Service marks loss of Longhope lifeboat
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A Caithness RNLI crew were among the many people who gathered in Orkney on Friday for an emotional event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the loss of the Longhope lifeboat.
As the wind whipped up white horses on the Pentland Firth, relatives of the eight men who lost their lives were joined by friends, community representatives and their modern peers.
“It was a very sad day for everyone involved especially RNLI personnel but it was also great to see all the different lifeboat crews along with the other services coming together to remember and show respect to the lost crew,” a member of the Caithness team, who did not want to be named, said.
“I found it a very humbling experience and very emotional especially when John Budge, the Longhope lifeboat operations manager, summed up the whole event in a speech that brought a lump to my throat.”
On March 17, 1969, the TGB lifeboat set off in near-zero visibility from the tiny community of Brims on the Orkney island of Hoy.
Its mission was to help the Liberian cargo ship Irene, which was adrift in a fierce storm.
The wooden 14m TGB, however, was never to reach its destination. It was found at 1.40pm the following day by the Thurso lifeboat having been overturned by a freak wave, possibly 30.5m high.
The bodies of all but one of the crew were still inside the hull – the coxswain still at the helm.
Friday’s commemorations started at 11.30am when RNLI lifeboats from Longhope, Thurso, Stromness and Wick formed in front of the Longhope Lifeboat Museum.
There, a flare was fired and a wreath was laid by the crew of the Longhope. Following the wreath-laying, a two-minute silence was held by those assembled in the museum and those aboard the lifeboats, with a second flare signalling its end.
The day’s events had been organised by many of those directly affected by the tragedy and were led by Kevin Kirkpatrick, current RNLI Longhope coxswain, who lost his father, grandfather and uncle on the night of the disaster.
The crew all lived in Brims, and not a single house was unaffected. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, friends and neighbours were lost, leaving around half the community’s workforce gone.
Local doctor Iain Cromarty opened the commemoration and introduced Brian Miles (inspector of lifeboats for Scotland in 1969) who read from a poem.
“When you think of the conditions that evening the TGB was not capsized in the traditional sense but was overwhelmed by maelstrom like conditions,” he stressed.
“The loss of TGB captured the hearts of the whole RNLI family.”
He singled out the current Longhope coxswain.
“Kevin, your father and grandfather would be so proud that you are coxswain of a station that meant so much to them,” he said
The chair of the RNLI’s Scottish Council, Rear Admiral Roger Lockwood CB, thanked all lifeboat crew for what they do, along with their families.
“As we heard, 50 years ago it was the widows and families who insisted that the lifeboat continue in this community,” he said.
Those assembled were also addressed by George Watkins from the Gloucestershire village which shares the same name as the lifeboat.
Following the disaster, the village did a lot to raise funds for and support the bereaved families.
Mr Watkins said he remembered bringing his family to meet some of those supported for the first time in 1983 and feeling the full impact of the community’s loss.
To close the first part of the commemoration, the local choir sang A Thousand Miles Apart, a song that links the crews and families of those in Longhope with the village of Mousehole in Cornwall, from where the lifeboat Solomon Browne was launched on December 19, 1981, to aid a stricken vessel, never to return.
Kirkwall Grammar School teacher Kathleen Houghton also read a poem dedicated to the lost crew.
The lifeboats then departed in order to collect at Kirk Hope and dip their flags in respect to the memorial and graves of the lost crew.
An hour later, RNLI crews from five stations, Longhope, Stromness, Wick, Thurso and Kirkwall, formed a guard of honour, in their yellows as the community came together in the yard above Kirk Hope.
As the clouds gathered, prayers were said and wreaths laid.
To finish the day’s events, everyone collected in the Longhope village hall for further speeches and a performance by the community’s children of three songs, Heroes of Longhope, Orkney and Rose of St Magnus.
Paul Daly, area lifesaving manager in Scotland west and a previous divisional inspector for Longhope Lifeboat Station, then articulated the definition of what it means to be part of an RNLI lifeboat crew, and the legacy which Longhope’s crew carry on.
“The legacy of the Longhope Lifeboat Station will be the enduring willingness by the crew to turn out on a dark night, going forth, sometimes with sketchy information, to pluck someone from disaster,” he said.
The Caithness crew member said that when they set off for Friday’s event they all knew it was going to be a difficult day.
“But am very proud to be part of the crews that were able to be there to be part of the ceremony and show respect for the lost crew,” he added.
Labour MSP Rhoda Grant, meanwhile, stressed that the tragedy brings home the sacrifice made by those who provide voluntary emergency services.
“To lose one family member is tragic, to lose generations is unimaginable,” she said.
