THE ONLY LIFEBOATMAN AT PRESENT SERVING TO HAVE BEEN AWARDED THREE SILVER MEDALS FOR GALLANTRY by Joan Davies 'Grandfather . . . he was coxswain before Dad; and my Uncle Jim and Dad were both in the lifeboat with him.

At one time, Dad was coxswain, my uncle was second coxswain, I was the bowman and my two brothers Harry and Richard, and my cousin, James, were in her as well. When my uncle finished—he was a bit older than Dad—/ went second coxswain with my father . . . then, a few years after I became coxswain myself, my cousin, he went second coxswain with me for a spell. . . .' The lifeboat tradition of family service at its best has flourished on the Isles of Scilly; a look at the family tree on this page makes that plain. For three generations, spanning 64 years, there has been a Lethbridge at the wheel of St Mary's lifeboat: first, the eldest James Thomas Lethbridge, from 1914 to 1925; then Matthew Lethbridge, Snr, BEM, 'Father Matt', from 1925 to 1956; now Matthew 'Matt' Lethbridge, Jnr, BEM, coxswain since 1956. Grandfather, father and son. Moreover, at no time since 1919 have there been fewer than two Lethbridges in the crew; for a little while there were six. Serving with Matt now are his two brothers: Harry, who has been assistant mechanic since 1965, and Richard, who has been bowman since 1952. And the awards for gallantry made during these years reflect the fine quality of the service given.

When the young Matt Lethbridge took over from his father in 1956 he had indeed been set a high standard to follow.

He was, however, already a seaman of exceptional experience. For the whole of his life he had known, from open boats, the waters round the 48 islands which make up the Scillies together with 'the above water and sunken rocks', as the 'West Coast of England Pilot' sums them up, '. . . too numerous to admit of description'. He had been out working in boats round the islands, fishing, crabbing, laying down lobster pots . . . During the war he had served in the high speed boats of the RAF Air Sea Rescue Service in stations as far apart as Stranraer, Invergordon, Bridlington (where he came to know Coxswain Tom Hutchinson well), Africa—and even, yes, the Scillies! The war over Matt returned home to St Mary's and, joining the lifeboat crew, served an 'apprenticeship', just as his grandfather and father had done before him, as crew member, bowman and second coxswain.

It meant a great deal to Matt, that when he took command in his early thirties, not only the younger members of the crew, but the older men as well readily gave him their full confidence.

He still sets great store by the fact that his father, who continued for many years as head launcher, came out in his crew on one service; and he still remembers a day, soon after he had taken over, when, as he was on his way down to the boathouse to go out on exercise, one of the older men, who had been in his father's crew, stopped him and said: 'If you're short-handed at any time, I'll go with 'ee, boy.' Matthew Lethbridge prefers to keep more or less the same crew. As he explains: 'There's a lot to be said for being the same crowd in the boat all the time. You learn to trust each other more, I think.

With length of experience, perhaps a similar incident will turn up again and you have learned from the first time. If you have too many people on the crew list, some of them have got to be left behind on the slip—and that after they have perhaps turned out of bed and run down to the boathouse in a gale of wind, when it's blowing and raining.' So, at St Mary's now there is one crew. The shore helpers know that they are second in line, in reserve, and there are plenty of other seamen on the islands who would be willing to go out if they were wanted.

Changes in the crew are few: '/ am quite pleased about that,' Matt has to admit. 'Proud in a way. Apart from one chap who joined the boat recently when one of the older members retired, I don't suppose there is anybody in the boat who hasn't been there for 12 years at least. Most of them have been there 20 or 30 years. I have always had a good experienced crew. They have all been at sea and earned their living by fishing or boating at some time. Some are permanent workers ashore now, but in a place like this there is always the sea and there are always the boats. . . . " It is interesting to look at the crew lists for the three St Mary's services in recent years for which the silver medal for gallantry was awarded: the service to Braemar, in 1967; to Nordanhav in 1970; and to Enfant de Bretagne in 1977. Five names appear each time: Coxswain Matthew Lethbridge, Jnr, three silver medals; Second Coxswain Ernest Roy Guy and Motor Mechanic William Burrow, bronze medals in 1967 and 1970, vellums in 1977; Assistant Mechanic William Harry Lethbridge and Crew Member Rodney Terry, three vellums. Bowman Richard Lethbridge was in the crew in 1967 and 1970, and Crew Member George Symons in 1967 and 1977. The remaining places were taken by Frederick Woodcock (1967), Leslie Green (1970) and Roy Duncan (1977). For each service, all crew members, except those receiving medals, were accorded the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum.

