Royal meeting Guest of honour at this year's annual presentation of awards at the Royal Festival Hall will be Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent. The ceremony takes place at 3.00 on the afternoon of Tuesday May 12, 1987, when the Duchess will he presenting bravery medals to lifeboatmen and other awards to long-serving voluntary workers. The Duchess of Kent, whose husband is President of the RNLI, has long been involved with the lifeboat service, attending many naming ceremonies and other RNLI functions.

An Arun class lifeboat, funded by the Freemasons and in the relief fleet of the Institution bears her name.

Anniversaries Next year, 1988, marks two important anniversaries for the RNLI.

It will be 150 years since Grace Darling took part in the famous rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire, wrecked close to the Longstone Lighthouse where her father was keeper. It will also be 25 years since the first inflatable lifeboat was introduced into the RNLI's fleet.

Both these events have had farreaching effects upon the RNLI in their different ways and the Institution intends to publicise their anniversaries as much as possible with associated fund raising projects. RNLI stations, branches and guilds who may also be planning to commemorate one or both of these anniversaries are asked to contact the PR department in Poole to discuss any support they may require and so that all efforts can be coordinated.

Welcome visitors Over 2,800 people visited RNLI headquarters in Poole during 1986. This is over and above the number that came on Open Days in July. A large proportion of these visitors were school parties although a variety of other groups and individuals toured the RNLI museum, depot, souvenir shop and were shown slide presentations and films. Those wishing to pay a visit in 1987 are welcome and are asked to contact RNLI headquarters well in advance to arrange a convenient time.

Lifeboats of the world The 15th International Lifeboat Conference takes place in June this year and is to be held in La Coruna in northern Spain. Some 25 lifeboat societies from all over the world are expected to attend the four-yearly conference and lifeboats from several European countries will be on view to delegates. The RNLI which acts as secretariat for the International Lifeboat Conference will be represented and will be sending a 52ft Arun class lifeboat to La Coruna.

The book that never was Alistair Maclean, the author who died in February, had apparently been thinking for some years of writing a novel about the lifeboat service. This tantalising fact came to light after he had sent in signed copies of two of his novels to the Leeds book auction in aid of the RNLI (reported in the last issue of THE LIFEBOAT). A short whilelater he wrote again from his home Geneva asking whether a trip in lifeboat could be arranged. He had sailed his own trawler round the British Isles for seven years, never needing the services of the RNLI, but he dearly wished to go aboard a lifeboat to give him the background for a novel. Sadly.

Mr Maclean's death came too soon for trip to be arranged.NEWS POINT GIVE AS YOU EARN The tax man and the RNLI have not always seen eye to eye, particularly when it comes to matters like VAT, when the RNLI still pays back to the Exchequer each year an amount equivalent to the cost of a new lifeboat. However, the new scheme. Give As You Earn, which started on April 6 this year and which allows employees to allocate a weekly or monthly deduction from their pay to a charity or charities of their choice before the tax man has taken his share, is an example of the more considerate side of his nature.

The Charities Aid Foundation, who are at present the only body to set themselves up as an agency to receive and distribute payroll donations, consider that the scheme is quite capable of generating an extra £100 million for charities. For this target to be reached, however, Give As You Earn must be brought to the attention of as many employers and employees as possible and this is where you, the reader, comes in.

The RNLI, which stands to receive a healthy share of the potential £100 million, is relying upon its supporters to help persuade employers to set up the scheme and employees to include the RNLI in their list of chosen charities.

An explanation of Give As You Earn appears on page 132 and there are more details in a leaflet which is enclosed with this issue. You will also find a free car sticker inside the journal, which we hope everyone will use and which says, quite simply, "Give As You Earn to the Lifeboats".L'Aber Wrac'h lifeboat disaster As reported briefly in the Autumn edition of THE LIFEBOAT, the five man crew of the French lifeboat from the small Breton port of L'Aber Wrac'h, lost their lives on a service in August last year.

A report of the tragedy has been published in Sauvetage. journal of the Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Merand we here present a summary of its contents.

At 0045 on August 7, 1986 distress flares were sighted just off the entrance channel between Lampaul-Ploudalmezeau and the peninsula Sainte-Marguerite de Landeda. CROSS-CORSEN, the French equivalent of the Coastguard, immediately alerted Portsall lifeboat but she was unable to launch straight away because of the low tide. L'Aber Wrac'h lifeboat was then contacted and she launched with five men on board at 0120. She was immediately in radio contact with CROSS-CORSEN: all was well on board.

