ON SUNDAY AUGUST 12 Derek Scott, BEM, coxswain of The Mumbles lifeboat, made an appeal on behalf of the RNLI on BBC Radio 4. The text of the appeal, in response to which more than £11,200 has already been received, is given below: 'All my life I've had to do with lifeboats. My first memory of a coxswain was of a local man called Billy Gammon who lost his life on our boat when I was young.

'I didn't know much about the RNLI then, and I certainly didn't know that it was run entirely on voluntary contributions.

Once, when I was about 14, I sneaked out of the village with a pal to go fishing in a leaky old ship's lifeboat.

It soon began to blow like mad and it was all we could do to get back in. We brought the boat up on the stones with an almighty thump, hardly in control.

When I looked up, I saw Billy Gammon standing there, a stocky, bigshouldered man, and he said, "Son, if I ever see you handle a boat like that again, I'll tan your backside for you!" 'Handling boats sounds easier than it is, and I began to learn that day.

Now, when the maroons go to call out the lifeboat crew, I stand as coxswain at the foot of the ladder by the lifeboat to pick my crew. On a bad night with the slates coming off the roofs, the telephone wires down and a big sea running, I know how they feel. I've felt it myself. But bad weather is what we've prepared and trained for.

'Some time ago, we had a call to go to a sand-dredger aground on a spur of rock near where Billy Gammon's boat was lost with all aboard her. When we got there, it was as black as pitch, and the crew had been washed away from the dredger on a raft. We picked them up at once. That was easy. But the raft had broken away from the ship, leaving the skipper on board. Now we had to go back for him, running over rocks this time with the dredger on its side and surf breaking over it.

'We saw the skipper hanging on to the wing of the bridge, dressed in everything he owned with an overcoat, suitcase and carrying the ship's papers.

We had to put the bow of the lifeboat actually on the deck, but when the skipper jumped, the ship rolled and he almost went into the water, but one of the lads grabbed him and all his gear. This is what we had come to do and we sang all the way home.

'Of course, all our jobs are not as dramatic as this. We go for yachtsmen, canoeists, swimmers, kids in bits of rubber boats, and once we even went for horses which had been stranded by the tide. They were exhausted and had to be strapped alongside. The important thing is that we do go, and are always ready to go, and are well equipped to do so.

'An old Irish coxswain once told me, "Drown you may but go you must," and there are sayings like this up and down our coasts, and the same traditions in all our 200 lifeboat stations. All our boys are volunteers. They don't cost much. But each boat costs at least £250,000 and we have to build ten new boats each year.

7 always say that a lifeboat rescue begins with the lady who stops you in the street with a tray of flags, and it's true. We are proud of them, proud of our boats and glad to belong to everything that has gone on before. If you can help us find a little of the ten million pounds we need a year to stay ready and prepared, please send your contribution to me: Derek Scott, RNLI, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset . . . Thank you.'.