What's it Like to Be in the RNLI? A Short Insight

Rory Bushe is a lifeguard and volunteer of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), a registered charity founded in 1824, as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. Over the years since its establishment the charity's lifeboats have helped to save over an estimated 137,000 lives.

A small village with snaking streets and flowers poking out from every window, St Agnes lazily occupies a small part of Cornwall's north coast. A foot-flattening hill runs down to the small stony beach and pubs with outdoor garden benches reach across the flat centre of the shallow valley.

Sitting in one of its well worn pubs all board shorts and flip flops, with sunglasses on his head and a coke in his hand (he's working later), Rory Bushe looks every inch the typical Cornish surfer boy. Sun bleached tufts escape from his short crop of hair and he seems to have a permanent grin on his face.

Rory enthusiastically greets everyone in the pub, sharing jokes about what he is doing there with two 'young ladies' (I had bribed my sister into coming along to record our meeting on her mobile phone). I move him into a quieter room of the pub feeling that he might be a bit too popular to interview exclusively if we stayed where we were.

At 23 years old not many men get to boast about how many lives they have helped to save, yet Rory seems to speak of it with the same sentiment you may find yourself describing getting a good deal on your home insurance. With a smile, a hint of pride and a laidback shrug of inconsequence.

"You do get a bit of, you know, a huge buzz. There is always this kind of great feeling inside you after you perform well and do a successful rescue, knowing you helped save someone's life. It's all just relative at the end of the day. I mean, you think about it at the time and you're pleased, but the next day you just go back to being your normal self and you're back on the job. It is nice when people come up to you to say you're good at doing your job though, especially that little girl's mum who came up to us to say thank you, it was really lovely."

The 'little girl' Rory is referring to was rescued by Rory and other RNLI crewmembers at Chapelporth beach. Rory and other St Agnes lifeboat crewmembers were crowned winners in the annual Life Savers Awards in 2006 for the bravery they showed during the operation.

"There was a big spring incoming tide, we were training at the time." Rory leans back in his chair and looks at the table as he remembers. "We got a 999 call from St Agnes so started to make our way over. A 12 year-old girl was clinging on to the face of the cave with a friend holding onto her. Suddenly a wave swept them both into the back of the cave. At that point we thought they had died there and then. It was horrific."

Rory leans forward and tucks in his chair, squinting at the memory.

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