Tour Scotland Anstruther

A beautiful day in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Spent the day in my hometown of Anstruther, watching Anstruther Lifeboat on exercise. The Anstruther Lifeboat Station was founded in 1865, and the present boat is a 12 metre Mersey Class Fast Carriage Boat called The Kingdom of Fife. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a Registered Charity relying entirely on Voluntary Contributions, so please visit the Anstruther Lifeboat Station and buy something from the shop. Tour Anstruther.

One hundred years ago, the first tentative steps to introduce motive power into the fleet of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution were taken when a small petrol engine was fitted to a pulling lifeboat. Since those early days, when motor lifeboats were small open craft with single engines, the RNLI has come a long way. Modern lifeboats are now complex and technologically advanced craft providing the skilled and highly-trained volunteer lifeboat crews with a sophisticated rescue tool. This unique book celebrates a century of RNLI motor lifeboats and includes details of every one, with descriptions of each class. RNLI Motor Lifeboats: A Century of Motor Life Boats.

Sometime after 1948, a collection of 39 photographs was borrowed from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's London headquarters by the American explorer, writer and film-maker, Amos Burg, in all probability for a National Geographic article that was never published. These photographs illustrated the RNLI's history from the 1920s to the end of the Second World War, an era which proved to be one of the RNLI's busiest times as crews around the country repeatedly answered calls to wartime casualties. RNLI wartime records are scarce, so photographs in this collection are of special value. The collection includes pictures of Henry Blogg, probably the most famous lifeboat man of all time, and of one of his Gold Medal-winning rescues. The photos were discovered by Charles Campbell, among piles of paperwork in a shed in the grounds of Burg's house. Each photo had the words 'please return to the RNLI' stamped on the back, so that is exactly what Campbell did, personally delivering them to the RNLI headquarters in Poole 55 years after Burg took them. Each photograph from the 'lost' collection comprises an individual chapter, supported by a narrative description of the rescue depicted. Lost Photographs of the RNLI.