The Best...

Twenty-five years ago this winter month the eight-man crew of the Penlee lifeboat in Mousehole responded to a ship in distress, on a night when hurricane force seas were battering the coast of Cornwall. So bad were the conditions that the Coxswain that night refused to allow more than one member of any family, among all the men who turned out for the call, to come with him.

Four men were plucked from the the doomed ship, but then in mid-transmission the lifeboat's radio went silent. No one knows to this day for certain what happened. Parts of the wrecked lifeboat were eventually found as were some of the drowned missing crew of both the ship and the lifeboat. In all sixteen lives were lost and there were no survivors.

The courage and the selflessness of the men of the Solomon Browne, volunteers all, is testimony to the best that mankind can be. But not just then, now the son of one of the men who died that night - the son having to be turned away because his father had been chosen to go - is Coxswain of the current Penlee lifeboat.

Could any greater sign of human love be found? I doubt it could.

For those in peril on the sea we pray tonight.