JUST AS at a time of family celebration, wherever its members may be, their thoughts will turn to home, so in the spring of 1974 the thoughts of the RNLI and its friends must inevitably turn to Douglas; the little seaport on the Isle of Man from whence, 150 years ago, came the beginnings of a service which through years of persistent and loyal hard work, highlighted by moments of unbelievable tenacity and courage, has won world-wide respect and affection.

But why, with the whole of the British Isles to choose from, did the Institution find its genesis in a little bay on one of our smallest islands, away up in the Irish Sea? Why Douglas? Presumably, before any great movement can be born, a number of elements must meet; the time, the place, the man, must all be right.

What, then, was the background to the events of 1824? Perhaps the most important factor was that in the 19th century there was an enormous expansion of sea trade under sail. It was to build up to the great days of the clippers and deep sea sailing ships, before they in their turn were superseded by steam; but in the early part of the century it was the day of the little ship. Roads were generally bad and the railways had not yet been built. As well as such basic cargoes as coal and grain, the little ships were often the most convenient carriers of all the small odds and ends that the human race grows to need: everything from masonry to private parcels. Often, too, they were the most convenient way of travel. Perhaps the nearest parallel we have today is the fleet of little mail ships which daily ply up and down the west coast of Norway, calling in at remote fishing villages which would 1826 Plan of Douglas Bay and Harbour clearly shows hazardous rocks. Improvements to harbour works, running out from Douglas Head and St Mary's Rock, proposed by Sir William Hillary, are hatched.

by courtesy of the Manx Museum, Douglasotherwise be completely isolated, bringing letters, vegetables, goods of all kinds in small quantities and taking the place of the local bus or suburban train.

Alongside the trading ships, of course, there would also have been the fishing fleets.

Describing the crowded seas and the clustering of small ships in the ports and havens of the 19th century, Michael Bouquet, in his fine book No Gallant Ship, writes: 'If some mariner of the mid-19th century could return today, I think that what would strike him most would be the emptiness of our coastal waters.' So, there were ships in plenty; and there is no doubt that they were much more vulnerable to wind and sea than the merchant ships of today. How often, however long her story, the end of it for a sailing ship was foundering, breaking up on rocks or being lost without trace, overwhelmed by the storms round our shores ? The problem must have been only too apparent to seaboard communities; they saw the ships wrecked and it was they who tried to save the sailors, often their own menfolk, from the sea. As early as 1786 a lifeboat had been stationed at Bamburgh; it was a pulling coble which Lionel Lukin had made 'unimmergible', with a projecting cork gunwale and built-in watertight compartments to give her buoyancy, and an iron false-keel to keep her upright.

In 1789, after the wreck of Adventure at the mouth of the Tyne, the Gentlemen of the Lawe House offered a prize of two guineas for the best design for a lifeboat. Outstanding among the entries was William Wouldhave's model boat embodying a self-righting principle he had learnt from playing, at first idly, with an old woman's curved wooden water dipper. In fact, he was onlyoffered half the prize money, but his ideas were incorporated in Henry Greathead's 'Original' pulling lifeboat launched in 1790; more than 30 of these boats were to be built, and by 1824 there were 39 lifeboats stationed at various places round the coast of the British Isles.

It is some indication of the situation in Douglas that, in 1802, the fourth Duke of Atholl, Governor of the Isle of Man, presented the town with one of Greathead's 'Original' lifeboats, though it appears to have been swept away and lost in about 1814.

To look at Douglas Bay is to appreciate why it was among the first ports tohave a lifeboat. Of the bay the modern Admiralty Pilot says: 'Douglas bay is entered between Douglas head and Banks Howe, 2J miles north-eastward. The shore is formed by precipitous cliffs which, at the southern end, extend inland from Douglas head backed by the slopes of Carnane.... The bay is open eastward, and the holding ground in most parts is indifferent. . . .' The inner harbour, long and narrow, running inland at the south western corner of the bay, dries out; how often must a ship have come in for shelter from a south west gale, anchored off and then been caught on a lee shore when the wind backed to south east or east? To starboard of the harbour mouth when entering port, and about threequarters of a mile from the shore, lies St Mary's (or Conister) Rock; an uncovered plateau at low water but covered by as much as 3' at high water springs. To increase the danger, a long reef of rampant slate, 'The Flakes', runs out from the rock into the bay. How often, beating in to harbour at night or in bad visibility, must sailing ships havestood in too far to landward or have failed to gather way quickly enough on the new tack and foundered on this unmarked, unlit hazard? Even if the crew managed to scramble on to the rock, in gale conditions the chance that anyone could reach them before they were swept away was extremely slim.

