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THERE are certain events that make us realise how life changes with the passing years.

Last Tuesday was such an occasion, when three things quietly brought home the need to face the modern world.

The first event occurred on Tuesday morning when a charming young lady, Emma, led me into her back room and after requesting I make myself comfortable, dimmed the lights ... before shining her tiny torch into my eyes.

Okay, it was only my annual eyesight test and thankfully there was no great change, just stronger reading glasses required, but I felt quietly relieved walking back to the car.

That same afternoon it was back to the dentist to check how the lower gums were healing after the extractions. Seems everything is on the mend but while the removal job had been painful, the second examination was even more so ... double ouch. What a baby I must be!

I shuddered even more when the dentist-man suggested attending Torbay Hospital to have some bone in the lower jaw removed. No thanks mister, it’s Mother Nature or nothing.

But then, just as depression was about to rule the day, a letter arrived from an old friend in Jersey. He’d read an article in his local newspaper regarding the shipwreck of a Dutch coaster back in September 1961 and it brought home some maritime memories.

One Saturday in September1961, we’d sailed from St Helier at the same time as the Dutch ship Heron. Both ships were on a three-month charter, transporting tomatoes to Portsmouth and just outside the breakwater, as our harbour pilot disembarked, his parting words were: “The Dutchman won’t be racing tonight, Robert. It’s his last trip.”

Sadly, that turned out to be so true. Just over an hour later, just north of the island, after frantically trying to signal the Heron she was steering a dangerous course, we watched the Dutch vessel plough, at full speed, into the Paternosters Reef.

We had already turned back before hearing his Mayday call and began searching, in the fading light, the two-mile unmarked reef for possible survivors. With the luck of the gods and my able crew, during the next two hours, manoeuvring among the unmarked dangerous rocks in near darkness, we managed to recover six of the Heron’s crew and when the Jersey lifeboat arrived, passed them safely over before resuming our passage to Portsmouth.

It was one of the worst nights of my life at sea.

Such moments live forever in the brain and I still wake some nights hearing my chief engineer’s voice, who was keeping look-out on the bow, yelling “Breakers ahead, Capt” Memories!

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With troubled waters and shipwrecks still bubbling in my salt water brain, it was interesting to read about the coxswain of Torbay Lifeboat, Mark Criddle, being awarded an OBE. Mark will be the first to admit his working life is certainly not a ‘one man band’ and without the support of a dedicated crew, together with the people ashore organising operations, the RNLI would not be the great success it has been over the past years.

As a seafaring nation we sometimes take the Lifeboat Service for granted but given some quiet thought its success is mostly down to the dedication of volunteers who bravely rush to help those in peril on the sea. It certainly warms these aging bones when those in authority acknowledge the bravery of dedicated volunteers connected with the RNLI organisation. Congratulations Mark and everyone connected to the service. Torbay is truly proud of every one of you.

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During the past couple of years many folk have become convinced that the political confusion concerning the UK’s association with Europe has taken over our lives to the extent that almost every Parliamentary debate seems to be connected with the B-word.

Most residents accept the basic fault lies with past political leaders who, for whatever reasons, were determined to unite us with Europe and form a European state.

While we might acknowledge being friendly or doing business with other European countries, we won’t accept being ruled and governed by people who might never have stepped foot on our shores.

We are proud to be British and when things don’t go right in the political field we need to complain to Parliament, not Paris, Berlin, or Amsterdam. Enough Robert, or you’ll

have angry Frenchmen knocking at the door!