Lifeboat at the End of the World : A Volunteer’s Story
Colin’s Review
Dominic Gregory is a volunteer crew member at RNLI Dungeness. Lifeboat at the End of the World is
the story of how he develops as a crew member: from shore crew, helping to launch and rehouse
the boat, to helm, responsible for steering the boat to the casualty. It is also the story of what it’s
like to live at Dungeness, a windswept flat expanse of shingle on Kent’s Channel coast.
Gregory’s prose reminded me of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea: simple, but thoughtfully
written. Initially, I scribbled a note, “Over-written?” after reading “Here is a place where minutes
pass in years.” However, having now read the whole book, I realise I was wrong. It isn’t over-written,
but the reader needs to slow down and adjust to the book’s tempo. The descriptions of what it’s like
to be a volunteer lifeboatman are interspersed with observations about Nature: the way the shingle
constantly moves, gently changing the shape of the promontory a tiny amount every day;
hummingbird moths sipping from valerian flowers. The book is calm, just like the lifeboat’s coxswain,
Stuart Adams, when giving orders to the crew. Some reviewers have disliked the way the book
alternates the descriptions of being on service with reflections upon Nature, history and artists, but I
liked that contrast.
Since Dungeness is one of the points where the Channel is narrowest, it is inevitable that part of the
book describes the lifeboat being launched to look for dinghies overloaded with immigrants. I
wonder: we can criticise successive Government policies that have made Britain such an attractive
place for migrants, but we cannot fault the migrants’ logic for wanting to come here. They are at
least trying to make a better life for their families. The lifeboat crew are abused by angry Britons
because they try to save the lives of migrants who are behaving logically. Yet, when lifeboat crews
launch to rescue swimmers, surfboarders and kayakers who deliberately go out into obviously
dangerous seas all around the British Isles, the crew are praised for risking their lives to save people
who could be charitably described as illogical or, less charitably, self-centred and stupid. Nobody in
the RNLI ever passes judgement upon those they rescue – they’re there for everyone. Gregory
quotes a spokesman as saying, simply, “People rescue people.”
This is a good book. Although the prose is calm, there are descriptions of wild situations where the
lifeboat goes out to a trawler in a Force 10 with waves several metres high. Remember, these are
volunteers who simply get a few quid petrol money when called out on a shout and nothing at all for
volunteering several hours of their time every week for training. I couldn’t do it – but I’m glad
Dominic Gregory has; and told us what it’s like.
Order here https://tinyurl.com/yc4wewu8