It was to provide shipwrecked sailors with a safe shelter until the storm had passed that Sir William Hillary, in 1832, instigated the building of the famous Tower of Refuge on St Mary's Rock.

In fact, he must have done a much greater service to shipping by crowning this lurking hazard with a solid, visible and unmistakable mark.

So, the time was ripe for the national conscience to be moved on behalf of the seafarer; the climate of public opinion was right; it just wanted the right man to come forward—and it so happened that that man lived in Douglas with the problem spread out in the bay before him: Sir William Hillary—a man surely born to change the course of public events, being quite incapable of standing by, inactive, in the face of need. During the Napoleonic Wars he obtained a commission in the army and raised, at his own expense, the first Essex Legion of Infantry and Cavalry, about 1,400 men; he was to write pamphlets advocating a number of reforms or innovations; he had made geographical explorations in small boats round Sicily and Malta; and, such was the man that, at the age of 70 he could still launch a pulling boat single-handed from the beach through heavy swell.

It was in 1808 that Sir William Hillary came to live in Fort Anne, standing above the southern shore of Douglas Bay. From there he had an uninterrupted view across the harbour mouth to St Mary's Rock—and he just couldn't stand by. Time and time again he was personally involved in saving life. There is a ring of timeless seamanship about the account in the Manx Sun of December 12, 1827. of his rescue of crew and pilots from Fortrondet, dragging her anchor on to St Mary's: 'It was first attempted by means of hausers to bring the vessel into port, but on her striking on the rocks and bilging this was given up, and the Life-boat, by letting go her anchor to windward and veering down upon the wreck, was enabled to take all the people and most of their personal ge from her lee bow. . . .' Sir William's refusal to be deterred by circumstance is well illustrated by the account of the rescue from the wreck of Eclipse in North Bay, reported in the Manx Advertiser on January 19, 1830: 'From the great surf over the bar of Douglas harbour, and the tide being low, it had become almost impossible to get any boat out, at all events much valuable time must have been lost in the attempt; but the new Life-Boat intended for Ramsey . . . being just finished, though the air-tight cases by which the buoyant qualities of the life boat are produced, unfortunately were not sufficiently complete to be made use of, and were not put on board.

Sir Wm. Hillary however resolved, even in her present state, on making the attempt in her, to save the people from the wreck—and by the prompt aid of several gentlemen, and every other description of people present, the new boat was launched for the first time, on the beach near to the Baths, when Sir William instantly put off in her, accompanied by his coxswain, Isaac Vondy, and a volunteer crew of twelve men. . ..

'The attempt was successful, and the wreck gained; when by passing under her lee bow the people were rescued;— but on their return, when off the north end of St. Mary's rock, they encountered so tremendous a sea that they were nearly overwhelmed by a succession of those heavy waves which at intervals occur in a storm, by which the boat was filled to the thwarts, and the space left for the large air-tight case in the bow, full of water which added a dead weight of nearly half a ton, and greatly increased the danger...

'After great efforts she reached the beach, upon which she was run, nearly full of water. . . .' But this is going too far ahead. It was following a winter of unusually severe gales in 1822, during which Sir William himself helped in the rescue of more than 200 sailors in Douglas Bay, that he wrote his 'Appeal to the British Nation, on the Humanity and Policy of forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck'. As a result of his campaign, a meeting was held on March 4, 1824, in the City of London Tavern, at which it was resolved to form the body now known as the Royal National Life-boatInstitution. The time, the place and the man had come together, and a great movement was started.

Between 1824 and 1841 five gold and 15 silver medals were awarded to Douglas, three of the gold to Sir William himself and three of the silver to Coxswain Vondy—who died in 1835, aged 73. This great man it was who, after saving Sir William's life during a rescue, refused a gift of land from him, saying, 'he didn't save life for gain'.

Of such stuff were the giants of the past; but they would have been at one with the men that have followed them right down to the present day. There would be full understanding, for instance, between them and Billy Swindlehurst, retired now, but whose sharpest memory is of the first time he went out, at the age of 13 or 14, in the second Civil Service No. 6, a pulling and sailing lifeboat; he still remembers vividly the south west gale, the 21' flood tide—and how hard the new sheets in the boat were to the hand. Lifeboatmen, Mr Swindlehurst is at pains to explain, are not brave; they may well be just as Ready , frightened of the elements as anyone else; they go out because help is wanted and because there is no other course possible. I may be wrong, but that, to my mind, is what bravery is all about.

