Memorial speech: Tommy Cocking
Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests.
It’s an honour to be speaking to you here today, on behalf of those at the sharp end of the
RNLI’s lifeboat and lifeguard service. I have to tell you, I’m not normally one for public
speaking. But this really is a proud moment for me. There are over 5,000 RNLI lifeboat crew
members and lifeguards ready to save lives around the coast. So, to be asked to represent
them, is a real honour.
I’ve been involved with the RNLI for 37 years, and I’ve seen most things involving rescue at sea.
From children swept away on inflatables, to 11 thousand-tonne freighters being washed under a
300ft cliff, in a force 12 – and most things in between.
I’ve been aboard all sorts of different lifeboats, in all sorts of conditions, but it all comes down to
the same thing: you’re trying to rescue someone else at sea. And I think this sculpture sums
that up very well – one person pulling another from the water.
But what the sculpture can’t show is all the people behind the crew member, giving him a
helping hand. If you tried to show all of them, I think there’d be a steel shortage.
I’m talking about the RNLI’s supporters and fundraisers – people of all ages, all over the UK and
Ireland, who give what time and money they can. And they do this so we can have the best kit
and training. So I’d like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the lifeboat crews and lifeguards,
to thank all our supporters and fundraisers, and the RNLI’s staff too – because we couldn’t do it
without you.
Ladies and Gentlemen, like many of you here today, the names of my family members are
inscribed on this memorial – three, in fact. On the 23 of January 1939, the St Ives lifeboat was
launched to an unknown vessel in distress during a north westerly gale. She capsized three
times and only one person survived. Among the crew members was my great grandfather,
Thomas Cocking, and my two great uncles. The conditions they faced, in a very basic lifeboat,
must have been horrendous.
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The names on this memorial also include the crew of the Penlee lifeboat, lost in 1981. I knew
them all personally through the RNLI, and I fished with some of them too. That disaster brought
the whole of West Cornwall to a standstill. When lifeboat crew members are lost, communities,
as well as families, are devastated. And that’s one of the reasons why we are here today, to
commemorate all those lost, wherever they were from.
I know that every time I visit this memorial, it will bring me back to when I used to visit my aunt.
Above her fireplace, she had a picture of her husband, her brother and her father, who were all
lost in the St Ives disaster. And she used to look at it, with tears in her eyes and say:
‘There they are, boy. They were heroes’.
Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen – so are all of the people named on this memorial.
Thank you.
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