HOLIDAYMAKERS may come and holidaymakers may go, and at Skegness they do that by their thousands, but the town and its people have all the contentment and assurance of deep roots and long friendships. There is above all a sense of continuity which is well illustrated by the story of its lifeboat station.

It is a story told against a background of flat, spacious farmlands and wide smiling beaches, but for shipping the background is of an inhospitable coastline devoid of natural harbours and fraught with natural hazards.

Skegness stands on the Lincolnshire coast just north of The Wash: an area of sands and shoals. The Admiralty North Sea (West) Pilot describes the waters thus: 'The deep bight between the entrance to River Humber and Cramer . . . the upperpart of which is known as The Wash, is for the most part encumbered with numerous and dangerous sands, some of which fringe the coast, while others lie a considerable distance offshore; through these sands the several rivers which have their outlet in The Wash find their way at low water. The rapidity of the tidal streams in this bight, the low elevation of its shores, and the mist which almost constantly prevails, render its navigation difficult . . . The shoals and sands in The Wash are subject to constant changes . . . The tidal streams are strong . . . the rise and fall of the tide considerable . . . Soundings should never be neglected . . . " The Pilot goes on to speak of the sandwaves which are liable to move horizontally and vertically so that their configurations change, and of how the rate and duration of the tides can be affected by differing winds or heavy rainfall. The Wash itself is formed by the estuary of several rivers on which stand the small commercial ports of Boston, Wisbech and King's Lynn, serving the fenland hinterland and exporting grain, potatoes, fertilisers and other farm produce.

With its approaches of shoals, sandbanks and uncertain channels, it is a dangerous area for the seamen to have under his lee in gales from north through to east, but, if anything, high winds from the north west are even worse because of the turbulent seas they whip up.

These are waters which took a sad toll of the small trading vessels of the last century, plying to and from the ports of The Wash under sail, or on passage along the east coast. In the records of Skegness lifeboat station appear services to barques, ketches, schooners, sloops, brigs . . . On two separate occasions sailing vessels bringing a cargo of ice from Brevig to Boston ran aground on Dogs Head Sands; the brig Starbeam in 1888, in a snow squall, and the brigantine Camilla in 1895. Both boats, with the help of the lifeboat, eventually made port.

The hazards are still there today for yachts on passage and even for modern fishing vessels and coasters the Pilot emphasizes that a more than common degree of care is necessary. Without doubt the lifeboatmen of Skegness for the past 157 years have needed to know, and understand, their waters well.

While watching over passing shipping and yachts, the lifeboats of Skegness nowadays answer the many calls that inevitably arise on holiday beaches: rubber dinghies swept out to sea, bathers in trouble, sailing dinghies and small fishing boats in difficulties, outboard engines broken down, searches for missing people. Skegness itself has a population of 14,000, but on a fine bank holiday there can well be 100,000 people enjoying all that the town has to offer.

A number of 'shouts', particularly during the 1939-45 war, have been to search for crews from aircraft, perhaps running short of fuel, which have come down in the sea. Often there was nothing the lifeboat could do, but in 1941 l.ve airmen who had escaped into their rubber dinghy from a ditched Whitley bomber were successfully recovered and in 1943 two badly injured survivors were rescued from their dinghy following the crash of a Boston bomber. On one all-night wartime search the lifeboat found herself in a minefield. The mines, fortunately were clearly visible, for it was dead low water, and Coxswain George Perrin managed to get the lifeboat out of the danger area.

In November 1975 the crew of two of a Phantom aircraft, who had had to bail out, were safely recovered after what Neville Ball, the station honorary secretary, described as, '. . . the fastest launch I have ever seen . . . they moved like lightning. . . . " And Mr Ball, who has been honorary secretary since 1965, has lived in Skegness all his life.

In the story of Skegness lifeboat station, 1964 perhaps forms a good vantage point from which to look back and to look forward. It was in 1964 that a D class inflatable lifeboat was first established at the station—the boat which since then has launched to most of the 'holiday' incidents—and it was the year that the present 37ft Oakley lifeboat Charles Fred Grantham arrived.

At her naming she was presented to the RNLI on behalf of her donors by the Earl of Scarborough; she was named by Admiral Sir Guy Grantham, who later became Governor of Malta; the vice-chairman at the time was Lt- Cdr F. S. W. Major; Wilfred Perrin was coxswain, Percy Grunnill was motor mechanic, Ken Holland was bowman.

