Lottery—win and share This morning I had numerous bills in the first post and was wondering how to pay them when I opened your letter of July 21 notifying me of my tremendous luck in winning £1,000 in the RNLI national lottery. I thank you very much for your cheque and for your promptness.

The draw was on July 21 and my prize was delivered to me first post on July 22. Well done.

As an old age pensioner this win, my first ever, will come in very useful.

Being ex-RN (4'/2 years war service) I full understand the vagaries of the sea from calm to really great storms, and therefore appreciate the hazards and great risks undertaken by the RNLI; so I am enclosing a cheque for £30 which I donate to the RNLI . . . Again I say thank you very much.—j. A. LOOKER, Wolverhampton.

Many thanks for your letter of July 21 with the cheque for my lottery prize.

Definitely my lucky day since I rarely win anything in such events.

I enclose herewith my cheque for £50 as a donation to help the good work and perhaps you would credit this to the Alton band of helpers to boost their efforts.—K. G. JAMES, Alton, Hants.

Thank you, Mr Looker and Mr James, for so generously sharing your good fortune with the lifeboat service.

Memorial A committee of the Burrow Residents Association, Rosslare, has decided to erect a suitable memorial to 11 brave lifeboatmen from the little hamlet who performed deeds of outstanding heroism over the four days, February 20 to 23, 1914, in the Wexford No. 1 station lifeboat James Stevens No. 15 at the wreck of the schooner Mexico on Keeragh Rocks.

Although decorated by the King of Norway and awarded RNLI medals, the local people were too poor to commemorate these lifeboatmen at home.

Now we have collected £1,500 of the £3,500 necessary to do them honour, and we are raffling a scale model of Erskine Childers' Asgard II, now a training vessel for Irish sailors, to help the fund. The memorial will consist of a limestone column surmounted by the bronze head of a lifeboatman to represent all the brave men of the service.— w. i. MURPHY, organiser, Drimagh, Rosslare, Co. Wexford.

On February 20, 1914, the Norwegian schooner Mexico, bound from South America to Liverpool with a cargo of mahogany logs, was driven ashore by gales on South Keeragh Island. Fethard lifeboat was launched but capsized, nine of her crew of 14 being drowned. The remaining five gained the island from where they helped eight of the crew of Mexico to get ashore. Despite efforts by Kilmore, Dunmore East and Wexford lifeboats, it was impossible to reach the castaway men until, on February 23, two men were rescued by Dunmore East lifeboat and ten by Wexford. One man died on the island.

Among medals awarded, Edward Wickham, coxswain of Wexford lifeboat, received a bar to his silver medal, and silver medals were awarded to Crew Members James Wickham and William Duggan, two men who put off from Wexford lifeboat in a punt veered down to save the men on South Keeragh Island.—EDITOR.

Great great . . .

I am enclosing a cheque (£1) for you that my friends and I collected. We made it by getting a badge collection and letting people have a look. They could also buy biscuits, drinks and sweets. We chose to give the money to you because my great great grandfather was a lifeboat coxswain and he was awarded the RNLI gold medal for bravery and skill. He was Coxswain Owen of Holyhead lifeboat.

My friends are Robert Kelly, Nathan Spencer, Stephen Osmotherly, Daren Pickles and Richard Duncan. I hope the money helps to save a life; we all think you are very brave.—ANTHONY OSMOTHERLEY, 5 Hollin Crescent, Leeds.

Coxswain William Owen was awarded the gold medal and each of the other ten members of his crew the silver medal for the service on February 22, 1908, to the Liverpool steamer ss Harold. The steam lifeboat Duke of Northumberland went out in a whole gale. She found Harold anchored not far from the shore close to the rocks between the headlands known as the North and South Stacks. A terrible sea was running and it was only after two hours of the most skilful and hazardous manoeuvring by Coxswain Owen that the lifeboat was able to get close enough to the steamer for ropes to be thrown and the steamer's crew of nine to be hauled on board. The lifeboat herself was in great danger of being flung against the steamer and destroyed.—EDITOR.

HMS Captain I just wanted to say 'thank you' for publishing my letter about HMS Captain (THE LIFEBOAT, Spring 1981). I have-had so many letters from readers, all of them giving information and anecdotes about relatives who were involved, either in Captain herself or who were in other ships of the line when the tragedy occurred.

The 'scroll' about which I enquired originally would appear to be in all probability a press cutting from a magazine or newspaper of September, 1870, which my grandmother had framed.

Again very many thanks to you and to the readers who wrote to me. I seem to have made many new friends!— EMMELINE HARDY, Pollards, 9 Durlston Road, Swanage, Dorset..