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CloseLaunch A Memory comes to Wells
Mon 7 Jun 2021
An opportunity for a loved one's name to be carried on the new Wells lifeboat...
Crew and inshore lifeboat on the new ramp at the launch of Launch A Memory Wells
The late Campbell MacCallum (center, blue top) visiting the boathouse in 2018
Wells' new Shannon lifeboat will carry the names of up to 10,000 people within the white letters and numbers – RNLI 13-46 – on the sides of her hull. The RNLI's Launch A Memory service allows people to celebrate a loved one by adding their name to a lifeboat in return for a donation to help with the running costs of the charity's lifesaving service. Wells' new Shannon has been chosen as the third lifeboat to take part in the scheme and the first in England after new boats being built for Invergorden in Scotland and Cliffden in Ireland.
At a launch on Wells beach this morning, crew members and some of the local people whose loved ones will be among the first names to be be commemorated on the new Shannon met with the local press.
Among them were the family of Campbell MacCallum who for many years was the station's unofficial photographer following an illustrious career as a photographer which started in swinging sixties London. Campbell's photographs have graced the history of the station, his 1979 big set piece 'rescue poster' of crew and boats and other local rescue services travelling around the world and becoming a regular tradition at Wells and other lifeboat stations.
If you'd like to take this opportunity for Wells' new Shannon to carry a name special to you, please visit the RNLI's Launch A Memory pages where you can enter your details. There is a suggested minimum donation of £50 and the funds wil be used to continue running the RNLI's lifesaving rescue service in Wells and at over 200 lifeboat stations around the UK.
Participants can keep up with regular updates on the progress of the new boat as she is built, tested and put into service and will have access to an on-line viewer which shows exactly where on the boat their chosen name will be placed.
Launch A Memory - Wells... details and entry form