Katharine Hay visits the independently-run St Abbs Lifeboat to hear about how things have been since the RNLI removed its lifeboat from the harbour about a decade ago.
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00:00 Hi, my name's Catherine Hay, I'm the Rural Affairs Correspondent at the Scotsman.
00:04 We've got Barry and Mark from the St Abbs Independent Lifeboat Station here
00:09 and earlier we were just out practicing with the defibrillator and doing CPR,
00:15 which was quite tough because the sea was a little bit rough this evening.
00:18 Could you tell us a bit about what led to St Abbs becoming an independent lifeboat station?
00:30 So in 2015 the RNI did a review of the east coast and basically they decided that due to
00:38 operational reasons that the St Abbs lifeboat wasn't required. So from that they started a
00:45 really campaign to save the lifeboat. There was a two and a half, two hundred and fifty thousand
00:52 petition to try and save the lifeboat here in St Abbs and that just sort of fell on deaf ears
00:58 and in 2016 they actually closed the lifeboat station and took the boat away.
01:04 And now, I mean, what's the crew you've got here now? How many strong crew for the lifeboat?
01:11 We're pretty much looking at 30 to 35. We have different elements of the crew, we're all one
01:17 crew but we have different roles within that. So we have board crew, i.e. the guy who's got
01:21 kitted up to go out to sea to save lives at sea. You have the shore crew who are then controlling
01:27 the harbour, ingress/egress routes for example if an ambulance has to get through so that the
01:32 ambulance can get through without any hindrance. We also have what we locally and fondly refer to
01:37 as the shop crew. We have our own shop here in St Abbs which sells the merchandise, hoodies,
01:43 t-shirts, hats and a plethora of other little knickknacks and accessories. The village itself
01:50 only has approximately 86 people within it but well over three quarters of that are involved
01:56 in a lifeboat in some way, shape or form. So the lifeboat itself is very much the heartbeat of the
02:00 village and it pretty much connects us and to an extent unifies us within. Just on the boat earlier
02:05 Davey was saying that, you know, there's, I know we need to sort of confirm figures but
02:10 certainly in double figures how many people you rescue a year and go out and help and support.
02:14 It really is still an essential part of the community as you say, the lifeboat. And you've
02:21 really seen that in the last, because it's been seven years roughly. It is and most of our shouts
02:27 what we refer to is when we get called out on medical emergencies. We have a huge dive community
02:32 here because we have also the marine site here. It's a protected marine site hence the clarity of
02:38 the water so therefore it attracts a lot of divers. We also get a lot of paddle boarders,
02:42 a lot of kayakers, so a lot of waterborne activity especially in the height of the summer.
02:46 So the low of averages tells you that something at some point is going to go wrong and hence why we
02:50 need to be here.
02:51 I know that in order to get that amazing boat we went on earlier and seeing how fast it can go and
03:02 how efficient it is, it requires a lot of fundraising and donations because obviously
03:07 you don't have that sort of, you know, publicity that RNLI can get for their individual stations.
03:13 And so how did you manage to get the funds for the boat, for the kit? Because I understand all
03:21 the crew and everybody had to sort of, you know, it was gutted somebody said this whole...
03:24 Yeah it was. When the RNLI closed the station everything was removed. So it was literally
03:30 starting off from scratch. So with an unbelievable effort from a lot of individuals from around the
03:36 village, they had cast the net to see what we could get from local businesses for example.
03:43 One of the major benefactors is Mr Tunnick who was an unbelievable help with them raising funds
03:50 and financing the boat to the point where the boat's actually named after his late brother Tommy Tunnick.
03:55 So there's a huge connection there between ourselves and Mr Tunnick.
03:59 Thank you so much both of you for your time and yeah really had a really great trip out on the
04:05 boat earlier. We'll be following this up with a story which you can find on the Scotsman website
04:11 under Hayesway or via my Instagram which is @rural_cat with a k.