LIFEBOATS, IT IS OFTEN SAID, put OUt when other vessels are seeking the shelter of harbour. An example of how a lifeboat was able to carry out a mission while other well-found vessels were unable even to leave harbour occurred on the night of December 1/2, 1975. The Cypriot coaster Primrose, which was in serious trouble some three miles from Dover breakwater, asked for the help of a tug and later for that of a pilot vessel. Conditions were such that neither tug nor pilot vessel could put out and the decisions not to allow them to leave harbour were clearly correct.

The master of a Townsend ferry said the conditions were the worst he had known in eighteen years' service in the Dover Straits. Wind speeds gusting up to 100 mph were recorded, and he commented that if Sir Francis Beaufort had lived 170 years later he might have had to revise his wind scale (given on the next page).

In spite of all this the Dover lifeboat put out, escorted the coaster and successfully piloted her into harbour.

Details of the service, which led to the award of two medals for gallantry, are given on page 150. They are an incontestable tribute to the Waveney class of lifeboat, it designers and its builders.

The voluntary spirit today Two speakers at the RNLI's annual general meeting spoke of the importance of voluntary service, not only within the RNLI, but to the nation as a whole.

Both were clearly speaking from the heart and from experience. One was Raymond Baxter, best known today for his television programme, 'Tomorrow's World'. The other was Lieut.-Colonel Richard Crawshaw, Labour MP for Toxteth and a member of the RNLI's Committee of Management.Raymond Baxter spoke of the importance of the voluntary principle in promoting the efficiency of the lifeboat service and of how it enabled the RNLI to get the best value for money.

If it were lost, he said, 'the country would certainly be the poorer in the moral and spiritual sense as well as in the purely financial sense'.

Colonel Crawshaw said that working in local and central government had caused him to feel depressed by 'the movement away from the voluntary spirit'. A few years ago, he pointed out, it had not been necessary to pay someone to come to a youth club to make a cup of tea. 'We could not', he said, 'administer the Life-boat Institution from a central source with the same enthusiasm and dedication as it is administered on a voluntary basis.' Newspapers in action In the last number of THE LIFEBOAT it was reported that a series of small receptions had been held in Lintas House to enlist the help of influential groups for the work of the lifeboat service. One reception was for the press, television and radio. Following that evening The Northern Echo, which is published in Darlington and is widely read in the north of England, mounted a vigorous campaign entitled 'Lifeboat sos'.

Much ingenuity was shown by the newspaper staff in organising or promoting fund-raising efforts. These included a ball for 700, a greyhound meeting, fashion shows, cookery demonstrations, sports meetings and sponsored school projects.

Numerous letters came from readers with donations, some of them signed 'anonymous GAP'. Two sisters sent £5 'in memory of our mother whose birthday has just passed'. They added:'We would rather help to save lives than place flowers on her grave.' At the time of going to press The Northern Echo campaign has produced over £4,000 in addition to arousing tremendous new interest in the lifeboat service in the north of England.

Similarly the Birmingham Evening Mail ran a special campaign with the object of increasing the branch's income and purchasing some piece of equipment for the Exmouth lifeboat City of Birmingham. Again readers' responses were strikingly generous, and as a result of the Mail's efforts £2,000 has been collected already towards a new boarding boat for Exmouth lifeboat.

Isle of Wight Appeal It was also stated in the last number that the RNLI's Committee of Management had decided, as a temporary measure, to slow down the boat building programme in 1976 and to order only two new offshore lifeboats. At the same time we made the point that the boat building programme would be stepped up as soon as finances permitted. In fact it has already been decided to order an Arun lifeboat this year in addition to the two Rother lifeboats already budgeted for.

The new Arun lifeboat will be stationed at Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. £50,000 towards her cost has been provided by the Wade Foundation, and an appeal is being launched in the Isle of Wight by Major-General R. A.

Pigot, a newly elected member of the Committee of Management and President of the Isle of Wight Lifeboat Board, to raise the necessary additional funds.

New head office In formally opening the new head office in Poole on May 6, His RoyalHighness The Duke of Kent, President of the RNLI, said: The decision to move to Poole can only be described as a bold and, I am quite confident, a wise one . . .

There were a number of reasons for making the change. Perhaps the most important was that the offices in Grosvenor Gardens were on a long lease, which was in itself a diminishing asset. I think it is evidence of the wise financial management of the RNLI that after buying the land on which the new head office is built as a freehold property and completing the building it was able to report that the Institution's reserves stood somewhat higher than they had done a year earlier . . .' The Duke also called attention to the importance of the change in that for a century and a half London had been the site of the RNLI's head office.

In its early years the RNLI was accommodated in the City of London, first in Austin Friars and later in Great Winchester Street. A move to the City of Westminster occurred in 1851. The head office was then off the Adelphi.

Half a century later there was a move to Charing Cross Road, and in 1931 the RNLI acquired the buildings in Gros-venor Gardens with which many of its supporters today are familiar. The main administration during the last war was carried on in the depot at Boreham Wood, but meetings continued to take place in Grosvenor Gardens.

Soon the move of the depot from Boreham Wood to Poole will be completed and for the first time in the history of the RNLI, headquarters and depot will be established on adjacent sites in the same town..