IN the corner of a small cemetery in Hinderwell, on the North Yorkshire coast, stands an overgrown and weather-worn headstone.

The only feature that marks it out from the rows of graves is a picture of a lifeboat etched on to the stone.

But this modest and forgotten-looking slab marks the final chapter in the story of lifeboatman Robert Patton, who became a national hero when he gave his life in a rescue mission in the stormy waters of the North Sea.

It is 68 years since that remarkable day, but the memory of his selfless sacrifice lives on, and will be retold in a BBC programme tonight.

The story centres around the single act of bravery of Patton, the coxswain of the Runswick Bay lifeboat.

Patton and his team had been called out to rescue the survivors of the doomed salvage ship, the Disperser, which had run into trouble in a storm and was slowly disappearing below the waves.

When they reached the stricken vessel the lifeboat crew spotted a helpless seaman who was desperately clinging to the side of the sinking ship.

As the storm intensified there seemed little the lifeboat crew could do to rescue the man - who it later turned out was physically disabled and unable to save himself - as there was precious little time before the Disperser finally vanished under the water.

After endless attempts to persuade the stricken man to jump to safety, Patton dived overboard and grabbed the disabled crewman before he wend under.

Despite calls by his fellow lifeboatmen to let go of the survivor before they both perished, Patton refused and held the man above water long enough to get him safely on board the lifeboat.

But as he helped to lift the man to safety Patton was crushed between the hulls of the Disperser and the Runswick Bay lifeboat.

His injuries proved to be fatal and he died two days later, after telling RNLI officials: "I couldn't let the little fellow go - he would have drowned."

Patton was posthumously awarded the RNLI Gold Medal - the lifeboat service equivalent of the Victoria Cross - and the lifeboat was renamed after him. More than 4,000 people attended his funeral and a song was written about his bravery.

Clem James, who was 13 at the time, remembers the sense of shock that hit the village in the aftermath of the tragedy.

He said: "He was an absolutely acknowledged leader, both as a lifeboat man and as a fisherman. One of his men said to my father, 'we're like a ship without a rudder without Bob'."

But the spark which inspired television producers to make the programme was the discovery of the Disperser by two North-East divers.

Andrew Jackson and Carl Racey, from Scarborough, were so moved by the story of the rescue that they decided to find the wreck and try to discover more about the events that took place on that fateful day.

After three years and countless searches using sonar, the pair finally located the ship in a 100ft of water off the Whitby coast.

The pair even recovered diving equipment abandoned by its crew as she slipped beneath the waves.

Mr Jackson, who is a Yorkshire Water official, said: "There were six possible shipwrecks on the sea bed of the right size that could be the Dispenser. The story really does pull you in, the more you know about it, the more interest there is."

The story of Robert Patton will be told tonight in Inside Out, on BBC1 (North Yorkshire), at 7.30pm.