WHEN i WORKED for a weekly newspaper in the late 1940s on the Grimsby/ Cleethorpes side of the Humber I used to dream of visiting Spurn Head on the Yorkshire side. Certainly, when viewed through one of the telescopes on the front on a clear day. Spurn Head, to me, looked a sunny paradise.

When, therefore, the North East office of the RNL1 suggested that the retiring superintendent/coxswain of the Humber station, Mr Robertson Buchan, would make a good subject for a profile feature in the Journal, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and combine Mr Buchan's going with the arrival of the station's new coxswain, Mr Neil Morris, of Withernsea, higher up the Yorkshire coast.

So in late September I arranged to visit the full time station and got a prompt invitation from Mr Buchan, who was just moving house, to go north.

The vision of my youth of a sunny paradise for birds, however, was rudely shattered the day I went to Spurn Head, but more on that later.

Who, in the first place, decided on a lifeboat station on the extreme tip ofSpurn Head, the last southerly fragment of Yorkshire, where the fast flowing Humber unites with the turbulent North Sea? Well, it wasn't the Committee of Management.

Apparently the Spurn station (it was renamed Humber in 1924) was established in 1810 and until 1908 was maintained by Hull Trinity House. In that year it passed under the charge of the Humber Conservancy Board and in 1911 was taken over by the Institution.

As often applies to stations with long histories, no complete record of its work exists. But it is understood that between 1810 and 1854—the evidence is in the record book of Hull Trinity House—nearly 800 lives were saved.

The Humber station has had some brave lifeboatmen in its time. The record shows that 23 medals have been awarded: two gold, 12 silver, eight bronze and a George Medal. Of these, the two gold, three silver and two bronze medals were won by Coxswain Robert Cross, who died in 1964 aged 88, together with the George Medal. His exploits, in my view, were as great and brave as those of Coxswain Henry Blogg, of Cromer, Norfolk, but for some reason he did not get the ear of the press.

For example, Coxswain Cross's service to the trawler Gurth, of Grimsby, on February 12, 1940, for which he won both the gold medal of the Insti-tution and the George Medal and his crew of five each won the silver medal, was described as 'one of the outstanding rescues of the war'.

An RNLI summary of the rescue states: 'It was carried out . . . in complete darkness. As two of the crew were ill there were only six men on the lifeboat, and the coxswain could not spare any man to work the searchlight. The crew were repeatedly knocked down by Aerial picture of Spurn Head lifeboat station taken at 9.30 a.m. on May 25, 1951. The old and new lighthouses are visible together with an assortment of World War I and II military installations.

Just below the lighthouses are the lifeboat cottages built in 1858.

by courtesy of Photoflight Ltd.

seas, shaken and bruised, and only saved from being washed overboard by clinging to the handrails. A rope which was washed overboard got round a propeller, and for part of the time the lifeboat had only one engine working. But again and again, in the darkness and heavy snow, Coxswain Cross worked the lifeboat . . .

alongside the trawler and rescued the whole of the crew.' When Coxswain Cross, who revisited the Humber station in Mr Buchan's days, retired in 1943 at the age of 67 he had been local coxswain for just over 30 years and had taken part in the rescue of 453 people.

In more modern times the record of bravery and devotion has been continued.

As described in THE LIFEBOATfor September, 1966, Coxswain Buchan was accorded the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum for taking the Humber lifeboat to the mv An:io when she grounded off the Lincolnshire coast on the night of April 2/3, 1966, in extremely severe conditions. It was not possible, however, to save any lives.

A summary of the rescue states: 'The Humber lifeboat . . . was launched in 10 minutes. Fifty minutes later she sighted the wreck . . . which was heading north west and lying with her starboard side beam on to the sea. Heavy seas were halfway up the deck and washing right over her. Because of the heavy, breaking seas on the bank and around the wreck Coxswain Buchan realised there was no chance of coming alongside, and he decided to anchor and veer down to the wreck. As this was being done, three members of the crew who were tending the cable forward . . . were washed off t h e i r feet and tlmmn back on to the wheelhouse by a heavy sea which completely enveloped the lifeboat. . . . They all immediately returned to their positions and continued to veer the cable until the lifeboat was within 30 yards of the wreck. . . . Fifteen foot waves were washing right over her, and it seemed clear that the crew had either abandoned ship or been swept overboard.

Nevertheless, Coxswain Buchan remained for over 20 minutes, scanning the wreck in the beam of the searchlight for any signs of life.' And now for Spurn Head and the lifeboat station. I had met Mr and Mrs Buchan in comfort in Hull the night before, and it was agreed that they would take me the 30 miles to the station when they went there on other business the following day.

Well, next day dawned overcast, but I felt sure the weather would shine for the visit (just like it used to shine from Cleethorpes long ago). I made a determined effort to arrive at the Buchans' new home in Hull at the appointed time,and not wishing to be late, I sauntered past with 10 minutes to spare. A quick glance to port showed the house, to all outward appearances, to be unmanned.

But Mrs Buchan must have been on storm watch, for she quickly spotted me and rather spoilt my planned ETA at 1300 hours!A fog, meantime, had been building up, and by the time we set course by road for the Humber station rain was falling too. But Mr Buchan knew the 30 miles of winding roads like the back of his hand and thus, shrouded in fog, I reached Spurn Head and the wilderness.

