A little piece of Ireland on the south coast of England
Alison Alderton is delighted to find a Shannon class lifeboat at Selsey Bill.
A WINTER visit to relatives found me heading to the south coast of England and my family home.
While there I thought a visit to the local lifeboat station, standing on the southernmost tip of Selsey Bill, was long overdue. It had been many years since I had pulled on my hiking boots to help them raise funds through sponsored walks and much, so I had been told, had changed.
As a child, I remember the lifeboat station standing out on a limb on a rickety wooden walkway some distance from the shore. The annual Bird Man Rally in which brave, or perhaps slightly mad, souls would fling themselves from the lifeboat platform and attempt to fly across the sea was a major crowd and tourist pleasing attraction.
In fact, it was also from Selsey where I first ventured out in a boat. It was short lived; at just a few months old I can still vividly remember being afraid and clinging to my mother as the open ‘Regis’ fishing boat fought with the crashing surf – I’m surprised that wasn’t enough to put me off boating for life!
That former lifeboat station is long gone and RNLI Selsey is now housed in a modern building, opened in 2017, from where their Shannon class lifeboat, Denise and Eric, can be accessed along with its tractor launching unit. To find a little piece of Ireland on my doorstep, albeit in name alone, was a great delight to me. Adjacent to the main building is a garage used to house the smaller D class inflatable rescue craft used for inshore work and on occasion, inland flood rescue.
Selsey is located on the Manhood peninsula, south of the city of Chichester, and is well known for its fishing industry which contributes around £1.5 million per annum towards the local economy with Selsey crab and lobster being well-known as a local delicacy. The fishing boats are still hauled up around the new lifeboat station and their ramshackle huts share a car park with the RNLI.
Dave Fotheringham kindly showed both my husband and me around the new station. Dave is a volunteer boathouse attendant, a job he has done since 2004. One of the nicest features of the new lifeboat station is the circular stained glass window depicting the former station which, for so many, had become an iconic landmark on this coastline.
We were able to watch footage of the lifeboat being launched, the boat hauled effortlessly across the pebbles by its tractor unit to reach the sea and no sooner had its hull contacted the surf than it was speeding away. To say this is impressive is an understatement; knowing that these volunteers can be on their way to potentially save someone’s life in just a matter of minutes is truly astounding.
The waters around Selsey Bill can be treacherous; there are many shoals, the Owers Bank and Mixon rocks. Although my childhood was a little further east along the coast, as a youngster my parents always warned of the dangers in walking out to the winkle beds, only accessible at low tide but quickly isolated by incoming tides. Rescuing unwary tourists from some of these sandbanks can be a regular shout for RNLI Selsey.
Dave has written a book about the background of Selsey lifeboat station, one of a series produced by the RNLI to bring the history of their lifeboat stations alive and easily accessible to the masses and he kindly signed it for me.
I will treasure that copy and delight in having decided to revisit a favourite haunt of years gone by. I will not be leaving it so long until my next visit.