QUEER WEDDING DAY

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1932, Page 1

QUEER WEDDING DAY

LIFE BOAT HERO’S ROMANCE RESCUES STRICKEN CREW. Holiday-makers at Deal, Epgland, often wonder who. is the grand old man they see on the beach'every day. He is Dick Roberts the oldest living servant of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who has spent 80 of his 94 years at sea, and brought Deal’s 'first lifeboat, tbe Van Kook, from the Blackwall Pier 67 years ago. Official records prove that Mr Roberts has helped to save 487 lives. The Van Kook's first service was on February 7, 1866, when she salved a fullrigged sailing ship from Cromer and her crew of thirty from the Goodwins.

“Three days later,” said Mr Robert“l Was married, and the £56 salvage ■money was really useful. Bui I had hardly arrived at my new home with by bride when during a sudcle.ru gale the lifeboat was called out again, .and we did not return till the folowing day. But we saved the crew, and that was all I worried about.” 1 Rescue after rescue—sometimes trliee ships perished in one day on the deadly Goodwins—kept Mr .Roberts and his colleagues busy. “One man we saved was not able to thank me until two years later, and then we were at spa in separate ships. A Deal man’ in his boat told him who I was, and he sent his thanks across to me.”