Prompt action at Margate saves a life Margate's lifeboat coxswain Peter Barker and crew member Clive Simpson saved a man's life without recourse to the station's Mersey or the D class inflatable.

On Saturday 3 October 1992 a woman ran into the lifeboat house to say there a man was in the water on the rocks off the Winter Gardens.

Peter Barker alerted other members of the crew, but rather than waiting for the lifeboat to be launched he and Clive Simpson ran across the beach and rocks and waded up to their waists to reach the man, who was about 60, lying facedown in a gully.

Although there was no sign of life when they carried him from the water they began artificial respiration and he began to revive. He was taken to hospital where he recovered.

Alan Wear, the station's honorary secretary, praised the two men. They acted very promptly,' he said, 'if they had waited for the boat to be launched, the man would have died.'.