HAPPY MEMORIES
RESCUE IN WARTIME
A scenic seascape in our last issue got one reader thinking of childhood holidays – and old RNLI friends
The lovely photograph of Ballycotton Harbour on page 23 of the summer issue of Lifeboat magazine brought back happy memories.
My family went on holiday there for several years in the 1960s and we got to know the lifeboat Coxswain Mikey Lane Walsh and the Engineer Willie Sliney well. The photograph was taken after an all-night rescue of two boys whose dinghy had become lost. They were discovered safe and sound drifting some miles from where they had departed. My father, a doctor, is the man in the brown coat standing in the stern of the boat. Fortunately, apart from being very cold and frightened, the boys were fine and my father’s medical skills were not needed. My brother and I returned to Ballycotton with our mother in 2010 to celebrate her 90th birthday and were interested to see
how little the place had changed.

RESCUE IN WARTIME

Our news piece on the Little Ships of Dunkirk reminded one reader of another significant wartime rescue Did you know that, during the
Battle of Britain, Margate lifeboat rescued one Richard Hillary? Shot down in his Spitfire over the Channel and badly burned, he had
given up hope when the Margate crew spotted his parachute in the water. His ordeal and rescue are described in the opening chapter
of his book The Last Enemy. He mentions telling his rescuers that he was a descendant of RNLI founder Sir William Hillary – I wondered if this was true?
Chris Crowther

RNLI Heritage Archive and Research Manager Hayley Whiting responds: ‘Pilot Officer Richard Hillary was one of many pilots rescued by the RNLI during the Second World War. These rescues included saving the lives of
many German airmen. Richard Hillary is probably the most notable pilot rescued during that period by the RNLI and for many years it was believed he was a direct descendant of the RNLI’s founder Sir William Hillary. This is however not the case, confirmed to the
RNLI in 1965 by Richard Hillary’s father.

ON TWITTER
@TowerRNLI were moved to hear from
a grateful mother:
Presenter @Linds_bluepeter onboard at Beaumaris:

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