My son was 4 at the time. We were living at Staithes, in North Yorkshire, and he started trying to swim across the harbour.

I shouted, but he didn’t come back – he just kept swimming. I jumped in fully clothed, reached him, and brought him back to the shore. He was safe. But I wondered: ‘If I hadn’t been here, who would have saved him?’ And then I looked across the harbour and saw the lifeboat. That’s when I knew I wanted to be part of the RNLI.

On average, the lifeboat crews rescue 22 people a day, but drowning is still a problem around our shores.

In these pages you’ll hear how your support in helping us target drowning is so important – through the eyes of one mother, heartbroken over the loss of her son (see p2); and the Coastal Safety work being done to prevent tragedies in the future (p4).

You’ll also find out more about the charity’s lifesaving technology of today (p24) and the extraordinary foundations it laid down 190 years ago (p28). And then there are the lives saved on a daily basis, such as the two men who thought they would never see their children again until a lifeboat crew found them (p33).

Whatever your reason for supporting the RNLI, thank you.

Ace Bhatti
Former Lifeboat Crew Member,
RNLI Supporter, Actor