Photo courtesy of Cllr Phil Edwards 
Sara and I spent yesterday afternoon with members of the Colwyn Bay branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who were carrying out a charity collection in Rhos on Sea.Highlight of the visit was a trip on the Rhyl lifeboat, the Lil Cunningham, whose crew put the Mersey class boat through its paces, including two rescue exercises.
I had a long chat with the crew members, who are all volunteers and on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They told me that the Rhyl boat, whose operational area stretches from Llanddulas to the Dee estuary, had been launched in response to distress calls more than 60 times over the last year. The boat is about 15 years old and is due to be refitted in a few months, which will see it through to the end of its operational life. It will then have to be replaced; the present cost of an equivalent boat is about £2.5 million.
These men deserve everyone’s respect. It is one thing to go for a trip around Colwyn Bay on an afternoon in August when the sea is like a millpond; it must be wholly different to launch into a howling gale in the middle of a December night; I certainly wouldn't wish to do it. The lifeboats are a prime example of a voluntary organisation carrying out a vital public service with superlative efficiency. We simply couldn't do without them.
The RNLI receives not a penny from the government; its entire operating budget is provided by public subscription. I asked one of the crewmen if he felt that the taxpayer should be giving at least some support to the Institution; without a shred of irony he replied, “No way. The last thing we want is the government sticking its oar in."