JAMES THOMAS LETHBRIDGE coxswain 1914-1925 second coxswain 1901-1914 bowman 1897-1901 vellum, 1927, service to SS Concordia of Genoa JAMES THOMAS LETHBRIDGE second coxswain 1927-1949 bowman 1925-1927 bronze medal and Italian bronze medal, 1927, service to Italian SS teatoo vellum, 1945, service to American liberty ship Jonas Lie MATTHEW LETHBRIDGE coxswain second coxswain bowman Senior, BEM 1925-1956 1920-1925 1919-1920 JAMES THOMAS second coxswain joined crew LETHBRIDGE 1960-1963 1947 silver medal and Italian silver medal, 1927, service to Italian SS /sabo vellum, 1945, service to American liberty ship Jonas Lie bronze medal, 1955, service to Panamanian SS Mando MATTHEW LETHBRIDGE Junior, BEM 1956- 1950-1956 1946-1949 1946 1955, service to coxswain second coxswain bowman joined crew medal service certificate, Panamanian SS Mando chairman's letter to coxswain and crew, 1967, service to Torrey Canyon of Monrovia silver medal, 1967, service to yacht Braemar bar to silver medal, 1970, service to Swedish MV Nordanhav vellum, 1972, service to yacht Moronel second bar to silver medal, 1977, service to French MFV Enfant de Bretagne WILLIAM HARRY LETHBRIDGE assistant mechanic 1965- joined crew 1947 medal service certificate, 1955, service to Panamanian SS Mando vellum, 1967, service to yacht Braemar veltum, 1970, service to Swedish MV Nordanhav vellum, 1977, service to French MFV Enfant de Bretagne RICHARD bowman joined crew medal service LETHBRIDGE 1952- 1946 certificate, 1955, service to Panamanian SS Mando vellum, 1967, service to yacht Braemar vellum, 1970, service to Swedish MV Nordanhav Second Coxswain Roy Guy, who was a crew member at the time of the service to ss Mando (1955) and received a medal service certificate, also comes from a lifeboat family; his father had served for a few years as bowman and then second coxswain in the 1920s: his grandfather was in the crew with Mail's grandfather—but that was in the days of pulling and sailing lifeboats.

Matthew Lethbridge Junior's years as coxswain coincide almost exactly with the time that Guy and Clare Hunter, a 46ft 9in housed slipway Watson class lifeboat, has been stationed at St Mary's. Matt, then second coxswain, was one of the delivery crew who brought her to her station just after she was built, in 1955: as she was not called out until after he had taken over from his father the following June, he was the first coxswain to take her out on service. Since then, she has launched on service 152 times and rescued 103 lives: there have, of course, also been other services in relief boats on temporary duty at the station.

As with all coxswains, the lifeboat is completely interwoven into Matt's life.

G v and Clare Hunter even finds her way into his house, for she is a favourite subject for the fine seascapes he paints as a hobby. He is striving after a perfect portrayal of his boat at sea for his wife. Pat, to have with her at home.

As well as oils. Matt is now moving on to an even more exacting art—engraving ships on glass.

But. back to sea . . . Ships of all nationalities pass through the waters watched over from St Mary's, for the Scillies reach right out from the western tip of Cornwall into the Atlantic.

French, German. Russian, American, British . . . everything you can think of.

Over the years, many a fine vessel bound north for the Bristol Channel or St George's Channel, looking for a landfall in fog, many a small boat misjudging her rounding of Land's End in winter storms, have foundered on the rocks. Vessels are recommended not to approach, in thick weather, within depths of 60 fathoms—a line which lies about 18 miles westward and 22 miles southward of Bishop Rock, at the south-western extremity of the archipelago—and there are shipping separation zones to the south, west and east. Radar, Decca Navigator and other modern navigational aids have reduced the hazard both for ships passing by, which can now stand further off, and for little boats feeling their way among the rocks, but the dangers are still there, lying in wait.

'If anything is going to happen on a bad night, I would rather it were 20 miles away than two miles,' is Matt Lethbridge's comment. 'It's as simple as that.

We are always a lot better off when we are four or five miles off the islands. Radar helps (I don't lie awake now worrying about fog!) but even that, on a really bad night, is far from a hundred per cent. We are not worried about hitting the rocks.

