WITH THE DEATH of Lord Saltoun, the RNLI has lost one of its most devoted supporters. His main interest was not so much in technical matters such as boats and methods of communication, but in the people who worked for the Institution, its staff, the crews and their families and the voluntary workers; in all of them he took a great interest and he knew a surprising number of them personally. I am told that almost until his death he insisted on having a telephone by his bed, so that if there was a disaster he would hear about it straight away, even if it occurred at 2 am, and would be ready to go and visit the families within 12 hours of it taking place; this thoughtfulness made him extremely well known and greatly liked all round the coast, especially in Scotland, which was of course his first love.

He was Convenor of the Scottish Lifeboat Council for very many years, a job he undertook with unparalleled zest and enthusiasm, sometimes causing grave worry to the Institution's staff, especially latterly, that he might overdo it (at any rate this was their story, but it was sometimes suspected that they, although 20 or 30 years younger, found great difficulty in keeping up with his pace). Everywhere he went in the lifeboat world he was always a welcome figure, and many a small cottage, housing the widow of a lifeboatman, was enlivened by his fre-quent visits, checking on the occupant's well-being.

His best known episode on the technical side was when he lost his trousers at Littlehampton. He volunteered to go alone as a guinea-pig in a boat in which a new self-righting device had been installed and was being tested; it did not work quite as quickly as anticipated, his trousers were soaked and oil leaked on to them; a kind soul loaned him a pair for the return to London, but his original ones have never been traced (perhaps they are still adorning Littlehampton pier).

But what undoubtedly he will be best remembered for is his book, The Lifeboat Service Memorial Book, a beautiful hand-illuminated record of every lifeboatman who has lost his life in service since the Institution's inception in 1824. Lord Saltoun raised the money to pay for it, did the very considerable research required for it, organised the craftsmen to write it (five members of The Society of Scribes andIlluminators) and bind it, and I suspect he may have even had a hand in finding the vellum for it.

Lord Saltoun died at the age of 93, and for many of those years, perhaps the majority, he had thought first of his family and secondly of all those people connected with the lifeboat service; he, himself, came a long way down, and it was this total lack of self interest which made him such an endearing companion and friend.—THE DUKE OF ATHOLL, Chairman of the RNL1..