At sea, things don’t always go according to script – which is what led Timothy and Shane Spall to head offshore

‘If I get better, we will get a boat,’ declared Timothy Spall. It was 1996. A celebrated TV and film actor, his understated performance in that year’s hit British film Secrets and Lies earned him a string of acting award nominations. But, when he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia that year, Timothy was given days to live. He scribbled down what he would do if he survived – and top of the list was a boating adventure.

Against the odds, the London-born actor responded well to chemotherapy treatment, and began to win his battle. ‘Fate had tried to take me,’ muses Timothy. ‘Our response was to discover our own country in a boat – with lust, delight and abandon.’

The seeds for Timothy’s marine dreams were planted in Battersea Park, where he would mess about on the boating lake as a child, or gaze at the traffic chugging up and down the River Thames. His first love was for the stage, though; he trained at the National Youth Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His career blossomed from theatre to the small and big screen, earning acclaim for his TV roles including Auf Weidersehen Pet and films such as Life is Sweet.

But then Timothy’s life of scripts and studios had to make room for charts and waterways. As he recovered from his illness, he and his wife Shane explored the heart of Britain. They took narrowboats through two thirds of the canal network, before they turned their attentions to the open sea. ‘By the time we got Princess Matilda, I was off the danger list,’ says Timothy, fondly referring to the boat that he and Shane had commissioned. The purposebuilt Dutch barge would be their occasional floating home for years to come, as the pair tackled their greatest adventure yet: circumnavigating the British Isles.

The Spalls’ passage from hospital vigils to the UK’s most challenging waters is charted in Shane’s book, The Voyages of the Princess Matilda (reviewed in the Lifeboat Spring 2012). ‘It’s a deeply personal tale of our adventures,’ says Timothy, with no small amount of pride in his wife’s writing skills. TV audiences were also able to watch the couple head around the coast – a camera crew captured much of the journey for the BBC series Timothy Spall: Somewhere at Sea. Anyone who has followed their challenge will know the Spalls have become great supporters of the RNLI, and have called on lifeboat volunteers for help.

‘We were off Kent – I had navigated the whole of the North Sea and got us through some nasty moments,’ recalls Timothy.

‘I had to get into the River Medway. All this anxiety from the journey had built up. I was really tired. I lost all understanding of my instruments.’ Struggling to make progress amid the tide and traffic, Princess Matilda was becoming a danger to others and her own crew. ‘Shane suddenly noticed this huge tanker coming up behind us. I managed to avoid it but it led me to admit defeat.’ Timothy called for help, and the Sheerness inshore lifeboat volunteers headed to the scene.

‘Initially it felt like a moment of failure,’ says Timothy, ‘But the lifeboat volunteers were so understanding and eager to help. One of them, Nicky, jumped aboard and she took us in. That’s what’s wonderful about the RNLI. They are not there to tell you off. They save people, and they save self-respect.’

Timothy and Shane befriended many RNLI crews on their journey, in less dramatic circumstances. ‘We met everyone from “Patch” at Penlee (Coxswain Patch Harvey) to “Spanish” at Humber (Coxswain Dave Steenvoorden),’ says Timothy. ‘I think all the crews are heroes, including the ones we didn’t meet.’ It is this admiration that led Timothy and Shane to nominate the RNLI for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award (see page 2).

With the support of a variety of new friends around the coast, Timothy and Shane completed their circumnavigation in 2011 after 7 years. Between their adventures, Timothy’s acting career continued to flourish – he earned international recognition through films such as the Harry Potter series and The King’s Speech, in which he played Winston Churchill (a role he reprised in the opening of last year’s Olympic Games).

Acting and boating can both be stressful, but Timothy says there’s no comparison. ‘Acting is artistic. At sea, it’s you versus the environment. That’s pure and terrifying,’ he explains. ‘But it’s a sanctuary too. The RNLI’s volunteers seem to know all this. They know the sea is perilous, glorious, and free.’