Following receipt of a cheque made out to theR.N.L.I.

for £100 from Southern Television Ltd., Commander P. Thornycroft, of T.T. Boat Designs Ltd., Bernbridge, I.o.W., wrote: 'I feel this needs some small explanation from us. It so happened that we provided 'Horatio? as a platform for the television cameras covering the Channel Race and most of the Fastnet Race, and in view of the fact that I have an Admiralty warrant for a white ensign and R.T.S. membership, it was, of course, impossible for me to charter the boat as was requested. I therefore asked them to make a contribution on my behalf to the R.N.L.I. to the extent of £100.' The Tehran British Association, Iran, decided at their recent annual meeting to send a donation of 30,000 rials to the R.N.L.I. So the life-boat service, in sterling, is now £158 belter off.

The Castle Bay, Isle of Barra, ladies' life-boat guild ran a kipper barbecue dance at the end of last year and raised £60 for the R.N.L.I. The dancers had the choice of kippers or sausages, and the stage was decorated with aluminium fishing buoys and nets.The Rhyl and district branch of the R.N.L.I.

received excellent publicity in the 'Rhyl Journal and Advertiser' on 16th December last year. On one page the branch's record £3,500 cheque, which exceeded anything remembered locally, was reproduced. The record donation was made possible by the financial backing given the branch by the Rhyl and district lifeboat guild, whose donation of £1,800 was £350 more than last year, and the life-boat youth guild, who in their first year donated £700. On another page pictures were published of the cheque presentation of £360 by the Junior Tradesmen's Regiment at Kinmel Park Camp, Bodelwyddan, towards the cost of a replacement tractor for Rhyl's inshore life-boat.

Miss Wood, of Selkirk, made £14.18 as the result of a village home-made wine party.

Tip recently received from a District Organising Secretary: 'The husband of one of my honorarysecretaries, a doctor, suggested to elderly ladies, who asked for a bottle of medicine, that they should buy a ticket for the life-boat bring-and-buy instead. He said it was cheaper than a prescription and would take them out of themselves.

In sending a cheque to the R.N.L.I. for -£1,000, Mr. T. A. Morris, honorary secretary of the Borth, Cardiganshire, branch, states that the sum represented over .£1 per head of population. 'I wonder', he asks, 'if there is anywhere else that has an average such as ours?' }Vhen Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Irving, K.B.E., C.B., a member of the Committee of Management, visited Appledore, North Devon, to present vellums to the crew, he also drew the winning number for the local raffle. The prize was a model yacht which took Mr. Ron Grose, of Appledore, 600 hours to build, making the model worth about £300, although it cost the branch only £50 to buy. The winner of the prizewas Mr. Dennis Bizeray, of Hampstead High Street, London, who, however, offered the model back to Appledore for further fund-raising. Thus the model, which brought in £400 less expenses, is likely to raise a further substantial sum for the R.N.L.I.

'Having been an admirer of the R.N.L.I. for many years', writes Mr. I. Abbott, of Corn Close, South Normanton, Derbyshire, who supplies public address systems, 'I feel that, though it may be in a very small way, I may be able to help by asking my customers to subscribe a small percentage of my fee to the R.N.L.I., say 5per cent.' A county life-boat ball was held on the Isle of Anglesey in October under the patronage of the Marquess and Marchioness of Anglesey. This was the first time for many years that such an event had been held on the island for the R.N.L.I. As a result of the effort a cheque for £300 was sent to London. This year's ball is planned for 20th October.

In enclosing a coloured photograph (which unfortunately cannot be reproduced here] of their exhibits, Captain C. C. Lowry, chairman of the Appledore branch, wrote last year: ' The enclosed picture shows a life-boat service as depicted by a class of 5 and 6 year olds at Deansway County Infants' School, Chesham, Bucks. There was also a life-boat collecting box but vandals broke into the class room and forced open the box, stealing about £5 which had been collected by the children during the term. . . . The children also collected and prepared nearly 10,000 used postage stamps which . . . will be sold for about £5.' The teacher behind the project was Miss Linda Seward, of The Quay, Appledore, who is a strong supporter of the life-boat service.Last year Mr. Charles E. Pringle, of Holly Mead Road, Chipstead, Surrey, borrowed a set of 35mm coloured slides from the R.N.L.I. for two lecture meetings. In forwarding a cheque for -£15, Mr.

