Falling in love for the first time
I fell in love when I was 7. It was 1985, I was on holiday on the Yorkshire coast. I saw someone on the beach at Flamborough and at that moment I knew something in me changed.
But this wasn’t just a quick holiday romance, this wasn’t even a young boy with a first crush. This was falling in love that is still as strong today, nearly 40 years later, as it was back then.
I fell in love with the RNLI.
I watched the lifeboat being launched down the steep slipway and across the beach (it was the Oakley class, Will and Fanny Kirby for the RNLI enthusiasts). As it punched through the waves out of North Landing, I turned to my mother and said “I want to do that. One day I will”, she smiled and bought me a t-shirt from the lifeboat station shop. I wore it everyday, bursting pride, until it fell apart.
Spool forward to 2004 and I found myself in Kessock lifeboat station pulling on a black and yellow drysuit, bright red lifejacket and a white helmet for the first time. My love hadn’t died. For the next 14 years I lived like so many other volunteers around the UK and Ireland with a pager never more than arm’s reach away from me. Ready to drop everything and run when the call came, no matter what time of day or night, wind or rain, sleet or sunshine. No matter what the occasion, when the pager goes off RNLI volunteers turn and run to the Lifeboat station, for me, there were many times I left work, family, friends. The night before my wedding I spent sitting on the lifeboat searching the Beauly Firth for a missing person. It was a beautifully still and clear night, the water calm, the sunrise around 3am was bright, warm and when everyone else on the boat remembered what day it was now we laughed together, Doug and Ricky got me back ashore as soon as they could. RNLI volunteers aren’t just your crewmates on board a lifeboat, they are your best friends, they understand you and you understand them. The bond is unbreakable. You have their back. They have yours.
Dan during his time as an RNLI volunteer
The RNLI has an incredible story, yet so much of it goes untold. Most of the praise lands on the shoulders of lifeguards and lifeboat volunteers, but there are literally thousands upon thousands more volunteers who are unsung. Each has their story to tell about their connection to the RNLI and why they support it.
As an audio producer, a storyteller, I am trusted by so many people with their story. Giving me their words to craft them and publish them. It is an enormous privilege to have that trust bestowed upon me.
During my time as RNLI volunteer and Lifeboat station Press Officer, as well as all the rescue stories, I tried hard to tell some of those unsung stories as much as possible. These were the people who had raised the money for my lifejacket, my drysuit, my helmet, for the lifeboat I helmed. Without them and our shore crew we couldn’t launch.
But I have always had an itch that there was a bigger story to tell. Saving Lives at Sea became a huge hit on the BBC – how many other fly on the wall docs get 7 series? I pushed at as many doors as I could over the years, but to no luck.
Chancing my luck one more time (but now as a co-Director of Adventurous Audio) I sent an email to a friend of a friend in the RNLI saying something along the lines of I know the bicentenary is coming up in few years, wouldn’t it be great if we told that story or did a big push for a new podcast, by the way I’m a former volunteer and run a podcast production company. Fancy a chat?
Within a few days Pennie and I were in a Teams call with the RNLI when they said they had been mulling over an idea for a Bicentenary audio project. My ears were pricked. I tried to hide my excitement. “We wondered what you might think of this as an idea – 200 Voices, one for each year telling their how the RNLI has changed or affected their life?”. The 7 year old boy in me was speechless. We had to be involved.
This was ambitious, 200 episodes to run daily. It was brilliant. The organised side of my brain immediately started thinking about the runaway train we’d be jumping once you pass the first publication day. The storytelling part of my brain was bursting with excitement.
Just after recovering the lifeboat following a shout
So here we are, just about to launch episode 1 of 200 and I wanted to reflect on some of the amazing people we’ve spoken to. The RNLI tagline of ordinary people doing extraordinary things never rang more true. 200 Voices is packed with stories of empathy, of humility, of simple care from one human being to another. It is heart warming to hear and reminds you of why the RNLI is so special. It is the people, the volunteers who make it what it is. And each one has a voice. There are of course the stories of casualties rescued who still have a voice because of the RNLI, and they have children and grandchildren who are alive today because they were rescued. You cannot not be moved by some of these people and their stories.
When the 200th episode goes out on 4th March 2024, the day of the RNLI Bicentenary, I’ll think of the shouts I launched on, of the people we were able to save and remember those we couldn’t. I will think back to that 7 year old boy on the beach at Flamborough and I’ll give him a smile. But most of all I will remember the privilege that storytelling is when people invest their trust in you and give you their voice.
Click here to listen, follow and subscribe to RNLI 200 Voices, produced by Adventurous Audio for the RNLI.
Dan Holland August ‘23