Part of the Acorn Archive

Hearts of Oak

 

 

Charles Lewis

 

Coastguard Service

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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