AT INTERVALS around our coasts stand solid, stone buildings with arched doorways facing the sea, many now with moss on their tiled roofs, weeds in the gutters and rust on the runners for the massive wooden doors. They are old lifeboathouses, no longer owned by the RNLI, disused since the rowing and sailing lifeboats they once housed were replaced by faster, more powerful motor lifeboats at adjacent stations. So dramatic was the effect of the motor that the number of stations shrank from 281, all operating pulling and sailing lifeboats, in 1910 to 194 in 1930, of which almost half had motor lifeboats.

In the early 1960s, the number of lifeboat stations began to grow again.

The introduction of inflatable lifeboats to deal with incidents close to the shore meant that many places which once had a lifeboat saw one again after a period of some 50 to 100 years. One such station is Hunstanton, in Norfolk, on the north-east corner of the Wash.

The station was closed in 1931 and in June 1979, just seven weeks after a public meeting to gauge local interest, it was declared operational again with a 16ft inflatable lifeboat.

The first lifeboat at Hunstanton was provided by the Norfolk Association for Saving the Lives of Shipwrecked Mariners (NASLSM), the first county lifesaving association, which was established by Lord Suffield in 1823. In that year the NASLSM decided to strengthen existing lifeboat coverage in Norfolk by stationing additional lifeboats at Yarmouth, Winterton, Blakeney, Burnham Overy or Brancaster and Hunstanton. The Hunstanton station was closed before 1849 and it was not until 1867 that the RNLI took over and built a boathouse which was replaced by the present boathouse in 1900. A year later the lifeboat capsized, fortunately without loss of life.

Launching was not without its problems, however, and in 1902 a horse died while launching the lifeboat and £70 compensation was paid. Ten years later a further £30 was paid as compensation for injuries to a horse, so Hunstanton lifeboatmen must have been relieved to carry out the RNLI's first launching trials with a tractor in 1920-21. Tractors soon proved themselves.

So, of course, did motors in lifeboats and by 1931 the Hunstanton lifeboat was no longer needed.

The RNLI looked at the area again when inflatable lifeboats were introduced.

There were now five sailingclubs in the area, which was attracting large numbers of holiday makers. The nearest stations, Wells and Skegness, both operated 37ft Oakley lifeboats and 16ft inflatables, but the distances from Hunstanton caused concern and incidents on that side of the Wash, with its narrow channels, sandbanks and difficult tides and currents, were increasing.

Following a report in 1979 by Tom Nutman, the divisional inspector of lifeboats (East), the Committee of Management instructed him to establish a D class summer station at Hunstanton.

The inspector had to start from scratch. There already existed in Hunstanton an active fund-raising committee and an old lifeboathouse, which were to provide the starting points for the new station. An introduction from the committee led the inspector to Major John Day, a retired Army officer whose postings had included chief instructor of the Joint Services Sailing School and officer in charge of the Army Outward Bound School at Aberdovey, where he taught navigation to lifeboat crew members. An experienced yachtsman, Major Day was also an examiner for the Royal Yachting Association and Department of Trade ocean going certificate; an ideal candidate for honorary secretary of the station.

Having just retired to Hunstanton and taken over the Le Strange Arms Hotel, he was prepared to devote theconsiderable time and energy needed to organising the station and helping train the crew.

The inspector also visited the Town Clerk to inform him of the Institution's plans. Then he spoke to the tenant of the old lifeboathouse, whose grandfather had been a coxswain; not only did he agree to make the boathouse available during the summer but also offered the use of his tractor for launching the lifeboat.

The ingredients of the station were beginning to come together. Two vital parts were still missing; the crew and the committee. A public meeting was organised and advertised by posters and in the local paper. Eighty people turned out on May 8, 1979, to hear Tom Nutman explain that, with their help, Hunstanton was to have a lifeboat station once again. A committee was formed with the head of the local council as chairman, the bank manager as treasurer, a local doctor as honorary medical adviser and two policemen as members. Over 30 people volunteered to join the crew but none had any extensive sea experience.

Now began the task of selecting the crew, using as criteria fitness, keeness and ability to learn boat handling.

Before the lifeboat arrived at Hunstanton, the volunteers started learning basic small boat navigation, seamanship, lashings, knots and signals. Then on May 24 a D class inflatable lifeboat was sent from Poole and intensive seatraining, under the inspector, began immediately. The boat went to sea for two hours every night and four hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

At first everybody at the station was apprehensive about such a small and seemingly vulnerable craft. Older residents could remember the 35ft lifeboat which was pulled by ten oars and were sceptical about the 16ft inflatable powered by a single 40hp engine. Even thekeenest of the volunteers were unsure of how the boat would perform in rough conditions. There was only one way to find out and, as training progressed, Major Day would arrange an exercise every time rough weather blew up.

There was already a fair amount of knowledge of the coast in the crew, as many had helped local inshore fishermen.

None of the crew was a professional seaman; the list included a policeman, a mechanic, two plumbers, a teacher of tractor driving and a forestry estate worker. The man nearest to the sea was Alan Clarke, a bait digger who knew all the local sands and had a good general knowledge of the sea from trips with fishermen. He gradually emerged as a helmsman and, with Major Day, arranged to continue the intensive sea-training which the inspector had started. Not all the volunteers took kindly to the outboard engine and after two weeks, the training, medicals and some second thoughts whittled the crew down to 15. The inspector would visit Hunstanton every week to check progress and by the end of June was satisfied that the station could be declared fully operational. Training continued and the crew were so keen that they were on permanent stand-by every weekend. Extra exercises were provided when the lifeboat attended sailing meetings. The only disadvantage of the almost constant presence of the crew at the lifeboathouse was that their wives hardly ever saw them; but that in the end turned out to be no disadvantage for the Institution because the ladies came down to the boathouse to join their husbands and sell souvenirs.

Soon, of course, the lifeboat saw some real action. In the first season there were nine service calls, mainly related to pleasure craft and local fishing boats. As the crew built up their confidence in the inflatable, they found themselves performing rescues they would have previously thought impossible.

The worst conditions they met completely filled the boat with water as they battled through 12ft seas on a search. This sort of experience bonded them together, for they had not knowneach other before the lifeboat crew was formed. Confidence in the boat, in their colleagues and in themselves, built up in the first season until the lifeboat was withdrawn for the winter.

The lifeboatmen still had a lot to learn and spent the winter studying navigation of the Wash and its sandbanks, taking radio and first aid courses, which virtually the whole crew passed, and forging links with the local coastguards.

When the lifeboat was returned for the 1980 season, training sessions were continued every Sunday. Major Day's hotel became an unofficial lifeboat headquarters and often the girls at the hotel would be first at the boathouse when a call came, opening the doors and preparing for the launch. After another busy summer, with five lives rescued, the crew again went into winter training, this time with swimming twice a week and visits to other lifeboat stations.

The lifeboat station was once again part of the community in Hunstanton.

Every call out saw Mrs Barbara Smith, honorary secretary of the ladies' guild, at the boathouse with a collecting box.

The crew and their wives ran a shop at the boathouse and raised over £900 in their first year. A retired couple turned out to make tea for the crew after each service. As well as being a focal point for the lifeboatmen, the lifeboat served as a stimulus to the whole village. This, in itself, is worthy, but its real justification can be simply explained. In its first two years the lifeboat proved to be more than just another dot on the RNLI map; ten people already owe their lives to the new lifeboatmen at Hunstanton..