WHEN I TOOK my leave of the lifeboat service on December 31, 1973, it was after 21J years service as divisional inspector and superintendent of the Depot. At the age of 32 years I was serving as a lieutenant on the teaching staff of the Navigation and Direction School of the Royal Navy at Southwick, near Portsmouth, in 1952. Married ten years, we had a young family of two daughters and were anxious to live a more settled family life. Imagine, then, my delight when a well-wisher tossed The Times across one breakfast time announcing that the RNLI was about to appoint an inspector. Then, there were only five for the entire coastline of the UK and Ireland, and these opportunities were rare. Rarer still, when the appointment was filled and I was invited to become supernumerary inspector as soon as I could make myself available.

In such a fashion I joined the staff of the lifeboat service on September 29, 1952, seventeen years to the day before reporting to the Depot at Boreham Wood to take over as superintendent in 1969.

The intervening period was filled with experiences rich in humour of seafaring folk and their relationships with the sea in all its moods—still, stormy, wild and furious. Serving first on the East Coast helping out a senior inspector who was recovering from illness, I had a first-class introduction.

He passed on to me the greeting he had received from a senior inspector in the late twenties and said, 'Here you are, Harvey, it's all yours—the responsibility of an admiral and the authority of a midshipman'.

So it was—inspectors had carved out their early relationships with the hardy independent fishermen of the volunteerlifeboat service. Telescopes and gold braid were cast off. Here was a man's world where newcomers had to forge out their own relationships; to stand up and be counted; to get some seatime in and be recognised for what they were.

This is the stuff of the lifeboat service.

Indeed, one of my first duties was to take the relief boat for Arbroath, after their tragic capsize in 1953, from Oulton Broad to Berwick-on-Tweed, there to be joined by the inspector for Scotland and the new volunteer crew. They were stout-hearted people.

From the East Coast, appointments took me to Ireland, South West, Wales, North West and to several Scottish stations both on passage and as an inspector south of the Clyde-Forth line.

Each district, and indeed county, had its own character: not simply of the communities themselves, though perhaps this was the area of most variety, but each lifeboat station had its own special variation of ground and sea conditions. Couple this with the variation of coastlines and weather and you find yourself presented with a lifetime study of small boat work in an infinite variety of conditions. Aboard ships the sea often rolled over you, but I found a vast difference when I changed my height of eye from 50' and more to just 10'. Seas and horizons took on very different dimensions.

As an inspector one has a very wide experience and considerable responsibility.

For a start, an inspector sees most coxswains at work and has the opportunity to recognise and assess the best in all of them. It was, in fact, a first-class finishing school for someone who had started life as a boy in fishing boats and progressed to cruisers and aircraft carriers with the Royal Navy. An inspector's responsibility demands that he should see to the efficient manning and equipping of our boats and that the shore organisation backing the lifeboats is sound. To this end it is necessary to liaise with the three Armed Services, HM Coastguard, Trinity House, the Police and Fire Service, the GPO radiostations, mountain rescue teams, British Red Cross and the Order of St John and other units in the wide spectrum ot civilian organisations.

In my experience, one of the greatest rewards of service was to get to sea on passages with coxswains, mechanics and crews. Passages happen generally when new boats are passed out and sail for station, or when boats are re-engined and undergo major modification. These passages take anything up to seven to nine days irrespective of weather. After all, the aim is to try to test the boat and prove her to the station personnel.

Twelve hours at sea in a gale of wind in coastal waters is a tiring day. Once ashore and cleaned up, and after an evening meal, a chat and meeting with local crews rounds off the evening. A jug of beer or two puts us all in a cheerful mood and we get up to a variety of activities: bar football with men from Filey, Flamborough and Runswick, darts with the Walton crew, feats of strength and knack with the Rhyl chaps, Irish jigs with those from Valentia, male voice choir antics with the Cornishmen of Mousehole and the Lizard. If I leave out place names it is only because space and time call me to be brief.

Passages are followed by naming ceremonies or ceremonies of re-dedication.

Thus is rounded off a cycle of events in the life of every lifeboat station. There have been so many memorable naming ceremonies and of my experiences I recall many splendid and happy occasions in England, Ireland and Wales: Royal ceremonies at Port St Mary and Douglas in the Isle of Man, both on the same day; another at the Lizard when Prince Philip named the Duke of Cornwall in 1961; HRH The Princess Marina naming the St David's boat in 1964; all of them crowned by HM The Queen naming the Royal British Legion Jubilee at Henley in July 1972.

All naming ceremonies are occasionswhen lifeboat families join with their menfolk often in an entire community grouping, and join also with volunteers from inshore who do so much throughout the year to raise funds. It is small wonder that following the sequence of new boat building, passage and naming ceremony, one carves out and cements a relationship with lifeboat crews that lasts a lifetime.

In all an inspector's work on the coast, it lingers in his mind that he, as an inspector, is paid staff whereas the crews are volunteers. He looks for the opportunity to get to sea on a service, preferably a lively one, to equate with the spirit of the volunteer service. Sometimes it happens that the maroons go off after he has left a station—it happened to me a few times. Many times the maroons are put up when he is at home typing or interviewing. Occasionally he is on the spot. Such an event was the launch to Nafsiporos on December 2, 1966, when I got to sea with the Holyhead crew. There was some wind that day—well in excess of 100 knots at times—and a big sea. At one instant the ship crashed down on our topsides and crushed us while her propeller turned within feet of our rudder post.

Though badly damaged we were, by the grace of God, safe. Subsequently her lifeboat fell on us, later to roll over our flattened guardrails. That day, Ihope, I won my spurs. We were all exhausted after 22 hours at sea and during the night following the rescue many thoughts and silent prayers occupied our minds. After this, once ashore, the rum came out. We were all proud and grateful men, speaking little, thinking deep and bound by the experience of such extreme lifeboat drama and action.

From the coast I was appointed to the Depot. My first impression was that the lifeboat world thought we were a small shack manned by six or seven people. Really, it is quite the contrary.

Then, it was the centre of the logistic support of the lifeboat fleet and the fund-raising organisation—with Christmas cards thrown in at the year end.

There were 120 people on the payroll and giving a 24-hour operational service throughout the year. Staff here had the same lifeboat spirit as the best of our crews and helpers and it gives me pleasure to pay this tribute to them all, past and present. In a short time Boreham Wood, like Poplar before it, will close down, but the pulse of their efforts will go forward to the regional centres.

My farewell to the lifeboat service came about when Leisure Sport Ltd of the Ready Mixed Concrete Group of Companies purchased the ex-Cromer lifeboat H. F. Bailey with the intention of promoting the fund-raising interests of the RNLI. With my son and Bill Sampson, the Depot technical foreman, I sailed her across from Crosshaven, Co.

Cork, calling at Ballycotton, Helvick Head, Dunmore East, Tenby, Barry Dock and Bristol. H. F. Bailey was one of the boats in which Henry Blogg had won a gold medal: this then was a special journey for me. We called at Ballycotton particularly to visit the grave of Patsy Sliney, another great lifeboat gold medallist—often I had shared his snuff as he sat with me talking over lifeboat and seafaring topics.

I left the RNLI to work for Leisure Sport Ltd from January this year, and retain my link as a member of Shoreline.

If, perchance, this yarn has commended the lifeboat service to you, I shall be gratified, for it is truly a service admired the world over and most worthy of your support..