Pringle said: ' The meetings were both highly successful and well attended. Our programme consisted of showing the slides and following up with musical performances on the piano, flute, reed organ and guitars and tape recordings of original and other compositions. Refreshments were served about mid evening and the entertainment was completed with a community sing song, most of the items being of a nautical flavour.' Late last year a successful grand charity review was organised by Madame Daniels, of Rhyl, in aid of the local life-boat. Madame Daniels and the artistes involved gave their services free. Amount raised was £70.

The inshore life-boat station at Conway, Caernarvonshire, was recently presented with a set of moorings.

These were sold without any difficulty and raised £20 for the R.N.L.I.

The newly formed Rhyl life-boat youth guild held a watch stopping competition to see who could guess how long it would take a fully wound watch to run down. The watch was placed in a sealed box in the window of Crossley's, jewellers, of Rhyl. The winner was Yvonne Whittle, of Cannock, Staffordshire, who received a wrist-watch as a prize.

An exhibition golf match was held at the Royal North Devon golf club in November last in aid of the Appledore life-boat. Taking part were Ryder cup players John Garner and Malcolm Gregson together with two local professionals, Stanley Taggart and Jim Long, the latter now assistant professional at the West Herts golf club. The -£100 fee for the four professionals was put up by the Royal North Devon golf club, Northam Artisans golf club and Long Senior.

Collecting boxes were -distributed at assembly points.

Apparently Ryder cup players normally charge £100 to £200 each plus expenses. The R.N.L.I, collected over £57, all on the course, which was described as 'a national record for money collected actually on a golf course'.

Commonwealth and foreign stamps, were auctioned in London in December by H. R. Harmer Ltd., for the benefit of Scottish life-boats, and fetched £4,051.

They were bequeathed to the Glasgow branch of the R.N.L.I. by the late Mr. Neill Ian McNeill, of Cambuslang. The late Mr. McNeill came from Skye and started collecting stamps when he was nine years of age—in 1894. He served his time as a marine engineer at Fairfields on the Clyde, but had to give up this work prematurely because of ill health.

He then returned to Skye where he became involved with fishing boats.

Mr. Norman P. Clarke, F.I.B., A.C.I.S., of Colchester, who is a keen R.N.L.I. supporter, writes: 'As council member and past chairman of the area branch of one of my professional affiliations I was recently taking part in the entertainment of a visiting speaker. Reference was made to his fee and he asked us to give it to a charitable object of our choosing. I quickly suggested the R.N.L.I., and both the speaker and my colleagues (who are not unaware of my work as an information officer on behalf of the Institution) agreed most readily that the money should be given to us.

'Another example of generosity towards us by speakers in other fields comes to me in the capacity of treasurer of an R.N.L.I. branch: Mr. Westley Sandford, of Colchester, whose talks on East Anglian lore and dialect are much appreciated, gives to us donations received from clubs and associations at whose meetings he has spoken.' Mr. R. A. Warner, of Broughton Hill, Letchworth, Herts., recently sent the R.N.L.I. a cheque for £27.

He explained: 'On 27th October, 1971, the death occurred at Hitchin of Mrs. Louisa Pearce, aged 95.

She was the daughter, and last surviving child, of Charles Fish, coxswain of the Ramsgate life-boat from 1879 to 1891, holder of two gold and a silver medal. . .

At her own request flowers at her funeral were restricted . . . and the money which would otherwise have been spent on flowers has been collected and is now sent as a donation to the Institution.' Last year Mr. Ewan Shaw, who runs the King's Head, a 13th century inn, at Orford, Suffolk, decided he would try an R.N.L.I. collecting box in the men's lavatory. Within 10 days it took -£8.37 and in the second week £7.99.

