The
Crew
John
Jones is the guv'nor. As the Lifeboat Operations
Manager, he is appointed by the RNLI to run the lifeboat
station, and is the primary contact for the coastguard
when a launch is requested. John has always worked with
boats and currently with the harbour board, previously
he worked for lifeboat builder William Osborne Ltd, and
also for the RNLI.
When the RNLI decided
to re-establish a lifeboat station in Littlehampton
in the 1960s, they turned to Peter Cheney.
He was responsible for getting the lifeboat station
up and running, and became the Honorary Secretary, running
the show for the next 25 years. Peter is now the chairman
of the Littlehampton Lifeboat Station committee, and
last year was appointed an Honorary Life Governor of
the RNLI in recognition of his service. The award was
made by the Duke of Kent at a ceremony in London.
Deputy launching authority Geoff Warminger has been involved
with the lifeboat station as crew and DLA for 36 years.
Geoff is also in charge of tea consumption, a skill that he has honed with great determination. Having worked in the construction industry, Geoff has now
retired so that he can devote more of his time to tea.
Nick
White rejoined the team as deputy launching authority,
after a break of a few years since leaving the crew.
Nick served as crew at Littlehampton and Weston-super-Mare
for 22 years and is responsible for writing all this
rubbish.
Retired merchant seafarer Jim Petty initially joined the team as administration officer to help to file service reports and maintain station records. He has also become the station training
co-ordinator passing on some of his wealth of experience, getting stuck into subjects such as navigation and boat handling theory with our crew.
The
station medic is Gordon Byars . His
duties include conducting the regular medical examinations
that all crew must undergo, and can be asked to go to
sea if a doctor is needed to attend a casualty. Gordon
also plays a part in medical training for the crew.
Steve Strickland
is the station treasurer.
Our honorary PR man
is Eddie Mitchell. A photographer
for the Brighton Argus and its sister papers, Eddie's
job is to make sure that the community doesn't forget
that Littlehampton has one of the busiest lifeboat stations
in the country.
Ivan Greer
has been a lifeboatman since 1991, and is
also one of the lifeboat station's two mechanics who
are responsible for maintaining both boats, their engines
and equipment. Ivan works for the local council. Liam Clarke
has spent recent summers as a beach safety lifeguard,
and now he has a grown up job as a firefighter.
Our
senior helmsman is Andy Harris who
has been on the crew since 1997, and runs his own fishing
boat from Littlehampton. Firefighter Paul
James has been on the crew for the last five
years. Ross
Bowman has been a crewman since 1997. He is
a building site supervisor, and is an experienced diver.
We have recently lost the services of Lee Street, one of our long serving crewmen, whose enthusiasm and drive will be much missed. Lee has a senior role with the West Sussex fire service. and has always been a bit of an action man. He also runs RYA seamanship courses in his spare time, climbs
mountains, skis, and sails his own boat.
Property developer
Oliver Griffiths joined the crew is
2002. A long-term boater, he is rumoured to yearn for
the day when lifeboats abandon engines and return to
sail. On the crew for the
last four of years, Gavin Simmons assures
us that he is the perfect example of handsomeness. In
his spare time he works for the harbour board. The legendary Ritchie Southerton used to be a crewman on one of the full-time
River Thames lifeboats, and now he's a policeman and bourbon biscuit connoisseur. Ritchie
has been a lifeboatman since 1997. Until recently a student, Olly
Clarke graduated following the submission of his thesis
entitled ‘The Impact of Beer on Academia'.
It has been necessary to step up our recruitment over the last couple of years because of the large number of calls. Early on, Jenny
Cradock, motor mechanic Keith Booth,
and police officers Rob Rollins and Chris
Booth joined us. Later, two further groups of volunteers completed their initial training
to become enrolled crew. Mia Dorricot, ex Royal Navy; college lecturer Laura Robinson;
Army Physical Training Corps instructor Jon
Street, architect Clive Lindsell and guest house proprietor
Jon Maidment. All of these have supplemented their local training by attending a week long course at the RNLI's Lifeboat Training College at Poole.
Another induction training course is under way, and over several months our new boys will follow a structured series of theory and practical sessions before they are assessed by the senior crew, and then by the RNLI's professional training staff. Police officer Steve Edwards is married with three children; Tony Da Silva is a prison officer; and Rob Devo and Lee Harrison each gained a lot of sea safety experience as beach lifeguards, and now both are students at Chichester University, Rob is training to be a PE teacher, and Lee is studying adventure education, and we all want to know what that means!
Shore Helpers
Apart from crewing
the boats, we depend upon our shore helpers to support
the work of those who actually go afloat. The boats
have to be launched, so the tractors have to be driven.
Fuel has to be obtained, records have to be kept, and
the boathouse has to be swept. The crew get involved
with all of these tasks, but are dependant upon the
support of our band of shore helpers:
Kerosene Ken
Greer has been unwell for a while and much missed around the boathouse. For many years, he has been responsible for maintaining our fuel
stocks, and was our boathouse attendant, conducting boathouse
visits for any groups that want a guided tour of the
lifeboat station. Ken remains the station custodian of ancient
jokes.
Crucial to any lifeboat station are those members of the shore team who don't go to sea, but who make everything happen back on dry land. Michelle Greer, Ivan's wife, is magic at driving tractors,
just keep out of her way; garage manager Tim
Clarke (Liam and Olly's dad), and harbour worker Garry Garner are our other tractor drivers, and former
soldier, paramedic and merchant seaman Peter
Nock is a shore helper.
Trainees
We are always on the
lookout for new crew so that we can be sure that we
continue to achieve the speed of response that everyone
expects. If you would like to find out about joining
our lifeboat crew, find out more from the crew recruitment
page.
|
