Pilgrimage to Barmouth My wife-and I return home to America tomorrow and take pleasure in sending you a traveller's cheque for £50.

With it we extend our grateful thanks for the kindness and hospitality which you and your colleagues of Barmouth lifeboat station so generously lavished upon us during our brief visit in September.

Those few hours in Barmouth will ever be the outstanding highlight of our month-long holiday in Britain. It was an extraordinary event in a lifetime of wide travel; a most heartwarming experience which effectively spanned the long miles between Boston and Barmouth as well as the century that separates the response of Barmouth lifeboat to the stranded and sinking Kenilworth and the day of our visit.

I have been impressed during our travels around Wales, England and the Channel Islands to note the everpresent evidence that the RNLI is a lively influence in the lives of the local populations; from the collecting boxes in the pubs to the postal clerk who wore his RNLI tie with pride and told me as he sold me stamps of his service as a member of the local lifeboat crew.

With renewed thanks and all good wishes for the continued success of the RNLI and all who serve so well.—CHARLES s. MORGAN, 52 Indian Spring Road, Concord, Massachusetts, USA.

From a letter to Vera Hooper, president of Barmouth ladies' guild. Kenilworth struck the Causeway, Cardigan Bay, in thick fog on January 14, 1870, while on her way home from New Orleans to Liverpool with a cargo of cotton. Barmouth, Criccieth and Abersoch lifeboats all launched to her aid. Barmouth was the first to arrive and took off eight of Keni)worth's crew. The remaining 13 men were taken off by Abersoch lifeboat, Charles Morgan's grandfather was one of the people rescued from Kenilworth.—EDITOR.

Comforting efficiency During the evening of August 30, 1980,1 had to set off red flares from my 16ft sailing boat when I was caught in a gale of wind in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The coastal surveillance and rescue services demonstrated their smooth and comforting efficiency. Margate lifeboat was launched, took me off a German container ship and successfully towed my little boat to Margate harbour.

I have already written to Coxswain Alfred Manning of Margate expressing my gratitude to him and his crew but I should be happy for it to be known how appreciative I was and am of the efforts made on behalf of myself and my craft and also of the way in which these efforts were carried out.

I should be very happy if you would kindly accept the enclosed cheque as a nominal token of my thankfulness to the RNLI and all who make it such a reassuring service to be aware of. I shall certainly sail in the future with more confidence, even if tinged with a little more caution.—PAUL PACKWOOD, 315 Colchester Road, Ipswich, Suffolk.

Mr Packwood's letter was received by the director at HQ. Poole.—EDITOR.

Hobblers In the summer 1980 issue of THE LIFEBOAT you published an enquiry from me about the hobblers who operated from the port of Bude. Then, in the autumn journal, a definition of the word from a mid-1800's nautical dictionary was published.

Meanwhile I have had a number of extremely interesting letters from readers more than one of whom rightly take me to task for suggesting that the word 'hobbler' was unique to Bude. The term was, and in some areas still is, in general use.

In 1863, the hobblers of Watchet, Somerset, formed themselves into a United Sailors Society and functionedmainly as pilots. A modern Hobbling Association still operates under the District Council, but only from the shore, hobbling vessels to bollards. At most ports the hobblers acted as pilots or/and took responsibility for unloading ships, there being a good deal of competition between hobble boats for these jobs. Hobblers also worked on certain canals accompanying barges along towing paths and helping them to keep course.

In parts of the south east, according to Henry Higgs, there were both 'hufflers' and 'hovelers'. The former acted as pilots, the latter dealt with wrecks and salvage. The usage, origin and meaning of these very similar terms would make an interesting study.— R. M. BERE, West Cottage, Bude Haven, Bude, Cornwall.

Cross-Channel rows The report of the Cherbourg to Hamble row published in the autumn issue of THE LIFEBOAT prompts me to send the following notes: In the early years of the last century, Ann Waring married John Glanville whose family had ferried people across the Tamar for generations. John became an alcoholic so while he drank, Ann rowed folk across and soon became well known. Soon other local women copied her and she found herself in charge of a team of oarswomen who made their mark at local regattas.

They won so often that men resented being beaten by them and they found it difficult to find opponents. They travelled along the coast and eventually the north coast, too. In 1849, triumphant at Fleetwood, Ann was presented to Queen Victoria.

A year later she was asked to compete against men at Le Havre. Reluctantly, she agreed and started to train her crew. The French treated the challenge as a joke. Nothing daunted, Ann and her crew rowed themselves across the Channel from Plymouth to Le Havre in their gig. Not surprisingly, at first the French crews pulled away from the Englishwomen. Ann urged the women to row for their lives. The lead decreased and the women pulled ahead, to win. They were Ann Glanville, Amelia Lee, Harriet Hosking and Jane House. Then they rowed home again! Ann died in 1880.

Victorian women were said to be frail but these West Country lasses gave the lie to that belief.—E. HARPER, Mrs, Fair View, Marhamchurch, Bude, Cornwall.

Grace Darling collecting box? I read with interest the letter from Maldwin Drummond published in the autumn issue of THE LIFEBOAT.

Although I cannot throw any light as to the origin or use of this little tin lifeboat I certainly have seen something similar.

Some 46 years ago I delivered newspapers for a small shop in the Hotwells district of Bristol and suspended fromthe ceiling of this shop was a model lifeboat. About 18 inches in length, complete with mast and flag (I cannot remember what flag), it was being used as a plant basket. It was painted royal blue with a brilliant red band.

I feel sure that this model lifeboat was somehow connected with the RNLI as the owner of the shop, a midget named Harry Evans, took great interest in the ships of the local port. In the room where we collected our deliveries there were several artists impressions of lifeboats at sea, an old photograph of ss Great Britain and also photographs of ships being launched from the nearby Charles Hill Shipyards.

Harry Evans had the franchise of selling his wares on board and on the landing stages used by the Campbell Steamers which sailed from the Portway every day during the summer.

When Harry died I offered to buy the model but the new owners had taken it down and destroyed it.—L. T. REES, 10 Granville Court, De Beauvoir Estate, Balmes Road, London Nl.

It was very nostalgic to see Maldwin Drummond's photograph of the metal lifeboat he had bought in a junk shop, because I had one of these before the war and it was a very favourite toy.

What became of it I do not know, but it was not in fact a collecting box; the eyes, bow and stern, were for attaching string warps with which to pull it around in the water—more often than not she was ballasted with sand so that she rode lower; the single eye on the bottom kept the boat secure on her red launching carriage which had four wheels and extra supports for the boat.

The mast and white sail were joined together, not unlike a garden trowel.

The mast was wood and the plain square sail metal, and this made a really excellent spade for digging in the sand, for which it was meant.

All in all it was a really super and practical toy, especially to a young boy like me who had been mad about lifeboats from the age of four in 1934.

The boat did not really sail, but was quite seaworthy and beached well.—DAVID LUMSDEN, Elm House, Berwick, Polegate, East Sussex..