At 0246 CROSS-CORSEN informed L'Aber Wrac'h lifeboat that the five people aboard the yacht (which had fired the flares), three of them young women, had managed at low water to get ashore by their own means and were safe. The lifeboat, Capitaine de Corvette Cogniet, replied that she would continue on to try to save the yacht. It was 0250 and the last message anyone received from her.

After an all-night search, involving Portsall lifeboat and other rescue services, the wrecked lifeboat was discovered on the Kerguen rocks at the entrance to L'Aber Wrac'h channel with no sign of any crew member aboard. The hull appeared to be intact but the superstructure and deck were completely smashed. The lifeboat must have turned over and the hull then dashed violently on to the rocks.

It appears from the subsequent inquiry that the disaster must have been caused by a nylon cable found wrapped round one of the twin-engined lifeboat's two propeller shafts, immobilising the starboard propeller She was driven towards the rocks and a wave did the rest. Had she remained upright, her coxswain might still have been able to steer away in time to save the vessel.

The lifeboat's crew were made up of the best rescuers any station could wish for. They launched with all the promptness that could have been required and without waiting for the three further men that would normally make up a full crew in this type of lifeboat.

Long service awards THE LONG SERVICE BADGE for crew members and shore helpers who have given active service for 20 years or more has been awarded to: Harwich Coxswain Mechanic P. Burwood Holyhead Coxswain W. J. Jones Motor Mechanic D. G. Drinkwater New Quay Crew Member D. S. T. Evans St Davids Second Assistant Mechanic D. J.

BatemanHappy birthday . . .

Two lifeboat stations, Dover and St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly, celebrate 150 years of lifesaving in 1987. Both have been awarded vellums by the RNLI's Committee of Management to commemorate their anniversary. Cardigan and Stornoway lifeboat stations are both 100 years old this year and they, too, will receive commemorative vellums.

. . . to us too Our thanks to all those of you who remembered the RNLI's "birthday" on March 4, which was the 163rd anniversary of the founding of the Institution by Sir William Hillary. A special thank you to Marion Douglas of Overstrand for your 163rd birthday card and Storm Force member Adrian Clarke, for the drawing of "RNLB Anniversary".

Comic clergy It's no joke . . . seven clergymen spent an evening telling funny stories with a religious theme to a packed crowd at Maidenhead and raised £2,000 towards the appeal, launched by the parents of the four Buckinghamshire schoolboys drowned off Land's End two years ago, to raise funds for a new lifeboat for Sennen Cove, Cornwall, in their memory. The night of the Holy Laugh-in was the inspiration of Rabbi Jonathan Remain, minister of Maidenhead Synagogue, who is no stranger to fund raising for the RNLI. A previous brainwave was to stop passers-by in Maidenhead High Street and challenge them to sponsor him not to give them a personal half hour sermon - again to the benefit of the RNLI.

The six other comedians who joined Rabbi Remain at Maidenhead's United Reformed Church were the Rev. John Copping, of Cookham Dean, Father Paul Spellman, of St Edmund Campion, the Rev. Tony Dickinson of St. Peter's Chalvey, the Rev. Jeremy Hurst of Slough Christian Council, the Rev.

Geoffrey Bending of Burnham United Reformed Church and the Rev. Peter Grimshaw, whose church hosted the event.

The £2,000 was raised thanks to the support of local schools, churches, Scout groups, businesses and individuals.

Support also came from the country's religious leaders, with contributions from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and TV and radio personality Rabbi Lionel Blue among others. Rabbi Blue's favourite joke was about a little boy writing to Jesus for a bicycle. " I'm good for three months can I have a bicycle?" wrote the little boy. But he tore the letter up because he knew he couldn't meet the terms.

His second attempt promised good behaviour for one week in return for the bicycle, but again he knew he would fail to keep his end of the bargain. Pausing for thought the little boy looked at the picture of the Virgin Mary above his bed. Taking it down and hiding it in a drawer, he wrote . . . "Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again . . . " New career When Withernsea's D Class lifeboat launches in future, crew member David Harriman will not be among those answering the call. Mr Harriman, who teaches craft at the local high school, is off to Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, with his wife Vanessa and two young daughters, to take up a new teaching appointment there..