Ray Kipling, public relations officer RNLI, has been talking to Alun Richards, the Welsh novelist and play write who has adapted his lifeboat-based novel 'Ennal's Point' into a six-part television drama series which will be shown on BBC 2 in January. Also present was Derek Scott, coxswain of The Mumbles lifeboat, to whom the novel is dedicated and who acted as technical adviser during the six months of filming at The Mumbles station.Ray Kipling: Alun, how did the story of the 'Ennal's Point' television series begin? Alun Richards: I wrote 11 episodes for the first batch of the BBC 'Onedin Line' series and it had long been in my mind to write something about a lifeboat crew. When I came to edit several volumes of sea stories for Penguin I read a good deal and, as far as I could discover, there had never been a novel wholly devoted to a lifeboat community.

One of the problems was that a lifeboat launch, by its very nature, was short: out and back with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of efficiency.

So then it occurred to me that I should concentrate on the domestic aspects of a station, see the crew in their natural setting as part of a family. The crucial thing was that we had to know them as human beings and not, as one of my characters was to say later, as yellow oilskinned figures on kipper packets.

Well, first I proposed a TV series. I worked on the idea for two years, but it was thought to be too expensive to do, one of the costs being the massive expense of sea filming. When this idea was turned down, I put everything to one side and started again. This time I wrote a novel and I pleased myself, but I still kept the domestic aspect strong. It was not just about one lifeboat crew but about a village which was dominated by a very powerful old woman whose husband and son were lost at sea on lifeboat services and whose grandson was a problem boy, indifferent to the traditions of the past. It was a domestic saga which went to sea, if you like, and all the time I had Derek Scott to help me with all the technical aspects of a lifeboat service.

Every month I would read a chapter out loud to Derek just to make sure I had got it right. I had been at sea myself in the Navy after the war, but a Force 10 storm seen from the wardroom of an aircraft carrier is very different from a Force 10 seen from the cockpit of a lifeboat.

Derek put me straight on every detail and I was also helped by the Regional Controller of Coastguards, Dick Richards.

When the book was published it was very well received, but the reviews I treasured most were in THE LIFEBOAT and Lloyd's List, written by people who knew the score. The book reprinted and went into Penguin, but it was still thought too expensive to film. However, after another five years of nagging, by me and Geraint Stanley Jones, the Controller of BBC Wales, the BBC took it up again and we began filming inApril last year. It was the end of a long slog for me, but now it was a whole series with six services to six casualties and a much bigger concept. When the Ennal's Point lifeboat went down the slip, over a half a million pounds of the BBC's investment went down with it! Kipling: Derek, what were the problems of filming 'Ennui's Point' from your point of view? Coxswain Derek Scott: Well, Alun and I discussed every detail. We had to make actors look like lifeboatmen. We had to make sure that every situation was realistic, that the actor/lifeboatmen looked as if they knew what they were doing. Then all this had to be done without putting them in any danger since most of them had never been in boats in their lives.

At the same time, the station was still operational and, camera crews or no, we had to be ready for real life casualties —and indeed, some occurred. We also had the lifeboat in the water for days on end, over 200 hours, 57 launches.

But the strange thing was, in the end, the actor/lifeboatmen began to look more like lifeboatmen than we did.

Their oilskins were dirtier and people like Philip Madoc who plays the coxswain, Jack Tustin, were actually spoken to by members of the public who thought they had just come off a service. Once, during a meal break ashore, real life maroons were fired and some of the actors got up to run down the pier to the boathouse by instinct.

By the finish, we had an actor/winchman almost as good as our own, and once two of our crew members had an actor in the inflatable lifeboat with them when two sailing dinghies capsized; there was no time to ditch the actor so all three had to go on the service (see page 32) and the actor received a letter of thanks from the Institution which he has got framed—his proudest possession! The uncanny thing is, you will see some of us playing extras, myself and Alan Jones, my mechanic, and 'Coxswain' Philip Madoc doesn't take us on one launch, choosing younger men! Kipling: What impressed you most, technically? Scott: Without a doubt, the mock-up of the lifeboat cabin. It is called a simulator, a plywood replica of the real thing, mounted on huge rubber bags so that it can be moved on poles to simulate the motion of the sea. The BBC had it right, even to the paint scratches of our own cabin. They made it because it is easier to light for filming purposes and the cameraman can move around more easily. It was so realistic in movement, however, that the cameraman actually got seasick on it one day. When we saw the interior of our cabin made out of plywood we couldn't believe our eyes.

