Time in the RNLI
Interviewer: We have to get around to the RNLI because, apart from what you did in business, you and your brother Peter were part of the original RNLI …what they call ‘D Class Lifeboat Crew’.
Jack Rowe: I was Senior Helmsman on the original launch when the rubber boat first came here.
Interviewer: That was 1967, is that correct?
Jack Rowe: 1967 or 68.
Interviewer: 1967 from the records that I’ve got. You served on the Lifeboat for how many years?
Jack Rowe: Until I was 45. We had such a terrible trip, Michael Scott who was alive then, we both retired when we came in from the trip.
Interviewer: What was involved with that shout, Jack?
Jack Rowe: Fishing boat off Boscastle. It was 10 miles north from here, and the wind that day was quite strong from the north. Hellish trip. Dugald Sproull took the tiller and we hammered all the way up there and it was all over by the time we got there. By the time we got there Michael Scott and I weren’t worth a tuppenny damn. The next day you’d think I’d been in a fight with Cassius Clay or something! So we retired on the spot virtually.