I was on retreat near Penzance before my ordination. Shell cottage stands on a cliff looking out to
sea. It is very beautiful as well as very terrible.
On my first morning there I watched a woman from the small cottages near by go down to the waters edge. She was in her nightgown and she carried a cup of tea. She stayed there for at least ten minutes just staring out to sea as the rollers broke onto the tiny beach.
I was there for five days and this was repeated daily. I asked about it feeling very worried about the woman and this is what her neighbours told me.
She had lost her husband and her son on the same day. They never came back. She knows this and yet something prompts her to go and wait as she had done many times before after a shout. I have no idea whether she still does it...but it touched me deeply and I have prayed for her, both then and since.
The lifeboat Solomon Browne went down on this day several years ago. Sixteen people died on that day and I always remember all those concerned.
This is the true cost of the Lifeboat service in the form of the R.N.L.I.
1 comment:
I remember the Solomon Browne very well. I was home in Penzance from my first term at university. It was a wild night even by Wet Cornwall standards and then there was an eery calm and clear skies the next morning with the constant drone of circling helicopters overhead looking for bodies. May they rest on peace
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