Recently I came across some old photographs which I am sending to you hoping they will be of interest. In 1937 we were spending a family holiday in St Ives, Cornwall, and one day during our first week we found ourselves, with other holiday makers, watching a practice launch of the lifeboat. As one of the photographs shows, this involved manually hauling the lifeboat along the harbour to a slipway, down to the beach and across the sands to the sea. It seemed a laborious exercise, especially with the tide out, but there was no shortage of willing hands.

The following week, the efficiency of this practice was put to the test when a foreign cargo ship, Aida Lauro, strayed on to the rocks during a night of sea fog.

We heard the maroons early that morning and my father woke us and drove us further along the coast to the site of the wreck [below r]. By then most of the action was over; the last of the survivors had been brought ashore by breeches buoy and were sitting on the cliffs looking very dejected. All were taken to the Salvation Army hostel in St Ives and given hospitality.

I remember my family being quite overwhelmed by the news of the disaster at St Ives in 1939 when all but one of the crew were lost in a further rescue attempt. My mother, who had by then taken on the organising of Lifeboat Day for Willesden (NW London) had a further glimpse of this tragedy when, at the next Annual Meeting, presided over by the present Duke of Kent's father, she witnessed the widows of these brave men receiving their husbands' posthumous gallantry awards.—MONICA ROBINSON, Somersham, Huntingdon..