STRANGE WEDDING DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21774, 13 October 1932, Page 7

STRANGE WEDDING DAY

RESCUING STRICKEN CREW LIFEBOAT HERO’S ROMANCE. Holiday-makers at Deal, England, 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 spoilt 80 of his 94 years at sea, and brought Deal’s first lifeboat, the Van Kook, from the Blackwall pier 67 yean 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 full-rigged sailing ship from Cromer and her crew of 30 from the Goodwins. “ Three days later,” said Mr Roberts, “ I was married, and the £56 salvage money was really useful. But I had hardly arrived at my new home w r ith my bride when during a sudden gale the lifeboat was called out again, and we did not return till the following day. But we saved a crew, and that was all I worried about.”Rescue after rescue—sometimes three ships perished in one day on the deadly Goodwills—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 sea in separate ships. A Deal man in his boat told him who I was, and bo sent his thanks across to me.”