Very much an Inshore Lifeboat...

West Kirby's D class inflatable took the term Inshore Lifeboat literally on 14January 1991, when the crew took her 14 miles by road and through the Mersey Tunnel to rescue a boy and his dog from a park lake in Liverpool.

13-year-old Fred Allen and his dog Buster has fallen through ice on the lake, said to be up to 50ft deep, during the cold spell which swept the country.

Although they had struggled ashore on an island, police and firemen could not reach them as the temperature plunged to -4°C.

The police contacted the coastguard, who contacted West Kirby' s hon sec, who set off the pagers to initiate one of the station's more unusual services.

At 2045, with police escort and blue lights flashing, the lifeboat started her 'passage' to the middle of Liverpool - where it took eight lifeboatmen to lift the D class over the park railings. With two of the crew using their 'wellies' over the bow as icebreakers the inflatable finally reached the lad and his dog and ten minutes later had handed them over to the police and ambulance crews.

Although taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia Fred was later allowed home, and with the lifeboat safely back on station at 2148 hon sec Bob Jones told a newspaper: 'This was an unusual call, we're not called an inshore lifeboat for nothing!'.