-water counterpart of R.N.L.I. and am grateful to be enabled, through Y.L.A., to consider myself, however remotely, connected with a deservedly famous and very professional organisation.—Peter B. Swift, Pickering Road, New Brighton, Wallasey, Cheshire.

Captain Swift is master of the ocean weather ship Weather Adviser, Meteorological Office.CHILDREN AND LIFE-BOATS • From time to time you publish details of the efforts by children to support the life-boat service, either by raising money or writing essays, which in turn are read and provoke interest.

Recently, while sorting some old press cuttings, I came on one undated from, I think,a paper in the 1930s. It was an account of essays sent in for the Duke of Northumberland's competition. The subject of the competition—• for children—was 'What qualities make a good life-boatman ?' According to the report, in the London district the challenge shield went that year to one Edward Weller, of Droop Street Boys' School, Paddington. Emphasising the life-boatmen's need for strength, courage and endurance, the boy reflected that: 'It would not do for a delicate man to be aboard one of these boats in a terrible storm, the boat tossing and pitching like a mere nutshell, perhaps circling round rocks to the rescue of shipwrecked folks'.

Boys and girls from over 1,500 schools were, the report said, unanimous in describing the character of a life-boatman, as including courage, moral and physical, physical strength, cheerfulness, patience, common sense, and a high sense of duty.

Many of the essays insisted (we are thinking of the 1930s) on the importance of temperance, pointing out the differences between real and 'Dutch' courage. One juvenile critic of selfindulgence —a little girl—-would only allow apipe on rare occasions, and then only if one was a 'healthy man'.

A great many of the essayists agreed that the real proof of a life-boatman's courage was that he was able to 'leave his warm bed in the middle of the night'. This, one of the little writers said, was proof that 'a life-boatman's life is by no means all honey'.

Some quaint extracts from other essays stated that: Life-boatmen should be thin. Fat men might sink or crowd a boat.

They must not be afraid of cold water.

They must not be subject to colds.

They must have sterling wives who will assist them to do their duty nobly—women who will be a help and not a hindrance.

They must belong to a 'reliable "Saving" Society'.

The life-boatmen must be patient and yet firm with those who are drowning.

He needs great strength when great sharks or such dangerous fish as that might bore a hole in the vessel.

He must think nothing of his own life, but others' as precious as pearls.

The captains do not pick men who have smartly brushed shoes and coloured ties and socks.

A man exposed to such great danger should live a clean, respectable life, for he never knows when he might be called away to a land where life-boats are unnecessary.

All very amusing. I wonder what the average child today would write if asked: 'What qualities make a good life-boatman ?'—Mrs. Sarah Jones, Plymouth.

MUTUAL AID • I must congratulate you on the improved format and lay-out of your Journal which now proves much more interesting to us. Should you approve, I would be more than pleased to send reports of our activities for inclusion or, failing that, we have no objection to your using material from our own magazine Rescue.— W. J. Baguley, honorary secretary, Sumner Life-boat Institution Incorporated, Sumner, Christchurch, ew Zealand.

PASSING ON THE WORD 0 When my wife and I have read our copy of THE LIFE-BOAT, we hand it in to our local public library, where they display it with other magazines. It helps to publicise the aims and work of the R.N.L.I.—at no extra cost.— Dr. Eldred J. Holder, Highcliffe, Christchurch, Hampshire..