All these are among the family names knit into the history of Skegness and her lifeboat station.

From the beginning Grunnill: there has been a Grunnill (spelt in different ways) in Skegness from the very beginning. The original Grunnill was the mate of a Danish trawler sailing from a village near Copenhagen who, some 250 years ago, was press ganged aboard a British man-of-war. He 'jumped ship' at the naval dockyard, Great Yarmouth, and walked round the coast until he came to the marshes of Lincolnshire. There he settled, fishing off the land. A small community gradually grew up and then, with the coming of the railways, it was the Earl of Scarborough of the day who recognised its potential as a holiday resort and encouraged its growth.

From 1825, when a William Plenty pulling lifeboat was allocated to this part of the coast by the RNLI, right up until today there has always been at least one Grunnill in the lifeboat crew, and sometimes as many as eight in the same boat: fathers and sons, uncles and cousins. The second coxswain today is Joel Grunnill, who joined the crew in 1939, first serving with his father, Wilf, who was motor mechanic during the war years. The first Plenty lifeboat was managed by the Spilsby District Association, the scope of which was to be extended in 1827 so that it became the Lincolnshire Coast Shipwreck Association. In 1825 the boat was stationed at Gibraltar Point, a few miles south of Skegness, but in 1830, following the service to the sloop Thomas and Mary which struck Skegness Middle Bank, she was moved to Skegness itself where, in northerly or north-easterly winds, she was not so far to leeward. She continued to serve the community until 1864, when the running of the station was taken over by the RNLI. In those 39 years, 76 lives had been saved by the lifeboat or by lifeboatmen in their own boats.

For his 'conspicuous exertions' on the service to Thomas and Mary, when he had boarded the wreck to free two frozen survivors from the rigging, John Grunnel received special mention; and he himself had been pulled to safety by Sam Moody, soon to become coxswain.

In 1838, Lincolnshire Association medals were presented to Crew Member Grunnel and Coxswain Samuel Moody who, after the lifeboat had been driven ashore by huge seas, had rushed into the surf and rescued the last survivor of the sloop Boyne, wrecked between Skegness and Ingoldmells.

Perhaps the two most renowned Grunnills were Matt and Mont. Matthew Grunnill served the RNLI in one way or another for 60 years. At the age of 16 he joined the crew of the Chapel St Leonards lifeboat, further north up the Lincolnshire coast, while his father was coxswain; he himself later served first as second coxswain and then as coxswain at this station before joining the Skegness crew. He became second coxswain of Skegness lifeboat in 1900 and served as coxswain from 1908 until 1932; that was the year in which the first motor lifeboat, the 35ft 6in Liverpool Anne Allen, came to the station. Montague Grunnill, Matt's nephew, was a lifeboatman for 41 years and he served with his uncle as second coxswain from 1908 to 1932, and then on with Coxswain George Perrin until 1934.

In 1912 Matt and Mont were both awarded silver medals by the King of Norway for the rescue of six Norwegians and two Swedes from the Norwegian brig Azha, which ran on to Skegness Middle Bank on a bitter November day. That was one service when eight of the 17 crew of Samuel Lewis, a Liverpool pulling and sailing lifeboat, were Grunnills.

It is, perhaps, well to remember that lifeboat families, who do so much for others, may themselves be at the mercy of the sea. Mont's father, Edward, was lost in the sailing yawl Shannon in a squall off Skegness in the summer of 1893; one of his brothers was lost in the schooner Wick Lassie that same year and another was lost in a minesweeper during the First World War. One January day in 1905, when a shout came, the cry was, 'It's for Matt and Mont!' Their crab boat had been caught out in a gale, and they were narrowly saved from drowning by the lifeboat Ann, John and Mary.

Families . . .

