Margate RNLI coxswain hands over the wheel after forty years of service

When Trevor joined the RNLI in September 1977, the rest of the country was busy celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, but uppermost on Trevor’s mind was a determination to help save lives at sea.

‘I actually married the coxswain’s daughter, so I was asked to join the crew by my father-in-law, Alf Manning,’ said Trevor, who served for five years on the station’s inshore lifeboat before moving on to the all-weather lifeboat (ALB). He was appointed second coxswain of the ALB in 1986 and held that position until 2005, when he became coxswain.

‘My first experience was with the old traditional slipway-launched Watson class lifeboat on the pier, but following the collapse of the pier in 1978 we moved into our current location at the Rendezvous, first with another traditional lifeboat, the carriage launched Rother class Silver Jubilee, and then in 1987 with the modern fast Mersey class lifeboat Leonard Kent,’ explained Trevor.

During that time Trevor has been involved in hundreds of rescues and incidents, including the collision between the cruise ship Norwegian Dream and the container vessel Ever Decent in the English Channel in 1999 and a fire on the Ramsgate – Dunkirk Sally Line cross channel ferry, Sally Star, in 1994.

‘I believe we were out for more than thirty hours following the Ever Decent collision and if I remember rightly we saved around 37 people from the Sally Star which had caught fire,’ recalls Trevor, who said the Margate lifeboats had saved more than 350 lives in the 40 years he has served at the station.

Trevor officially stood down on January 31 this year but admits it has taken a bit of getting used to: ‘I keep feeling for my pager, I just can’t get out of the habit!’ he explained.

To mark his 40 years of service Trevor was invited by the RNLI to a special event at the Guildhall in London last October and in June, he and Valerie attended a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.

‘It was a wonderful event and particularly for Valerie,’ he said. ‘The women are left behind in the background, but they are the ones who have to deal with everything while we are away. They are the ones who are left at home, or at restaurants when our pagers go off’. The RNLI has always been in Valerie’s family ever since she was born. With her father being the coxswain she never got any holidays as a child, so the garden party was a great event for her’.

Trevor was also presented with gold cufflinks by the RNLI crew at Margate and last weekend was treated to a surprise party to mark his four decades of service.

Like most RNLI volunteers Trevor has also had to juggle his time with the RNLI with full-time work. Before joining the charity he worked as a Kent coal-miner for eight years, but after marrying Valerie became involved in the family’s seafood business, which has operated at the harbour since 1962.

Until last year he had also spent 25 years running his own fishing boat out of Margate. Now 63, Trevor has no plans to retire and now works skippering the boats out to the London Array windfarm off the Kent coast.

‘Being actively involved for over 40 years I have seen a tremendous amount of change in the lifeboat service,’ he added. ‘It has been an honour and a privilege to serve both the seafaring and indeed the local community in this most important of voluntary services’.

The new coxswain of Margate’s all-weather lifeboat is Kevin Andrews. Kevin joined the RNLI as a crewmember in August 1978 and was appointed second coxswain in September 2005.

Photo: Trevor Lamb, who is standing down as coxswain of the Margate all-weather lifeboat Leonard Kent. Credit Nick Smith, RNLI.

RNLI Media contacts

• Peter Barker, RNLI Margate Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer 07974 064304 [email protected]

• Paul Dunt, Regional Media Officer (South East), 0207 6207426, 07785 296252 [email protected]

• For enquiries outside normal business hours, contact the RNLI duty press officer on 01202 336789

Key facts about the RNLI

The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,000 lives.

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