It's the ground sea set up by the underwater ledges which is the trouble: in really bad weather it could swamp any boat—just turn her over. We can get a 20 or 30 fathom swell and it will actually break. Imagine what sort of breaking wave it is with 20 fathom of water under it. When there's a big ground sea it is worse getting from the lifeboat house to the Bishop Lighthouse than it would be going from here to Pen~ance—or to France, as far as that goes; in bad weather it would take us three quarters of an hour to get to the Bishop even going flat out. The keepers down at the lighthouse —their kitchen window is 95 feet high and there have been times, in had storms, when they have had the swells up level with that kitchen window; the room has been turned green inside with the green water.' At St Mary's they never use a drogue because, until they get out into open sea, there is no single pattern of water.

'It's all bits and pieces around here—patches of shallow ground', is Matt's description. Of the tidal streams, the Admiralty 'Pilot' says: 'The rotary off-shore streams run towards the isles from a different direction at each hour of the day and, in passing round and between them, are much affected by the trend of the land and channels, and by shallow water.

These effects vary with the direction of the approaching stream so that the streams near and between the islands are subject to great irregularities and inconsistences. Though the streams round the isles are not of any great strength, their rates increase off salient points, and over and near rocks and shores, where overfalls and races may occur.' Whatever the weather, St Mary's lifeboat can get off the slip, though launching is a little restricted on a very big spring tide. In really rough weather, the most difficult part of any service is getting away from the islands, and of course, a casualty could be in any direction, through the full 360 degrees.

The Isles of Scilly: produced from portion of BA Chart No.1123 with the sanction of the Controller HM Stationery Office and of the Hydrographer of the Navy.

The first vital decision is which would be the best track to take out to sea? In bad weather some of the channels would not be safe, even in a lifeboat. It is always possible to get in and out of St Mary's Sound, between St Mary's and St Agnes Islands, but if the casualty is to the north or north west, that means going right round the islands.

' Your instinct would be to go out by North Channel or Broad Sound,' says Matt. 'We have always been lucky enough to get out, but it's a bit of a job sometimes to decide whether you ought to go that way or whether you ought perhaps to go the longer way. After all, you aren't doing any good unless you get there.' Coming back to an unlit passage in fog or on a night when visibility has closed right in, the crew can tell when the boat enters a sound by the characteristic shape of the swell. To determine their position more closely, as well as keeping a lookout for familiar landmarks, they will note the colour of the water, or turn on the searchlight to see the nature of the bottom. Searching for a casualty among the rocks, perhaps the smell of oil, or debris on the water, will give a clue. Seagulls, disturbed and crying out, may lead the lifeboat in the right direction. The lifeboat engines will be stopped sometimes while the crew shout to see if anyone answers from the rocks. . . .

To listen to Matt describing some of his experiences at sea is almost like being given the privilege of being taken aboard his boat. There was the service in 1967 to Torrey Canyon, aground on the Seven Stones, when, in two spells, St Mary's lifeboat was at sea for 54 hours: 'During the night we were just steaming around her, standing by, and even above the engines you could hear all her plates groaning and creaking. Her after part was afloat and she was pivoting and grinding on the rocks. Then, at about three o'clock in the morning there was a crash and a/I her lights went out. We just steamed straight in towards her . . . we thought she had broken in half. Some cables broke, I suppose . . . but then the emergency lights came on again. . . .

'Next morning the wind had freshened up from the north east. There were gale warnings, so the skipper agreed that we should take off the rest of the crew—we had already taken 14 off and put them aboard the Trinity House tender Stella.

So we went in. There was a bit of lump alongside her and the lifeboat was ranging about a lot. Anyway, we got eight of them aboard. When the lifeboat came up, they had to jump from the rails and a couple of our blokes caught them and landed them on the rope box. This ninth one—it's terrible the things that happen—we told him to jump but he hesitated; he started to jump, changed his mind, and then decided to go. By this time it was too late and he went down between the boat and Torrey Canyon. We had just one rope forward and I shouted out, 'Let go.' The man on the bows hadn't made it fast because of the range. He was just tending it. So he let go quickly and I came full astern. That boat came in, bang, against the side of Torrey Canyon. / thought 'My God, he's gone . . .' It's terrible. Anyway, as soon as we dropped back the crew said, 'He's all right! He's clear!' So we got him round the bows and aboard. ' Then there was the Swedish ship, Nordanhav, in 1970, listing heavily north of the Scillies in a force 8 gale: 'We took ten off her that morning. It was still dark; just before daylight. It just didn't seem possible. Nordanhav was ten or twelve feet above us one moment and then rolling her deck under the next. She had a list on and the iron rails were going under water and then coming up against our side while we were lying alongside her. The noise! You never heard anything like it. Her crew were having to run back from the rails as the deck went under, wait the right chance and then jump, and we grabbed them. And yet they all came off and there wasn't one hurt. . . .' Braemar, in 1967, had gone out to meet Sir Francis Chichester returning home after his circumnavigation. She had sprung a leak in her engine room and started filling up 28 miles from Bishop Rock in a near gale gusting to strong gale. Guy and Clare Hunter set out at 0625 on May 22 to join two ships, Trader and British Fulmar, searching for this large motor yacht: ' was a bad day, with rain squalls as well. Now, you can pick up rain squalls on radar, and eventually one of the ships got the idea of asking the yacht to transmit when the squalls were passing her. They traced her that way. . . .