It was perfect.Kiping: Did you have any worries? Scott: Yes, that somebody would get a bump. We had 30 or 40 people at sea every day, in the lifeboat, in trawlers, once on a night launch to a dredger—all these actor/boats playing casualties.

There were make-up girls and sound recordists, camera crews, wardrobe people —a whole army of people, most of whom were new to it. All the time our own inflatable lifeboat was safety boat with two of the crew told off to police it all. Well, fortunately, we came through without a scratch, although there were quite a few seasick; there was sometimes a lot of food uneaten at the end of the day! Kipling: Any problems? Scott: Well, there was one hell of an explosion in one episode. The lifeboat goes out to investigate a trawler where there has been a fire and, while they are alongside, it blows up and a drum of oil explodes and covers the lifeboat wheelhouse.

All this just before an inspection —I mean a real life inspection. The BBC told me the 'oil' would be a waterbased paint, but it didn't look too good so they added a stiffener. Come off easy with a hose, they said. Well, the upshot of it was, we got the boat back into the boathouse after a day's filming and the black stuff was drying all over her; it looked as if in another five minutes it wouldn't come off at all—ever. So we cracked the whip that day and there were about 20 people cleaning The Mumbles lifeboat from the TV director down! Kipling: Derek, you've been involved in all this from the very beginning. Which of the characters is going to be the most appreciated by real life lifeboatmen across the country? Scott: Jack Tustin the coxswain is played by Philip Madoc and he is a real trueblue.

I'd sail with him myself. But the most enjoyed character will be 'Animal' Morgan, played by Glyn Owen. He got the name 'Animal' from the way he eats on the boat. He's the odd man out. He's against the Government whoever the Government happens to be and I'll bet there will be roars of laughter in Poole when he starts putting the Institution to rights.

Richards: I hope there will be! He's an ex-Royal Marine and his character is based on the old naval saying 'Your last ship is always the best'. Never the one you are in now.

Kipling: Alun, what do you think the effect of the series will be on the general public? Richards: That's very hard to answer.

In the first place, there were insoluble difficulties. You cannot summon up aburning freighter to appear on April 5 with a force 9 gale to go with it, so you have to make do with casualties that can be filmed. But it is not just about the lifeboat, it's about the village of Ennal's Point as well and, naturally, since we are in the entertainment business, there are strong domestic themes, too: a love affair, a marriage breaking up and so on. As far as the lifeboat crew are concerned, I would like to leave the impression of very ordinary men who become extraordinary because of the very nature of their task, saving life in any weather. Simply that.

Ennal's Point boat is not the most efficient, nor the most glamorous lifeboat, but the crew are ready to go and do. One thing Philip Madoc brings outsuperbly is a lovely calm, and he's the leader in the old-fashioned sense: the man who knows and leads quietly by example. His problems and the getting the best out of the lads are very strong parts of the series and, for me, the best moments are not the most dramatic but his way of dealing with day-to-day matters.

Kipling: /5 Jack Tustin, your fictional coxswain, based on Derek Scott in any way? Richards: Derek has put words into the coxswain's mouth for me; I'm not very knowledgeable about going alongside dredgers at night. But that is all. Jack Tustin is a very nervous man when he has to speak in public functions, but he is a superb cricketer. I don't think Derek knows the difference between the bat and the stumps.

Scott: That'll be enough of that! Alun Richards has written many novels and plays dealing with the sea. He is the editor of The Penguin Book of Sea Stories. Ennal's Point has recently been reissued by Penguin, price £1.25.

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