Jim Roberts on Saving Lives at Sea

At that time we’d have had a Station Officer who was our full-time Coastguard and he had two regular Coastguards that supported him.

Above him there would have been a District Officer but there was one District Officer for the Island and he looked after all the Island Stations and in those days, he used to reside in the Coastguard House out at Totland Bay.

Lisa: And, how many Coastguard Stations were there on the Island at that time?

At that time, there were, we’re talking about the mid-1960s here obviously, we had a full time …Coastguard Stations which had full time staff at Bembridge, Ventnor and the Needles. But in between those there was what they called Auxiliary Coastguard Stations at Sandown, Blackgang, Abbeyfield, Brook and a place called Cliff End which is between Totland and Yarmouth.

And they were all run under the … by the District Controller and the whole country was broken up into Districts which all had very similar setups