Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Charles Lewis
Coastguard Service
Written
in 1945
The Lion’s Mouth
My first Station was Tol Pedn
Penwith, three miles [West] from Land’s End.
There I had the pleasure of
assisting at the rescue of 27 lives from
SS WIMBORNE of Cardiff, which
was wrecked near Tol Pedn, November 1910, during a heavy gale. The whole of the
crew were rescued by means of the Rocket Apparatus, worked by the Coastguards
and their assistants, a very credible performance. Like most of these
occurrences, it happened during the night.
Luckily for the crew, the
Coastguard on Watch happened to spot her – she had not a light of any
description showing, neither did she send up a rocket or burn a flare. the
coastguard thought she was too close in shore to be comfortable, and so called
out the Lifeboat and Rocket Apparatus; it was too rough for the Lifeboat to
launch. The timing was perfect, just as the ship struck the rocks, the Rocket
apparatus arrived; we had to take the gear from the waggon and carry it about
100 yards down the cliff, to get a place to fire from.
It was blowing a gale, on
shore wind; we had a job to get down the face of the cliff, as the wind tried
its hardest to blow us up again; in addition to being dark, it rained with intermittent
hail squalls. the first shot fired went right across the steamer’s bows, where
the crew were huddled together.
As she was on the point of
breaking up, I made a signal to her to put two men in at a time, in the
Breeches Buoy – a very unusual procedure, which was done in a very short time.
In fact, before most of the villagers were aware of a wreck being so close to
them, the whole of the crew were safely landed and on their way to the
Coastguard Station, where they were supplied with something hot and dry
clothing.
Afterwards the Shipwreck
Mariners Society took charge of them.
We had several narrow squeaks
during the night, my narrowest one was when I was standing on the edge of the cliff,
assisting the men out of the Breeches Buoy, to a place of safety – all went
well until the arrival of two Negroes; I got one out all right, but the other
being scared stiff was in too much of a hurry, before I knew what had happened,
he grabbed me, yelling “Me glad! Me glad!”, knocking me off my balance, and
before we knew where we were, we were both over the cliff; Fortunately for me,
I managed to grab hold of the Breeches Buoy, and clung to it like grim death;
The poor old Negro clung round my neck so tightly that he nearly strangled me;
the men attending the ropes saw what had happened and quickly pulled us in
again. They had a job to get him to leave go of me, poor man.
Whilst on Watch at Tol Pedn, a
lad ran up to the Lookout and reported his friend had fallen over the cliff.
The lad, a visitor, age about 20 had fallen altogether 150 feet; it appears he
two of them had gone for a walk along the cliffs, when one of them took it into
his head to run down to the edge of the cliff. The cliff tops at that point are
a 100 foot steep slope of grass, and the rest of the cliff is a perpendicular
drop of 50 feet. As he gained speed he could not stop himself, and so over he
went. I went down the cliffs to look for him. The bottom of the cliff was all
jagged where I found him. He was covered in blood from head to foot. I thought
he was dead. The men at the top of the cliff sent down some ropes and a hand
bearer (which we use to carry our cliff ladder on). I managed to roll him over
on to the bearer and with the ropes, I lashed him to it, then I made fast a
rope to each handle, making a sort of sling; I attached a rope to the
underneath part, so I could keep him clear of he rocks and overhanging cliffs
while the men on top pulled him up; by that time the Doctor had arrived (we had
telephoned for him); He said “he is alive, but oh wasn’t he cut about”, strange
to relate he hadn’t broken a bone; He had a gash over his eye big enough to put
one’s finger in, the gash at the back of his head made one feel ill to look at
it; His clothes were torn in rags. But, the chap we thought was dead or
impossible to recover, was walking about a fortnight after. The doctor wrote to
the Lancet about the case, as he had never in all his experience seen such a
remarkable recovery. The lad’s father, an Artist, was delighted with the
Coastguards that he gave me a beautiful painting he had done of a scene on the
River Avon at Stratford.
Another time we had a large
four masted barque come in Porthcurno Bay near our place, it was blowing an on
shore gale, with heavy rain, naturally it was pitch dark. Her anchors weren’t
holding, she was gradually drifting towards the shore. About 7pm, the Officer
in Charge sent me along the cliffs and try and locate her, which I did, finding
her sending up rockets. Instaed of tramping three miles along the cliffs to
report at my Station, I went up to Eastern Telegraph Company’s Office and wired
for the Rocket Apparatus and the Lifeboat; and then I wired to my Officer,
telling him what I had done, then went back to where the vessel was drifting,
and awaited the arrival of the two Rocket Apparatus Brigades, which arroved
soon after; Standing by the ship, the whole night, trying to fire a rocket
across her, we fired 20 rockets without success; she was too far out for the
line to reach. It rained continuously the whole night; the water ran out of our
clothes. Fortunately in the morning the wind veered right around and dropped,
blowing off from the land, the sea went down enabling a tug to tow her away to
safety.
That is typical of the work
done by all the Coastguard Stations, with the exception of the time I spent at
the Admiralty, where the only wrecks I saw were of the human type.”
Charles
Lewis did not get a chance to complete his memories,
as
he died soon after writing this.
[As a footnote to the
Porthcurno incident,
Charles Lewis writes on
another sheet …]
To let you know how mean
Government departments can be when they are a mind to. My Officer applied to
the Board of Trade for the return of the money I had spent on telegrams on
behalf of their Service. The reply he received was that he money could not be
allowed; “Lewis should have returned to his Station and telephoned from there”;
so I had to pay for the telegrams out of my own pocket; So, I lost money, got
wet through, caught a beastly cold and went without my food in the bargain.
The life of a Coastguard
involves risking one’s life, going down the cliffs, rescuing visitors who get
stranded, and rescuing visitors from drowning; that has to be done in one’s own
time as well, on duty or off-duty.
WIMBORNE
Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co
Built 1898 by Richardson, Duck
& Co
3,466 tons; 339ft x 46ft x 24.6ft;
281 nhp; triple-expansion engines.
7th November 1910 Wrecked
at Tolpedn, Cornwall.
On voyage in ballast from Rotterdam
to Barry.
Raymond Forward