David Butler on Saving Lives at Sea

As I said before, the Coast Guard wasn’t massively well equipped so Coast Guard in their infinite wisdom, like the two radios and the two pagers, they had two lifejackets, so it was a case of … believe it or not, it was two pairs of wellington boots and two sou’westers in the early days so it was like first come first served or you got cold and wet.

Andy Butler: You had your own gear didn’t you?

You did, but not lifejackets. Lifejackets became a big issue in probably … there was a big Coast Guard incident where some Coast Guards, possibly even one might have even got drowned, I wouldn’t swear to that, I can’t remember the details, but there was a big incident and it might even have been … no, it wasn’t the ‘Marchioness’ incident, there was no Coast Guards there at that time.

Something happened and the Coast Guards didn’t have enough lifejackets and there was a furore in Government about it and so it was deemed that there should be a number of lifejackets on each Station, and that was increased to basically every team member had a lifejacket, but that’s only in more recent years. Probably in the last 12-14 years, something like that.