Memorial looks back at lifeboat tragedy 70 years on

A memorial service is being held on Sunday to remember three lifeboatmen who died in a storm 70 years ago.

Jack Cammish, Jack Sheader and Francis Bayes died when they fell overboard while escorting fishing vessels to Scarborough's South Bay on 8 December, 1954.

Fisherman Fred Normandale, 76, who was a boy when the tragedy occurred, said he remembered his parents discussing the event in whispers.

He said: "It was devastating. My dad joined the lifeboat service immediately after, took the place of one of the ones who was lost and he said it nearly happened again."

The lifeboat – a self-righting prototype – was called out to help after wind and frost caused a number of trawlers and cobles to get into trouble.

Mr Normandale explained: "It's very distinctive in everyone's memory. It was a really hard frost, a really white frost and there wasn't a breath of wind.

"There were quite a few cobles out at sea and the wind was freshening so the lifeboat went for the other cobles one at a time.

"And it got them all in but one – the Rose Mary.

"The lifeboat crew turned around and went back again and as they got down the back of Marine Drive word came through that the Rose Mary was in Whitby.

"So they turned around and came back but there was such a big sea run in at that point and the lifeboat kept running and running until it broached and tipped over.

"Five of them had gone overboard. They got two of them back on but there was three men lost; Jack Cammish, Jack Sheader and Francis Bayes."

Mr Normandale said the survivors who had been pulled from the water, Ernie Eaves, Bob Crawford and Micky Scales, told stories of the tragedy and he remembered listening to them as a child.

He said: "There was always conversations and two of the survivors were in the warehouse baiting lines and they would talk to the women about it – and if you're a little boy and you sit and don't say nowt you can hear anything."

One of the tales he remembers was how local car owners helped rescuers find the dead men's bodies.

He said: "Because it was dark early, people who had cars lined up on the seafront and shone the headlights out into the sea hoping to be able to find people. And there weren't many cars about then."

Cammish and Sheader both had around 40 years of lifeboat service, but the younger man, Francis Bayes, had only gone out with the crew because his father, Old Frank, was ill that day. He was engaged to a woman he had met during the war in Scarborough, when she had been serving with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

The survivors gave their accounts of the incident to a Scarborough Evening News reporter shortly after being rescued, with one of them still "shivering with cold".

The memorial service is being held at St Mary's Church and will feature Filey Fishermen's Choir and a talk by Scarborough Lifeboat Station chairman Colin Woodhead.

Mr Normandale said it was "essential" that the tragedy was remembered.

He said: "It's almost gone from living memory. There's few older than me who remember it. In the next 20 years it will only be history."

Founded in 1801, Scarborough is one of the oldest stations still in operation. Today it is run by the RNLI which operates two lifeboats from the station on the West Pier.

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