Another of the local lifeboat family names to come down through the years is Moody. Samuel Moody we have already met; he was coxswain for 41 .years, from 1830 to 1871. During that time he was awarded two silver medals; the first in 1851 for rescuing 53 people in 21 years; the second in 1854, for the rescue of nine men and the master's wife and child from the brig Atalanta which had gone ashore in very rough seas; the lifeboat had to be taken through huge breaking waves in the pitch dark to bring Atalanta's people back to land. Joseph Moody served as coxswain from 1877 to 1880, and John Smith Moody from 1900 to 1908. In 1875 another Samuel Moody, known as Skipper Sam, together with a coastguard, George Chesnutt, was awarded the silver medal for the rescue of the master of the ketch-rigged barge Star, bound from Hull to Poole with a cargo of timber, which was driven ashore at Winthorpe Gap. The lifeboat had succeeded in taking off two men but the master fell overboard. Samuel Moody and George Chesnutt jumped into the breaking waves, brought the man to the side of the lifeboat and, supporting him, managed to hold on to her lifelines until she was driven ashore. Yet another Moody, Councillor Samuel Moody, JP, was branch chairman in the 1920s and early 1930s.

But to return to the families represented at the 1964 naming ceremony.

The new Oakley lifeboat had been named Charles Fred Grantham after one of the station's most outstanding honorary secretaries, who was also the first chairman of Skegness's Urban Council. A member of a well-known family of Lincolnshire farmers, Charles Grantham came, as a young man, to farm in the marshes behind Skegness; he became honorary secretary at the age of 22, in 1882, and continued until his death in 1922. Throughout that 40 years, it was the horses from Mr Grantham's farm which drew the lifeboat carriage. In those days, there were lifebelts for the lifeboatmen and saddles for the horses at the boathouse, and just as it was the first men to grab the belts who formed the crew, so it was the first men who grabbed the saddles who became the drivers for the team of horses. It was Charles Grantham's son, Admiral Sir Guy Grantham, who performed the naming ceremony of the lifeboat named after his father. Then there was the Perrin family.

George Perrin, a Gibraltar Point man, had, in 1932, become coxswain of Anne Allen, the first motor lifeboat at Skegness, with Mont Grunnill as his second coxswain and Percy Grunnill as the station's first motor mechanic. George Perrin had first joined the crew in 1912, and had served in sailing smacks and steam trawlers as well as in trawler minesweepers, as mate, during the First World War; he was an exceptionally strong man, and it was said of him that he could put a man on a shovel and lift him up on to a bar. Also in his crew was his son Wilfred 'Bill' Perrin, who followed Mont as second coxswain in 1934 and his father as coxswain in 1947.

After retiring as coxswain, George Perrin continued as head launcher until his death in 1952. Both father and son were fine and much respected seamen.

Bowman at the time of Charles Fred Grantham's naming was Ken Holland, a member of another old Skegness family; he and Joel Grunnill have been friends since their school days. Both were already helping as launchers before the outbreak of war in 1939, when Ken went into the Navy and Joel, with older lifeboatmen going away to the war, became a member of the lifeboat crew. Ken joined the crew when he was demobilised in 1946, became bowman the next year and followed Wilfred Perrin as coxswain in 1965; from 1969 he has been coxswain/mechanic. Deeply interested in the community in which he lived, Ken Holland has served it in more ways than one. As well as being a lifeboatman, he became a member of East Lindsey District Council and also Skegness Town Council, and he has just finished his term of office as Mayor of Skegness. It was a very busy year for Ken and his wife Jean, but for both of them it was a year they look back on with great happiness. Whatever his civic commitments, however, while mayor Ken was always ready to leave any function at a moment's notice if the lifeboat was called out; it was arranged that someone should quietly let him know, so that he could just slip away.

One of Ken's last engagements as mayor was to open a fine new Coastguard lookout at Winthorpe, at the north end of the town.

The present chairman of the branch, Philip Lill, was this year awarded the silver badge for his long and outstanding service. He has held the office of chairman since 1974 after 15 years as vice-chairman, and he is also a deputy launching authority, but his connections with the lifeboat station go much further back than that. There was one occasion, back in the 1920s, when at the time a call came for the lifeboat the horses were working at such a distance from the town that there was likely to be a delay. So the lifeboat was hauled by a team of men over the beach and chest deep into the sea; among that band was the young Philip Lill. His son, Robin, has just recently been elected to the station committee.

The branch vice-chairman is Basil Major, from another lifeboat family.

His father, Lt-Cdr F. S. Major, who, as vice-chairman, was present at the naming of Charles Fred Grantham, served as chairman from 1965 to 1974. Lt-Cdr Major, who had been associated with the station since 1922, had also been editor of a local newspaper; it was from his writings that, in 1977, his son Basil Major prepared a history of the station, A Century and a Half of Skegness Lifeboats.

