Penlee Lifeboat disaster thirty years ago today..

[madzone]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFNHT4GH38&sns=fb

I remember it as if it was yesterday. My stepdad was a police sargent at the time and me and mum sat up all night listening to the police radio. It still makes me teary. My stepdad was also a police diver and was involved in recovering bodies of people he'd been to school with. Just awful.

Raising a glass.

 

[dylanredefined]

Lifeboat crews are true heroes. Think the entire country felt bad when this happened.

 

[Geri]

There's a programme about this just about to start on BBC4.

 

[Libertad]

Lest we forget.

 

[StoneRoad]

Watched the documentary on a previous showing - made me cry a bit.
Have you heard Seth Lakeman's tribute to them - title is "Solomon Browne" - and I made a pilgrimage to Mousehole and the old station at Penlee about five years ago, and I got a chance to stand on the slipway.
Did you know the knockoff hammer that launched ON954 on that fateful service is still there, on the winch?

Lifeboat crews are real heroes, although a lot (if not most of them) would deny that !
Please make a donation to the RNLI......perhaps a pub or shop near you has a collection box.

 

[Geri]

I always give money to them. We saw them rescue a surfer from the sea in Newquay once.

 

[StoneRoad]

Just finished watching the film again,
Lest we forget....donation at the ready !

and I think the loss of the Union Star and Solomon Browne was a contributory factor in the decision to have the ETV's around the UK (not the only one - oil tankers make much more mess !) and our "wonderful" gov't is about to get rid of the ETV's

 

[tar1984]

Brave men.

 

[madzone]

I really shouldn't have watched that. Am in fucking bits now. I also thought that about the proposed changes to the Coastguard services..

Kinell....it's all come back like it was yesterday. My stepdad identified a lifeboat crew member from a birthmark on his leg because that was all that was washed up. I feel incredibly selfish that I'm happy that none of my family are any longer at sea. Somebodies family are out there doing that. So fucking heroic.

 

[1927]

I have never been involved in any activity that might have brought me into contact with the RNLI, dont have a seafring family background or anything like that, but I NEVER see a collection box for them without putting something in. I cannot think of a more worthy cause for people to donate to, true heroes everyone of them.

 

[Voley]

Thirty years ago, eh? Blimey. Was Geoff Bould on the programme madz? He worked as crew at the time, although not out that night obviously.

 

[madzone]

Sorry NVP - just seen your post. I'm not sure if he was in it or not. I'll ask mr madz if he remembers when he gets back.

 

[butchersapron]

That was a really hard program to watch for someone like me who had no people involved.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Dreadful events. RNLI has been my #1 charity since I can remember. Truly amazing, their running costs are almost £150million per year, 100% raised through denotations. From time to time governments have offered to part fund the service and the RNLI has told them to piss off as they don't want the interference