Jim Roberts on Saving Lives at Sea
If you’re looking in some of the history books and that for the Coastguards in the turn of the century 1920s/1930s they all had Coastguard skiffs or boats that they used to row. But in those early days the Coastguard service was a little differently orientated because they only took on the search and rescue role round about 1920s/1922; prior to that they were what’s called a ‘Coast Preventative Force’ whereby they were more engaged in looking for people, smuggling and Revenue evasion.
Those in the early days when they had even more Coastguard stations the Coastguards then used to patrol between Stations carrying muskets and various places like that. When you go back in time and as you look around the Isle of Wight and there’s several good books written about this particularly on the Island.
There’s one particular Lawyer on the Island who, on his retirement has written a book about Coastguard Stations, you’ll find that if we start … Coastguard Station you can recognised them through a certain type of building.
There’s one on Culver Cliff, there was one at Forelands, there’s another one down at Bembridge Point. The next one was on Seaview Dabber, just to the right side of where the tollgate used to be. Some at Ryde, Fishbourne, at the end of Fishbourne Creek, and also at East Cowes, if you go down on the front there’s a row of Coastguard houses there and the patrols used to run between there. And, if you go further there’s another set of houses over at Egypt Point at Cowes.
And, so they go on round the Island. You’ll find some in Yarmouth, you’ll also find at Totland Bay up on top of the cliff there and at Atherfield and Brook along the Military Road.
Then you come back down to Ventnor. And, I think, if I remember rightly, there was probably the old Station at Shanklin as well. But that’s going back to the, you know, 1920s/30s.