Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2008 | Page 28

life

INTERVIEW

Lifeboatman
John Cook

Joys and triumphs, tragedies and sorrows, are inevitably part
of a Lifeboatman’s memories. For John Cook, retired second
coxswain of Yarmouth Lifeboat, his wall of photographs
represent all that and more.

John comes from family
traceable to the Island
from 1640. He grew up in
Yarmouth, attended Yarmouth
school and was apprenticed
to a Freshwater builder,
Downers. He joined Hayles
boatyard, under Harrold
Hayles, then coxswain of the
lifeboat, and later was to have
his own chandlers business
in Yarmouth. It is the sense
of belonging to a community
to which he attributes his
service to the lifeboat: “You
put something back,” he says,
simply.
Every crewman in one
particular photo from 1961
prompts a memory or a story.
It was the job of the engineer
(the only paid member of the
crew at that time) to keep
supplies of cigarettes, whisky
and rum on board to calm the
nerves of the rescued. The odd
nip was taken by the crew.
An example of the
state-of-the-art technology
were the cans of soup, which
heated up automatically
thanks to a phosphorus insert.
Another was a flare which
lit up a whole area for night
searching. “We didn’t have
radar. It was all a bit seat of
your pants.”
At 16 he became a crew

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By Roz Whistance
member, and eventually
went on to be bowman. On
rare occasions when the
engine failed, he and another
youngster were sent down
below to crank a handle to
prime the engine – seasickness
wasn’t unknown at such times.
Things had moved on by the
time of John’s next boat, the
Earl and Countess Howe. It
was the first small boat to be
fitted with radar – though it
was the electric frying pan that
John remembers with greater
affection.
Back to his photographs
and a dramatic image of a
wave tower being bashed
by wild seas. One day in
October 5th, 1976, John, then
second-coxswain, had to get
a scratch crew together in
the absence of his coxswain
to rescue a boat called
Snowgoose, being driven into
the tower’s base at Barton
near Christchurch. “It was
very rough and not having all
the navigational aids there are
today, we needed a helicopter
to guide us to the distressed
boat.”
But as the boat was being
driven into shore at Barton,
the lifeboat itself was in
jeopardy. John knew he had

to take a chance: “On the rise
of the wave two of
my fellows jumped
up on his cockpit,
grabbed him and
pulled him onboard.
I bore away quickly,
and just had time
to yell “hang on!”
to the crew before
an enormous wave
came over us.”
The crew survived
but as they
pulled away they
saw the sailor’s boat being
smashed to bits on the shore.
The man, who had been on a
round-the-world trip, had not
a stitch to his name, and John
lent him a tenner. “I never got
it back!” he smiles.
Further round on John’s wall
of memories is an upturned
boat beaten by the surf.
This was the inshore rescue
boat. “It was one of the first

all-rubber boats. We’d had
a call to say a chap had

fall en from
the cliff at Scratchel’s Bay.
We knew he was likely to be
seriously injured so my brother
Chris and I stopped to pick up
Dr Harrison Broadbent on the
way.
“The swell that day was huge
and as the boat went into
the bay it got picked up and
turned over. The doctor was
thrown onto the beach, but my

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