Beeching's medal At the Great Exhibition of 1851, one James Beeching was awarded the prize bronze medal for a self righting lifeboat.

It is thought this boat was the best if not the first self righting lifeboat to be invented. James Beeching was my ancestor on my father's side and I have this medal in my possession, also the certificate signed by the Prince Consort Albert and presented by the Duke of Northumberland.—MRS E. M. KERSHAW, Abergele, Clwyd, North Wales.

Any advance? Does the South East and Bexhill-on- Sea qualify for the record of having the oldest collector on lifeboat day? Our Mrs V. H. I. Maynard—the mother of my chairman—was on duty and she is in her hundredth year along with her assistant who is a mere 93. It's the air down here you know!—FRANK HARRISON, honorary secretary, Bexhill-on-Sea branch, East Sussex.

Too close for comfort I went to sea in 1941 and was made redundant about two and a half years ago, and during my years at sea I sailed as sailor and bosun, and on two occasions during those years we went to assist yachts in distress in bad weather, and both times we made the same mistake. Instead of just standing by them till the weather abated, the captains on those occasions were too anxious to hurry things along and went alongside the yachts. The result in both cases was that the frail yachts got badly smashed up and nearly dismasted by heavy seas dashing them up against our steel hull. It was also very obvious to us that the occupants of the yachts were all terrified at being in such close promixity to us, whereas before we went alongside they were riding out the weather reasonably well.

The reason I am writing this letter to you is to point out the danger of large steel hulled ships going alongside frail craft like yachts in really bad weather when they could just lie off to windward within hailing distance until the lifeboat arrives. I have always had the greatest admiration for the brave and efficient men who man the lifeboats and great confidence in their abilities because they are highly skilled in their work, and have fast and highly manoeuvrable boats, and above all, something money can't buy, experience in life saving at sea.

The old sailors saying has always been: 'Stay with your vessel till the very last, and only abandon it when she is filling with water so fast that she must be abandoned.' Masters rendering assistance could stand by with one of their liferafts inflated and in the water with a line attached to be paid out only in the event of a person or persons actually being seen in the water.—JOHN CREE, Hull, Yorkshire.

Day to remember I have been a member of Shoreline for some years now, but last Friday was the first occasion on which I was able to attend one of your Open Days. What a fascinating and happy day it was! I went with my sister and we intended to spend a couple of hours at the RNLI and then go off elsewhere, but in the end we spent the entire day until 6.00 pm at the RNLI. Thank you and all the staff and volunteers at headquarters for a marvellous day.

We particularly enjoyed our tour of headquarters, and are grateful to those in each department who gave endless explanations so willingly and made it all so very interesting for the visitors. We saw the demonstrations several times and thoroughly enjoyed them all. We saw around the Arun lifeboat City of Dublin and that was quite an eyeopener in itself. We were both very impressed by the entire organisation, and the fact that everything related to lifeboats appears to be done by the Institution—very efficiently too.

You are to be congratulated on the wonderful atmosphere which pervaded the whole headquarters on Friday, and I am sure it is the same on each Open Day. It certainly confirmed to us that lifeboatmen are special people!—MISS H. J. CONNEL, Weybridge, Surrey..