Gemma picks a perfick lottery Actress Gemma Craven, also known as 'Ma Larkin', drew the winning tickets of the 71st RNLI Lifeboat Lottery on 31 October 1995.

Gemma has been starring in 'The Darling Buds of May' which was showing at the Poole Arts Centre during October 1995. This is thesecond time she has drawn the lottery for the RNLI, the first time being in 1989.

Anthony Oliver, deputy head of fundraising and marketing, supervised the draw that raised over £113,000 and the winners were: £2,000 Mr M. H. Kirkham, Wotton-under-Edge, Glos.

£1,000 Miss N. A. Kirk, Hindhead, Surrey.

£750 Mr M. Phillips, Lymington, Hants; Mr E. L.

Walls, Bognor Regis, W.

Sussex.

£500 Mr M. E. Sim, Elwick Village, Cleveland.

£250 Mrs P. E. Parkinson, Dorchester, Dorset. £100 Mrs O. James, Wimborne, Dorset; Mrs E. Ainsworth, Blackburn, Lanes; Mr D. J.

Fearnley, Bradford, W.

Yorks; Mrs M. Gibbs, Southsea, Hants; Mr D. R.

Higton, Petersfield, Hants.

£50 Mr T. Rose, Brixton, London; Mrs J. Tollerton, Lincoln, Lines; Mr D. S.

Spencer, Much Birch, Hereford; Mrs D. Gunstone, Great Clacton, Essex; Mr J. E.

Hall, Alnwick, Northumberland.On Station Getting spliced! The following lifeboats have taken up station and relief fleet duties: ALL-WEATHER Courtmacsherry - Trent class 14-07Frederick Storey Cockburn 18 September 1995 INSHORE Bundoran - B711 Helene 30 May 1995.

Newquay - Atlantic 75 B715 Phyllis 14 August 1995.

Rock - D class D489 Dolly Holloway 27 September 1995.

Lough Swilly - B717 Daisy Aitken 5 October 1995.

Relief - B718 Rotaract I November 1995 When Susanne Poyner joined the crew of Eyemouth lifeboat she could hardly have suspected that one of the splices she would learn to make would be one to 2nd coxswain George Walker! But that was exactly what happened when the two of them were married at a ceremony held on 2 September 1995. The marriage was then blessed aboard the station's Waveney. The two met when George began to teach Susanne about the ways of the lifeboat when she first joined the crew.Lifeboat memorials At Hayle...

During July Justin Lee of BBC Radio Cornwall unveiled a memorial to Hayle's lifeboatmen - a memorial which had been lost since the beginning of the century and which had been restored to its rightful place after turning up in a local field.

The plaque had been presented to the RNLI along with a lifeboat called Isis by Oxford University in 1866. and had disappeared when the boathouse was demolished to make way for a larger one for a later boat.

...and Lyme Regis Lyme Regis's new boathouse will incorporate a commemorative panel made up of fire-bricks recovered from the cargo of the barque Heroine, lost on Boxing Day 1852.

The town's lifeboat was escorting the ships lifeboats to safety when she was hurled against the famous 'Cob' harbour wall with the loss of all but one of her crew. The wreck was discovered in 1991 by members of Swindon Sub-Aqua Club who have recovered the bricks and presented them to the station.

Return of the native The former Aberdeen lifeboat Ramsey Dyce - which served at the station between 1957 and 1976 before being transferred to the relief fleet - visited her old station during September 1995. She had previously called at other Scottish ports during a voyage which took her to Orkney and Shetland under the command of her new owner Major Keith Oliver.

The Barnett class lifeboat and her successor the Arun class BP Forties are pictured just before her arrival at Aberdeen where she was the star attraction at the station's last open day of the year.

Photo Aberdeen RNLI, courtesy Bristow Helicopters.