Memorial for Penlee Lifeboat disaster 40th anniversary bbc.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bbc.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lifeboat volunteers with a combined 300 years service in west Cornwall have been honoured by the RNLI. Long-service awards have been presented to Penlee Lifeboat Station members Janet Madron, who has served 50 years, Rosalie Whitlock (50 years), Andrew Munsen (50 years), Dr Mike Hersant (50 years), Roy Pascoe (40 years), Margaret Pascoe (30 years) and Margaret Pomeroy (30 years). Janet, who is branch chairman, has received the RNLI s 50 years service award for her voluntary fundraising. She originally became involved at Penlee when her husband Stephen joined the RNLI, and although Janet lost her husband in the Penlee Lifeboat disaster of 1981 her unstinting efforts for the RNLI have continued.
12th January 2021
John McKenna with his RNLI long service medal
Credit: RNLI/Tara Murphy
Howth Lifeboat Station Community Safety Officer John McKenna has been awarded a long service medal by the RNLI.
In 2020, McKenna (73) reached a milestone: 21 years of volunteering for the RNLI and saving lives at sea.
He has been telling the RNLI’s own magazine about his decision to join the RNLI in the first place, his role and how influencing people’s behaviour can be a skilful and powerful tool in lifesaving.
John works as part of a team of six in the Community Safety Team at Howth, one fo Ireland’s busiest stations.
A lifeboat crew has paid tribute to a former member who died doing a job that he loved . Today marks the 59th anniversary of former crew member Jimmy Hocking Pentreath, who was swept off the slipway at Penlee Point on December 30, 1961 at the end of a successful rescue. A spokesperson for Penlee Lifeboat said: Jimmy, a Mousehole man, aged 78 years, who had a life-long association with the Penlee lifeboat, died doing a job that he loved. Jimmy s name is etched into the RNLI memorial at Poole. Gone but never forgotten. It was at 4.10pm on that day the Solomon Browne lifeboat had launched from Penlee Point in slight sea and light breeze, following a call for a doctor to go to the British Shell tanker Varicella.
People are being urged to remember the eight extremely brave, fearless and selfless lifeboatmen who lost their lives 39 years today. December 19, 1981 the Penlee Lifeboat Disaster saw the tragic loss of the crew of the Solomon Browne and of the coaster Union Star off the south Cornish coast near Mousehole. It was in hurricane force winds that the cargo ship Union Star was blown off course after it suffered steering and engine failure.
The crew of the Solomon Browne The lifeboat Solomon Browne launched at 8.12pm in an attempt to rescue the eight crew from Union Star as it was about to hit the rocks.