Through the blanket of fog I could hear horns and ships 'talking'. 'You have', said Mr Buchan as if I needed any reminding, 'arrived.' A native of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, noted for its sailors, Mr Buchan went to sea at the age of 15, for his father Robertson, grandfather William, and two brothers were all fishermen. But Mr Buchan's three grown-up sons have all forsaken the sea to become tax officer, technician and teacher. When they first settled at Spurn Head in 1951 they were aged seven, five and three respectively.

During World War II, Mr Buchan, who settled at the Humber station when he was 38, was skipper of a minesweeper in the Home Fleet. When the war started in September, 1939, Mr Buchan's trawler with 14 others operated 20 miles off the German coast in order to give in code early sightings of German bombers bound for England and coastal shipping.

'Every trawler except ours', said Mr Buchan, 'was bombed.' Mr Buchan met his wife Doris through an escort job he did in 1942 for Captain William S. Anderson's ship from Fowey to Falmouth with a load of china clay. Afterwards in The Ship, Fowey, Mr Buchan asked Captain Anderson if he could marry his daughter.

The marriage eventually took place and, as stated later in this article, Mr Buchan began his lifeboat career at the Humber station as second coxswain to his father-in-law.

Mr Buchan said he was delighted towards the end of his service with the RNLI to meet the Duke of Kent, who is President of the Institution, during his north east coast tour. 'But', explained Mr Buchan, 'it wasn't my first meeting with a member of the Duke's family because, during the war, I also met his late father.' While Mr Buchan, to look at, is a small, alert man with a perpetual mild smile when engaged in informal conversation, the new coxswain, Mr Morris, is a tall seafarer who holds his head as many a tramp steamer master often does through habit—slightly aback as if steering and looking ahead. He too started at sea young—at 16—and before joining the RNLI had been trading between Britain and the Continent.

A native of Cornwall, his wife, Constance, who has a boy and a girl aged nine and two and a half respectively, likes painting, knitting and playing the organ.

The domestic side of life at Spurn Head is, of course, an aspect that must not be overlooked because it is a good part of the life of that station. I don't mind admitting that, when I heard of some of the trials of life there as recentlyMailas the '50s and '60s, I was inclined to suggest to the powers that be that a special medal should be struck for the wives who have done their stint at the Humber station! One of the best to talk to on life at Spurn Head is Mrs Buchan who arrived there with her family in 1951. Born at South Shields, Co. Durham, the daughter of Captain Anderson, of North Shields, who was coxswain of the Humber lifeboat before her husband, Mrs Buchan's grandfather, James Anderson, was also a sea captain. Mrs Buchan's mother, Mrs Ethel Anderson, aged 77, was living at Spurn Head but was expecting to move to the Buchans' home in Bricknell Avenue, Hull.

The lifeboat cottages at Spurn Head —there was once a public house there— were built in 1858 and are due for replacement, and during the two world wars many military buildings grew up round the lighthouse and the lifeboat community.

Communication with Kilnsea even up to the middle '30s was by means of a railway trolley fitted with a sail. Life-boatmen and their wives were thus propelled in this way, wind permitting, for an hour or two of relaxation at Kilnsea! Now the line has almost vanished under the drifting sand as the old track has become the only road to one of Britain's most remote lifeboat stations. Hull, 30 miles away, is just too far to allow for a relaxed evening out.

Mrs Buchan, who likes doing crosswords and knitting, told me: 'On average there are about 12 children at Spurn Head at any one time. It is an idea place for boys but, despite the remoteness, they are not really as free as you would think. You have got to remember that each child, because of the tight little community, has eight fathers and eight mothers whose eyes at any time may see them up to tricks or at risk.

"Certainly all the children at Spurn Head (there was a family here years ago who had 13 children)', explained Mrs Buchan, 'have to have birthday parties, shared with the rest of the children, but it has been known for a birthday to be suddenly deprived of fathers because of a service call.' For quite a time after World War II the cottages at Spurn Head had a most indifferent electricity supply. The 110 volt battery supply, which had to be boosted from an Army generator, left the families with a declining supply so that electric fires and kettles and the like were useless in the late evening.

'All we could do', said Mrs Buchan, 'was to go to bed.' The crew of the City of Briulford III— she is a 46' 9" Watson type built in 1954 at a cost of £29,593—consists, in addition to Superintendent Coxswain Morris, of 2nd Coxswain Dennis Bailey, Mechanic Bill Saycrs, Assistant Mechanic Ronald Sayers, Brian Fcnton, Jim Ross, Ronald Dixon, and Sidney Rollinson.

The City of Bradford III, incidentally, belongs to a line of boats bearing that name. These lifeboats were built—the City ol Bradford I was the first in 1923— largely through the City of Bradford Lifeboat Fund.

Mrs Buchan, who has given many lifeboat talks to gatherings of women, believes that Hull might react favourably to the idea that the next H umber lifeboat should be presented by that city.

Perhaps Mrs Buchan's dream will come true. For in Sportcraft Models, King Edward Street, Hull, I spotted an excellent fully completed model of a 37' Oakley in the forefront of their packed window.

Mr Buchan, whose family still owns (continued on page 109).