The following report appeared in the 'Scarborough Evening News' on 31st December last year: ' The Scarborough branch of the R.N.L.I. has received a donation of £11.71 from its most distant—and difficult-to-catch—collecting box. The epic story of the collecting box began aboard the cruise-ship "Reina Del Mar" in September. Among the passengers were Mr. Joe Clark and his wife, Christine, who now live in Harrogate. A cigar-box which was provided to collect money for the charity was placed behind the bar and earmarked for the Scarborough life-boat by the couple. But in the bustle of leaving the ship they forgot the box and it was left behind. Mrs. Clark contacted Mr. Gerry Braithwaite, who runs the Blacksmith's Arms at Cayton, and who is president of the Pickering Lythe East Licensed Victuallers' Association. Mrs. Clark used to work as his secretary and she knew he had been aboard the "Reina Del Mar" the summer before—and that he would be in Majorca in October where the ship would be sailing. Mr.

Braithwaite wrote to the shipping company and obtained permission to go aboard and collect the box.' "My wife and I had a festive time aboard—we forgot the box and left", said Mr. Braithwaite.

' The fate of the box was now left in the hands of Mr. Tony Moore, of the Whirlow Court Hotel, The Crescent, Scarborough, who was on the next cruise of the "Reina Del Mar". The barmen learnt that he was from Scarborough, and found he was a regular customer at the Blacksmith's Arms. So at the end of the cruise he took the box with him. He said: "It felt as though it weighed a ton and the customs officer laughed when I told him about it. He let it through." The box travelled to the pub at Cayton, then to a bank in Scarborough, and then on to Thomas Cook's in Leeds who dealt with the currency—£4.34 English currency, £2.48 Spanish, £4.24 Portuguese, 40p Italian, and 25p Greek: Mr. W. M. Lucas, writing from his business address in Hammersmith Broadway, London, sent the R.N.L.I. a cheque for £25, adding: 'A film company recently borrowed my father-in-law's yacht, Outlaw, to make a film sequence in which Alf Garnett imagines himself to be the Prime Minister winning the Fastnet Race. I gave permission for this to be done on the basis that the film was bound to persuade a lot of people to go to sea and that the fee they felt reasonable should be made in favour of the R.N.L.I.' Mrs. Heslop, of Hook Heath Avenue, Waking, sold a litter of golden retreiver puppies, and gave a percentage of the proceeds to the R.N.L.I.

Mr. K. M. S. Dewar, of Broadelyst, Devon, in sending a cheque for £15 to the R.N.L.I., stated: 'It would give me great pleasure if it could be used for the crew of the Stromness life-boat. I spent a most interesting evening two years ago with them, watching a practice, and I remember their kindness in explaining the procedure.' An effort in aid of Life-boat day, which the weather was not allowed to stop, was a mini-fete and sale held last year by the 'Kaye Kids' of Ringmer Road, Worthing. They simply moved the event into their home and raised almost £4 for the R.N.L.I.

branch funds. The sale was entirely run by the five Kaye children—Paul, Sharon, Mary, Sara and Peter—who had devoted part of their holiday to canvassing and collecting jumble from the neighbourhood.

After Mr. A. W. Hawkes, of Waldringfield, Suffolk, had given a talk about the life-boat service to Castle Hill School, Ipswich, £22, largely collected as a result of the talk, was sent to the R.N.L.I. Patricia Brame, one of the pupils, in thanking Mr. Hawkes in a letter, said: 'When you came we were not bored because you showed us things and told us things about life-boats. We have finished selling marbles and comics and have saved up £22 altogether.'Last year a sponsored swim was held in aid of the R.N.L.I. in the Droitwich Lido. The Lido has an outdoor swimming bath, unheated, and unfortunately on the evening of the swim the weather was cold and wet. However, among those who swam was a 7-year-old boy, Stephen Browne, and being a nonswimmer, did his swim in a rubber ring. He achieved 12 lengths.

The Woolwich branch reports that a 13-year-old boy, Charles Wardle, who undertook a sponsored swim at the Plumstead Baths, on his own initiative, raised £25 for life-boat funds.

(continued on page 286).