'They sent for a salvage tug and we stood by . . . then we noticed she had a big coil of nylon warp on her deck, so we said if they would give us the end of that we would try to get them into Newlyn. . . .

'We parted different times. The snag was she kept sheering one way—as if her rudder was jammed over. Every now and then we would be right abreast of her. We would slack off everything and come back and try to get ahead of her again. We had a right day of it! The worrying part was, she was supposed to be sinking and we hadn't heard any more about the tug . . .

We were towing for 13 hours or more. At one spell when the tide was coming back round the Lizard we were going so slowly that we only made half-a-mile's progress in two hours. It was about half past two the following morning before we got into Newlyn. . . . " When St Mary's lifeboat takes a vessel in tow, it is likely to be one with a fair displacement, so they now carry two lumps of chain on board. The chain, put in the middle to the tow rope, weighs it down; when the chain starts coming up through the water, the coxswain knows it is time to ease down on the engines.

At the annual presentation of awards at the Royal Festival Hall on May 16, Coxswain Matthew Lethbridge, Jnr, received a second bar to his silver medal, for the service to the French trawler Enfant de Bretagne which foundered on the South West Rocks on the night of February 13, 1977. It is, naturally, a great distress to Matt that, despite all their efforts, they were unable to save her crew.

7 think about it time and time again.

You are always thinking if only this or if only that . . . hut we had no time. From the moment the 'mayday' was picked up there was no waste of time at all. The Coastguard reported it immediately, and although we had no exact position, by luck we went straight to her . . . and we were going flat out. All we knew was that there was a trawler ashore near the Bishop, so we started going that way, and your own experience tends to knock out some things. You know she won't be on the Bishop, because if she were the keepers would know, wouldn't they? But she could be on rocks to the north or to the south of the lighthouse. So we thought our best chance was to make straight for the Bishop so that, if there were any lights or anything to give us a clue, we could see either side. Then the keepers told us they had seen steaming lights earlier down towards the South West Rocks, so we headed that way. . . .

'Before we got there we smelt oil and saw stuff floating on the water. We started searching, and eventually saw part of what we thought was a trawler among the white water . . . it was the worst place you could get, probably, at that particular state of the tide because the sea comes in from three different angles into a neck. We thought she was at the back of the rocks, so we tore round the back and put more flares up, but there was nothing there. We knew we had seen something but we didn't know quite what.

We came back to the same spot . . . it was only a matter of two or three minutes . . .

and saw it again. The trouble is, with a flare, you've only got a second or two and whatever is there is being smothered with breaking water as well . . .

'So then we went in among the rocks.

We knew there was a passage—I've been through there hundreds of times in fine weather. We went in close and fired another flare, and there was just a little bit of the trawler's bow and the tip of her mast sticking up. While we were looking, in comes another boiling sea, what we call a rage. It was obvious we couldn't stay there. The only thing I could do was just hope to get through to the other side of the rocks and come up round again. So we went in and hard over the other way and out round the back . . . we certainly weren't more than three minutes . . . but by the time we got back there was absolutely nothing left—just part of the bow 25 feet up on the rock.

'When divers went down two or three days later a/I they could find was the engine and engine bed on the bottom; the boat herself, she had smashed to smithereens in no time. Sometime after, we found marks on another rock where she must have hit on the way in; there were marks where the gallows had struck along the rocks. We must have been right over her stern when we went in . . . we were as close as that.' Summing up lifeboat service, Matt maintains: ' is the women, waiting at home, that have the worst of it. Out on the water we have worries, of course we do, but we are on the spot and we can tackle them. We know what is happening. It's not nearly as bad as just having to wait. It's the women who have the worst of it.'.