Whitby pulling lifeboat The photograph of Whitby pulling lifeboat Robert and Ellen Robson published in the autumn issue of THE LIFEBOAT made me wonder whether she was the one that started my interest in the lifeboat service in 1919.

I was a Sub-Lieutenant in command of ML292 and had returned from five months at Archangel running up and down the North Dvina during what came to be known as Churchill's War.

We were transported there and back on tankers; the lifting operations did us no good and it appeared that our back was broken. However, I set off from Rosyth to the River Hamble to pay off.

with instructions to seek refuge in a harbour in bad weather.

It was misty when I left and visibility steadily got worse and it became a matter of navigating by dead reckoning. No radar in those days. Eventually in the darkness and fog and knowing I must be near the point where the coast swells out near Whitby. with the soundings getting shallower, I decided to anchor. I set a lookout with strict instructions to call me if the weather cleared. I had been on deck all day and went below to get some sleep.

I forget how much later I was shaken to be told that it was blowing hard and a •Reading Chronicle' boat had come off and was shouting at us. I went up on deck to find half a gale, a pitch black but clear night and a lifeboat telling me I was on a dangerous lee shore. The lifeboatmen told me I should follow them to Whitby. I could not help thinking that the lifeboat looked exactly like the RNLI collecting boxes.

I roused everyone but we could not get the anchor up: it was jammed on the rocky bottom so I slipped it and followed the lifeboat. The wind was north east. I seem to remember that the entrance to the harbour is dog-legged and with a following sea it was a tricky business.

I had one bump but nothing serious.

We stayed in harbour for about five days, then on via Grimsby, Lowestoft and Dover to the Hamble. But from that time on I have supported the RNLI. When I married seven years later I interested my wife and she has been doing house-to-house collections ever since, retiring last year at 80. It has been a joy to help such wonderful men.—ALAN w. PRESTON, Cdr, RN, West Balling, Rocks Lane, High Hurstwood, Uckfield, Sussex.

A motor lifeboat and two pulling lifeboats were stationed at Whitbv in 1919. It was Whitby's motor lifeboat Margaret Harker Smith which, under the command of Coxswain Thomas Langlands, went out to the help of HM motor launch 292 on October 24 that year—EDITOR.

Ploughing back . . .

Thank you very much for the cheque, winnings from the fifteenth RNLInational lottery, which I received today.

I am a member of the Lifeboat Enthusiasts' Society and the winning money will help towards fitting out a model lifeboat which will be used during the coming years for fund raising events.

I send a photograph of the model which is of RNLB John Fison now in service at Harwich.—R. MORTLOCK, Felixstowe, Suffolk.

Calling 1914-18 lifeboatmen May I ask for your help in contacting lifeboatmen who served during the Great War. The help of these men is urgently needed by recollections and by original documents to ensure that a record of their service is preserved in an archive devoted to all aspects of personal experience of the Great War. An immediate personal reply is assured to all correspondents.—P. H. LIDDLE. Senior Lecturer in History, 1914-18 Personal Experience Arc/lives, Sunder/and Polytechnic, Sunderland SRI 3SD..