ATHOROUGHLY enjoyable romp, with plenty of pictures, through 157 years of lifeboat history and dramatic rescues on the North Yorkshire coast.

You would expect all of the rescuing to have been done by whiskery old seadogs, but on April 12, 1901, Runswick Bay’s lifeboat was launched by the village’s women.

All the fit men were out fishing when a gale suddenly blew up and the fleet required escorting home. The old men, too doddery to be sent to sea on a regular basis, agreed to roll back the years and man the lifeboat, and 20 women hauled the three-ton boat out beyond the foaming breakers.

“Nor did they leave the beach until every man had been brought ashore hours later, and then, drenched to the skin, they marched proudly home on their husbands’ arms to their redtiled cottages on the cliff,”

said one newspaper report.

For such heroism, the women of Runswick Bay were hailed across the land as latter day Grace Darlings.