MOUSEHOLE VILLAGE and harbour just west of Penzance is famous for its display of Christmas lights—an enterprise supported by the whole village and particularly by the Penlee lifeboat crew. Last year Charles Greenhaugh, as chairman of the local Licensed Victuallers Association, switched on the lights just a couple of nights before losing his life.

Come back with me, if you will, to that wild grey Sunday morning in December —the force 10 storm gusting to force 12 of the past night having moderated to perhaps force 8, still with heavy rain, and at just about nine in the morning a completely shattered group of men and women are making their way towards the local Shipping Agents, the office of our honorary secretary, Del Johnson. As many as possible of the Penlee branch committee had been contacted during the small hours—that is those who had not already been up all night visiting families, or searching the coastline west of Mousehole.

I called the meeting with an utter sense of being alone. Coming into the office, in a daze really, I noticed that the room was almost uncomfortably full, and the sudden appreciation began to grow that we were not so alone: I first spotted Les Vipond, the divisional inspector of lifeboats, who had driven from Plymouth with John Chadwick, the district surveyor; and Peter Sturdee, DOS(SW), with his assistant Jan Liddicoat.

George Cooper, deputy chief of operations, was there from Poole together with Norman Ford, deputy secretary of the operations department, Ron Turner, surveyor of lifeboats (maintenance), and Selwyn Ewart, superintendent engineer. Peter Sturdee had also brought with him Daphne, his wife; she did not come to that first meeting but did sterling work later. All had hurried down to us through the night driving through atrocious storm conditions. I have lived in Penzance since 1920 and I cannot recall a worse night.

As the loneliness began to evaporate there came the realisation that the whole weight of the RNLI secretariat and inspectorate had come to help us, and our endeavours were strengthened by the news that Rear Admiral Graham, the director, had been extracted from a foreign bound aircraft and was on his way.

The teleprinter began to chatter bringing immediate messages of con-cern from Her Majesty The Queen, HRH The Duke of Kent, our President, HRH The Duke of Cornwall (you know him as the Prince of Wales), the Prime Minister and others and the impression began to grow that enormous waves of good wishes, sympathy and friendship were sweeping towards us.

There were helicopters overhead and a glance out to sea showed a fair proportion of the local mid water and inshore fishing fleets searching in seas which were still being thrown 30 feet or so into the air against Penzance promenade.

Among them were two of our three flank lifeboats, from the Lizard and Scilly. Maurice Hutchens from Sennen Cove managed to get his relief 37ft Oakley lifeboat to sea—and how, dead into the teeth of that storm and against the tide, I do not know—but he just could not get around the corner of Land's End. All of 200 souls at sea still in very nasty weather searching for their friends and for wreckage, and they stuck it out until dark, only returning to harbour for fuel. Peter Mitchell's Barnett from Lizard-Cadgwith suffered hull damage from a succession of solid walls of sea; Matt Lethbridge from Scilly, in his Arun, was loath to go home to St Mary's when darkness came after 20 hours of searching.

Later in the same morning I met our indefatigable branch chaplain with our new diocesan Bishop on the sea front at Penzance and afterwards again in Mousehole village.

Of course an event of this nature produces a press corps of formidable proportions, but mostly they were a cheerful, respectful and helpful bunch of men and women with a job to do and a tactful restrained approach.

And then the mass of letters of sympathy to the branch—nothing to do with the Penwith disaster fund which was handled separately with prodigious energy by the local authority and Barclays Bank. The local sorting office worked wonders, and remember this was in addition to their normal pre- Christmas rush, to a degree that our branch office, now occupying most of the Shipping Agents' office and fully staffed up to 16 hours a day, had to ask the Post Office to hold over mail bags from midday on December 23. A number of local employers seemed happy enough to lose their secretaries to us, full-time, for up to a couple of weeks.

Letters from the length and breadth of the land: from old age pensioners, children, religious orders, service units, two from prisons, and so it went on ... Of course there were letters from other members of the lifeboat family—nearly 1,000 of these private and branch letters, with letters from Shoreline Members, Enthusiasts, RNLI staff and pensioners, and particularly we were touched to have letters from Longhope, Fraserburgh, Broughty Ferry, The Mumbles, St Ives and Rye Harbour, lifeboat stations which had suffered a similar experience in the past.

And from worldwide messages poured in by mail and telex: a full list would read like the index of an atlas: I think messages came from every country in Europe including USSR and Czechoslovakia; they came from the North American continent, including newly-formed Canadian lifeboat branches, from lifeboat people in New Zealand and South Africa, and from Ascension Island whose English staff have a great affinity with West Cornwall.

Diego Garcia and The Falklands harbour Cornish expatriates, as do Malaysia and the Pacific Islands.

The Penlee branch committee is large and active comprising members of very varied interests and jobs and in the event I think a chairman in like circumstances can never have had greater support than I have enjoyed over the past six months or so. My own secretary wrote about 300 letters for me, but many friends have had what must have seemed a rather short and even perfunctory formal acknowledgement. We may unhappily have missed some out. But we should like to acknowledge publicly the help, sympathy and support we received from local seafarers, the Police, Post Office, press, professional RNLI staff and in very full measure its Committee of Management, often in person, and supporters and friends worldwide. On behalf of Penlee branch I am more than proud to send our very sincere and heartfelt thanks to you all for your loving support and encouragement throughout this time.

The spirit of Mousehole and Penlee is exemplified by Charlie's widow. Three nights after the disaster she asked that the lights, unlit since the previous Saturday, should be repaired and relit—and this was promptly done. This is what lifeboating is all about.

Thank you all so much.—DENIS LESLIE..