HELPED TO SAVE 211.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14326, 17 October 1910, Page 2

HELPED TO SAVE 211.

A VETERAN LIFEBOATMAN. STORIES 0.1-' RESCUES. After being connected with the Goodwin Sands lifeboat service for forty-tour years, during thirty ot lvhich lie has been cONSivain of the Kingsdown lifeboat, Mr James Laming is reiiring. In an interview with a "Daily Chronicle" representative this line old seaman gave some interesting details of his thrilling experiences. The largest number ot : rcsrited people brought a>horc at one time in jiis lifeboat was twenty-seven from a. wreck 011 the South Goodwins. :md tho actual number of lives ..saved by Laming and his crew has been I'll, iTis most severe experience, he said, was in 1!.'0I. when the boat was out i'or seventy hours at a stretch in a blinding snowstorm in attendance on a largo steamer which was wrecked near the South Sands Head. They wont out on lioxhig Day. and it was almost six times round tho clock before they got back again, tho weather all the time being intensely cold, with snow blizzards driving off the land, and 'making the work extremely difficult. Laming himself lias been shipwrecked. lie was master of a. lugger when bo was twenty-two years of age. and before 110 was married, forty-three, years ago, lie had built- at Kingsdown the house which has been his homo ever since. _ ITo is the father of eleven children, six dr,lighters and five sons, all of whom are alive, one daughter being the villages schoolmistress at Kingsdown.

"Flo is the proud possessor of the Lifeboat Institution's silver medal and two certificates. liotli being signed by the present TCinrr. who as "Prince of W'ales was presideiit of tho T/ifeboai; Institution. The Kingsdown lifeboat-, the Charles T-largreaves. is twenty years old, iMit _ with Mr Laming's fatherly care is in almost as good condition as now. All tho painting and repair of rigcim' has lipcm, carried out bv him norsona I ly during tlie twenty vcars. Afr Laming declares that, there lias been a. Wat movement of the Ooc.dwui Sands during tho fortv-four years lie has he o n eonneeted with the lifeboat Work there, and the sands nre ffrounnrr considerably in a southerly direction.