Billy Swindlehurst, like the majority of Douglas lifeboatmen, is a fisherman.

Douglas may have grown into a holiday town round the bay, but down round the harbour there is still the indefinable atmosphere of a small fishing port; the catch is escallops. At one time all the crew lived close round the harbour, and although some have now moved further into the town, the harbour is still the centre of their lives. 'You'll find them all down on the quay', the visitor is told.

There is a strong family tradition in Douglas lifeboat station. The present coxswain, Bob Corran, joined the crew in 1938, became second coxswain in 1940, and coxswain in 1970, when Bobby Lee, BEM, coxswain since 1950, retired; Bobby Lee's grandfather was bowman until he was lost at sea while fishing, his father, Dickie Lee, had also been coxswain in his time, his son Richard is assistant mechanic in the present crew. Coxswain Corran is commonly known as 'Fish', to differentiate him from Bob 'Eats' Corran, his cousin, and Robert, his son, both crew members. Billy Ash is another fisherman crew member; his brother, Robert, who works with a steamship company, is the launcher; their father, Bobby Ash, retired in 1970 after 33 years' service, 17 of them as bowman ('We none of us can swim—but the devil takes care of his own!'); their grandfather, another Bobby Ash, served in the crew for 45 years, some of that time in Civil Service No. 6. Second Coxswain Jack Griffiths, Alfie Mooreand Reg Jackson are all fishermen; the full-time mechanic is Bernie Sayle; Harry Martland, the station administrative officer, is a civil servant and yachtsman, and First Aider Don Bookless is a retired engineer and another keen yachtsman.

In so many cumulative years of service there are bound to be many memories. There was the night the Douglas lifeboat was called out to Teazle, off the north point of the island. It was wartime, blackout, with a north north east gale so severe that itwas impossible to read the compass and navigation had to be by the feel of wind and waves. Bobby Lee, Bob Corran and Billy Swindlehurst were all in the crew that night. Then there was the launch which Bobby Lee remembers most when, as coxswain, he took the Douglas lifeboat out on the morning of December 2, 1966, to search for the Greek ship Nafsiporos, first reported eight miles off Douglas Head. The wind was north westerly, force 10 gusting 11, and Nafsiporos, sailing light ship, was being blown off towards the coast of Wales. Later reports gave her position as 12, 23J and then 25 miles from Douglas Head. The lifeboat followed for 36 miles, continuing her search but without sighting the ship, until it was learned that Holyhead lifeboat had made contact; then the Douglas boat returned to base. In the end 15 men were saved by the Holyhead and Moelfre lifeboats; two gold and fifteen other medals were awarded to members of those two crews.

Since 1861, Douglas Station has saved 237 lives. The present lifeboat is R. A. Colby Cubbin No. 1, a 46' 9" midship steering Watson boat muchloved by her crew, who have great confidence in her. When the honorary secretary (the present office-holder is Captain F. N. Curphey, MM) orders the maroons to be fired, telephone calls are already going round and the crew making for the boathouse, anyone running along the quay being picked up by passing cars. Inside the boathouse everything is ready; a row of seaboots (with a stool set beside them); then up the steps on to the boarding platform; lifejackets on a row of pegs; oilskins hung from a rack; first seven on board are the crew; engines started; doors opened; launching pin struck out and they are away down the slipway into the Crough, the outer harbour; the lower the tide, the bigger the splash.

Re-housing at the end of a service, when the crew is cold, wet and tired, is a much longer business.

Like so many other towns, Douglas decided to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the RNLI with an interdenominational service on March 10; but at Douglas it was held in St George's Church, where Sir William Hillary, the founder, is buried. The Lieutenant- Governor, Sir John Paul, GCMC, OBE, MC, was at the service with Lady Paul, and laid a wreath on Sir William's grave.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Douglas attended, as well as the Chairmen of the town and village districts and representatives from the Coastguard and Harbour Board. Crew, branch and ladies' guild members from Ramsey, Port St Mary, Port Erin and Peel as well as Douglas were there, and members of the non-operational branches of Lonan and Laxey, Marown and District, and the Castletown ladies' guild. Lifeboat people from the whole of the Isle of Man met together in this 'Year of the Lifeboat' to remember Sir William Hillary and all the men and women who have followed. The people may change, but the sea does not: it is always there..