The present honorary treasurer is Frank Skelton, manager of Barclays Bank.

Ladies' guild Just as on the operational side, so with fund raising, the roots at Skegness are deep. Three silver badges have been awarded to the ladies; one to Mrs Grace Perrin, wife of Coxswain George Perrin, for 40 years service to the station; one to Mrs Ellen E. Horry, a joint president of the ladies' guild with Mrs Dorothy Smith; and one to Mrs H.

Wood, JP, a vice-president. It was Mrs Wood who first started a comforts fund for the station and then, in 1960, founded the guild; she was a great supporter of the lifeboat right up to the time of her recent death. Mrs Betty Sleaford, the present chairman, has worked for the guild for some 20 years, as has her cousin, Mrs Barbara Hatton, assistant treasurer and box secretary.

Mrs Hatton's mother, Mrs Smalley, is an active helper too, and it is her home which is used as the main store for goods for sale; here is yet another lifeboat family name, for Thomas Smalley was coxswain from 1880 to 1900.

Mrs Hatton's husband, Morris, is radio operator in the present crew and he helps Barbara with her 160 boxes; while she looks after those in hotels and cafes, he looks after the ones in pubs, and in 1981 more than £700 was collected in these boxes.

Mrs Jane Major and Mrs Margaret Walters are vice-chairmen, Mrs E. M.

Patrick honorary secretary and Mrs Anne May honorary treasurer. There are some 50 or 60 members. As well as a lifeboat week in July, different members of the guild organise coffee mornings, nearly new sales, fashion shows, strawberry teas, children's sponsored silences (an annual event in school holidays) and Christmas draws—there is always good support from the town's business community. The guild sells RNLI souvenirs and Christmas cards (Mrs Woodruffe, who looks after their sale, is so well known that even holiday visitors call at her house), and sometimes the guild is asked to clear a house being sold; any good items are repaired and taken to the sale rooms, rags and scrap metal are sold to a waste merchant.

It is the ladies' proud boast that absolutely nothing is wasted—and that they could sell ice-creams to Eskimos! The guild was given a particularly fine tablecloth some little while ago. Now each member of the guild and any visiting guild members are invited to sign the cloth, for a lOp donation; the signatures are then embroidered.

Today Skegness's present 37ft Oakley Charles Fred Grantham is a housed carriage lifeboat, and she has an unusual boathouse; it has doors at both ends. When launching, the lifeboat is hauled out of the front doors in the normal way, then across the Parade and down over the sands—at holiday times everyone comes running, but the Police are there to help and no one has ever got in the way. Then, when the lifeboat returns, her tractor can take her round a side road and straight in through the back doors; and there she is, without any further manoeuvring, facing the right way for another launch. The D class lifeboat is kept in her own boathouse on the edge of the sands.

Charles Fred Grantham is normally manned by a crew of seven, all of whom have served for many years: Coxswain/ Mechanic Kenneth Holland; Second Coxswain Joel Grunnill (he has been second coxswain since 1951); Bowman Ronald Chapman; Assistant Mechanic Johnny Strzelecki; and Crew Members Morris Hatton, Colin Moore and Graham Phillips. The station has great support from its honorary medical adviser, Dr Gwyn Morris, and when he goes out with the lifeboat on a medical service he is always 'one of the crew'.

Members of the D class inflatable lifeboat crew also act as shore helpers, and they regularly go out on exercise in the Oakley so that they are ready to step in as reserves when needed in the larger lifeboat. They all live or work close to the boathouse and, when a call comes, it is the first two to arrive who man the boat. Family names appear in this crew list, too, taking tradition into the future.

So many Skegness families and so many people have devoted their time and energies to the lifeboat service; many, many more than have been mentioned here. But the reward of their combined hard work is the saving of life at sea. Over the years, Skegness large lifeboats have launched on service 407 times rescuing 305 people, and her inflatable lifeboats have launched on service 185 times, rescuing 59.

Sometimes there is a postscript to a service. In 1950 a Nottinghamshire policeman and his young son were rescued by Skegness lifeboat. Earlier this year, following a broadcast on a local radio in support of the Nottinghamshire lifeboat appeal, Ken Holland received a letter from this man telling him how, ever since 1950, he has helped on flag days, how he became a Shoreline member, and of the slide talks he gives in support of the RNLI; a very practical 'thank you'..