There are times when Britain is the most wonderful country in the world

From The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Page 177.

On the evening of 19 December 1981, a small cargo ship, the Union Star, on its maiden run from Holland to Ireland, got in trouble in heavy seas off the Cornish coast. It had been a wild day and by early evening the storm had turned into a Force 12 gale – the biggest in the area in some time. As well as its normal complement of five crew, the Union Star was carrying the captain’s wife and two teenage daughters so that the family could celebrate Christmas together in Ireland. In the worst possible conditions, the ship’s engines failed and it began to drift helplessly. When word of a mayday call was brought into the village pub in Mousehole, the station captain, Trevelyan Richards, chose seven men and they set off at once for the station. With great difficulty the Penlee lifeboat put to sea and found its way to the stricken ship, where it managed somehow to get alongside and to get four people off. That in itself was an extraordinary achievement. Waves were up to fifty feet high.

Captain Richards radioed that they were bringing the four rescued people to shore and then would go back for the others. That was the last message ever sent. The presumption is that in the next moment a wave dashed the boats together and both sank. Whatever happened, sixteen people lost their lives. The Penlee station was never used again, but has been left just as it was that night as a permanent memorial.

I had never really stopped to consider what an extraordinary thing the Royal National Lifeboat Institution is. Think about it. A troubled ship calls for help, and eight people – teachers, plumbers, the guy who runs the pub – drop everything and put to sea, whatever the weather, asking no questions, imperilling their own lives, to try to help strangers. Is there anything more brave and noble than that? The RNLI – I looked this up later – is an organization run by volunteers, supported entirely by public donations. It maintains 233 stations around the coast of Britain and averages twenty-two call-outs per day. It saves 350 lives a year on average. There are times when Britain is the most wonderful country in the world – genuinely the most wonderful. This was one of them.