Mrs Jo Allam, 'the lifeboat lady' of Weston-super-Mare, has made the lifeboat service her life for the past 27 years. Her husband, in the Merchant Service, was one of 41 men lost when ss Samtampa was driven ashore on rocks off Sker Point on April 23, 1947, the night The Mumbles lifeboat, Edward, Prince of Wales, going to the help of the stricken ship, capsized with the loss of her whole crew of eight. Soon afterwards Jo Allam's son was born (now, like his father, in the Merchant Service).

When he was four years old Jo started on her lifeboat work, spending all day selling souvenirs, first in the lifeboat house on Birnbeck Island, now, since its building in 1975, in the alternative inshore lifeboat house at Anchor Head; showing people over the boathouses; watching over boat and crew (some present crew members she has known since they were small boys) and making sure there is always soup and coffee waiting when they return from service or exercise; looking after the town collecting boxes. In the summer her attractive stall is open from 9 am to 10.30 pm and is often 'in business' at other times—even on Boxing Day.

As well as RNLI souvenirs, Jo sells all kinds of things that she or her friend have made—woolly hats, dolls, jewellery, needlework—and anything like apples or tomatoes that she is given. She herself has made 900 jars of marmalade from oranges brought home on her son's ship. Since the move to the ILB house more than £18,000 has been raised, over £8,000 in 1977, and that total is rising every day . . .

photograph by courtesy of Nick White.