200 local schoolchildren joined in celebrations at Bembridge RNLI lifeboat station this afternoon (Monday) to mark the 200th anniversary of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Children from Bembridge CE Primary and Ryde School waved their flags as the All Weather Lifeboat, Inshore Lifeboat and smaller Y-Boat were all launched. The 200 children represented every year that the RNLI has been in existence. It was on 4th March 1824 that the RNLI was established following an appeal from Sir William Hillary, with more than 145,000 lives saved over the past 2 centuries. At Bembridge, 948 lives have been saved from 2,398 lifeboat launches since the station was established at Lane End in 1867. It was the wrecking of the ‘Egbert’ on Bembridge Ledge that prompted Bembridge Lifeboat Station to be formed. For the first 60 years, Bembridge had rowing lifeboats that were kept on the shore and launched down the slipway. Then, in 1922, the first offshore boathouse was built to house a motor lifeboat, the ‘Langham’. It was only in 2009 that the boathouse was demolished to make way for the current boathouse, which houses the much larger Tamar-class All Weather Lifeboat. An inshore lifeboat has also been based at Lane End since the 1960s. 
John Keyworth, Bembridge’s Lifeboat Operations Manager, attended a Service of Thanksgiving in London earlier today, joining other representatives from the 238 RNLI communities around the UK and Ireland. John says:
“Representing the Bembridge RNLI family, which has been part of the larger RNLI family since 1867, is an honour. Representing all those who have gone before and carried out such sterling work in helping and saving those in trouble at sea is humbling, to say the least. “Our current team are all committed individuals from many different backgrounds and they are proud to be considered lifeboat crew. A tradition in one family at our station goes back 5 generations, with the next generation desperate to reach the age when he too can clip a pager onto his belt. It’s what we do”.
The RNLI continues to save lives at sea, thanks to volunteers like those at Bembridge, Cowes and Yarmouth, who give their time to save others, all funded thanks to public donations. 
At least the youngsters have been indoctrinated by schooling to not even question the illegal taxi service provided by such, which, ironically will have, imo, a very negative effect on their futures in their own country as they grow.
Sad, but true as this was once a great institution saving the lives of those legally going about their livelyhoods at sea, not knowingly breaking the law and imposing themselves upon a struggling nation to ‘cater’ for.
Feel sorry for the staff and crew as they have little choice in the matter.
What are you talking about? Utter drivel.
Do not feel sorry for the staff and the crew because they do have a choice.!
The RNLI can pick up and take back to France using existing legislation, but they choose to bring them to the UK.
Videos on tiktok show the RNLI bringing illegals ashore today, on their 200th anniversary.
What a way to celebrate this milestone by crippling our country and putting our people at risk.
People made their feelings known on the previous Island Echo story about the government taxi service and hopefully the RNLI will be reading them and understand why they have lost so much support, both locally and nationally.
It’s disgraceful what they do.
The institution has come along way over the years in terms of safer vessels &
hi-tec equipment etc. The same however can no longer be said about some of its volunteers. Especially since the introduction of the inshore rubber boats. The knowledge from the seafarers & longshoremen which this service had to rely upon, is no longer. Pen pushers who need excitement in their lives, now step into the Yellow wellies. They’ve passed the basics of knowing what is a boat & what is the sea & are allowed out on to the water. Cannot imagine this would have been the vision or wishes of William Hilary.
How many illegal immigrants try to reach Bembridge by boat?
It’s a great shame to read the attitude of some people towards the RNLI. It is clearly based on a lack of understanding of how the RNLI works especially locally. What is required is a political solution to the small boats issue, rather than the do gooders who try and block any method of repatriation. Referring to the volunteers as “pen pushers who need excitement” is insulting and incorrect. I wonder what some of the commenters on here do for their community, nothing I suspect.
I wonder sometimes about the extent to which some people have been brainwashed to make such vitriolic comments about desperate people who try to get to the UK in small boats, and those who try to save their lives.
The numbers who attempt to, pale into insignificance to those the CONservatives have ‘legally’ brought in.
People voted for Brexit, in the belief that we would take control of our borders, and control immigration,
But, despite promising to reduce immigration, the Conservatives have actually increased it since Brexit!
these ‘boat people’ are a very small percentage of that, and are being used as a propaganda scapegoat for conservative publicity, to try to gloss over their failure to control overall immigration
Wightlink you mentioned desperate people who try to get to the UK in small boats.? How desperate are they when most went home for Christmas.?
Why don’t they stay in any of the other safe countries they passed through.? There is nothing wrong with claiming asylum to live in France for example.
But those countries don’t give these tens of thousands of young fit men free money and let them live in hotels..
The RNLI taxi service should end.
Injecting them with cancer would be a start…
How many migrants they picking up in the name of “diversity”?
Dear above bafoons,
Pick a different forum for your arguments.
Regards,
Rest of the World
Sadly a once Great organisation being put in a difficult position , when close to France the Illegal Migrants should be returned there ,
Thousands died to keep us Free and now we import Invaders and keep them in accommodation at £15 million a day its utter madness !