FOR THE FIRST TIME for ten years and only the sixth time since the end of World War II 32 years ago the RNLI's gold medal for gallantry has been awarded.

The service which earned Keith Bower of Torbay this exceptionally rare award is described in full on page 6. Keith Bower was himself of the opinion that it would probably be impossible and certainly highly dangerous for the ten people who were eventually rescued from the motor vessel Lyrma to be taken off by lifeboat.

He reached this conclusion after an outward journey in which waves 40 feet high were experienced. Accurate navigation was possible only through Decca fixes, for the parallel rules were caught in mid-air and the dividers disappeared.

Several of the experienced crew were seasick though they continued to carry out their duties. Keith Bower therefore hoped that the survivors could be taken off by helicopter, but that proved an impossibility.

The lifeboat was taken alongside the motor vessel nine times. On the sixth run in the motor vessel rolled heavily, crushing nine guardrail stanchions and sending the lifeboat crew leaping for safety.

Surplus achieved The award of the gold medal to Keith Bower was one of the highlights of the annual presentation which followed the annual meeting of the governors of the RNLI at the Royal Festival Hall in London on May 17. Addressing the governors Major-General Ralph Farrant, Chairman of the RNLI, was able to report that through the extraordinary efforts of the RNLI's supporters, and in spite of the effects of inflation, it had been possible to transfer more than £350,000 at the end of last year to the RNLI's somewhat slender reserves. The encouraging reasons why such a surplus was achieved were, he pointed out, the efforts of the RNLI's branches and guilds, a gratifying increase in legacies, the success of a number of special and local appeals and the growing number of Shoreline members.

General Farrant did, however, make it clear to the governors that an additional cause of the surplus was the temporary slowing down of the boat building programme which had been decided upon as a matter of policy. Such a reduction could, he emphasised, be acceptable only if it was temporary.

A brief summary of the accounts for 1976 appears on page 4 and a full report of the annual general meeting and presentation of awards will be published in the autumn edition of THE LIFEBOAT.

Support from North Sea operators The huge enterprise of extracting oil from the North Sea, while it has added to the tasks of the lifeboat crews, has also had beneficial results for the service as a whole. It was reported earlier that British Petroleum had made a gift of £100,000 towards the Aberdeen lifeboat named BP Forties. More recently a consortium of Sullom Voe Operators provided £105,000 towards the cost of a new Arun lifeboat to be stationed at Lerwick, and other gifts from oil interests are expected.

Tax exemption for Americans In earlier numbers we reported the efforts being made by an American/ British committee to raise funds for a new lifeboat through the help of Americans living in this country and in the United States. An organisation known as the Association for Rescue at Sea has been registered in New York and it has now been learnt that the United States Internal Revenue Service has granted it tax exempt status. This means that those who pay United States income tax and who contribute to AFRAS are entitled to make appropriate deductions in their tax returns.

Variety Club support The Variety Club of Great Britain has agreed to meet the costs of the payments made by the RNLI to dependent children of lifeboatmen who have lost their lives on service or exercise. The annual cost of these payments is at present about £4,000. At a dinner held at the Carlton Tower Hotel in London on March 8 a cheque for £8,500 was presented to the RNLI's President, the Duke of Kent, to cover more than two years' costs.

Arrangements have also been made for parties of children to be sent by the Variety Club in Sunshine coaches to lifeboat stations at Hastings, Southend on- Sea and Sheerness in the coming summer.

Freedom from surcharge Charities and churches were exempted in the last budget from the surcharge made on employers' national insurance contributions. This decision followed a meeting which the Prime Minister, Mr James Callaghan, had with church leaders on January 21. The church leaders, who included the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi, were accompanied by two leaders of the National Council of Social Service and two chairmen of leading charities. The charities were the RNLI and Dr Barnardo's.

An editor retires Reg Barlow, who has edited Coastguard for a number of years, has unfortunately had to give up because of ill-health. Under his editorship the Coastguard was transformed from a modest report on the activities of the service to an excellently produced magazine which did much to spread knowledge of the problems of rescue at sea. We wish him well in his retirement and hope that his successor will maintain the fine tradition.