Falmouth RNLI has said goodbye and thank you to four longstanding volunteers that have been involved in almost 1,000 lifeboat shouts between them.

Between them, the outgoing crew members have provided more than 67 years of service to the station.

Two of the station’s inshore lifeboat helms, Neil Capper – who has volunteered for 12 years – and Tom Telford – who served almost ten years – both left the crew at the start of this month.

Alan Rowe left the station back in January, having volunteered for over 29 years. He started as crew on the all-weather lifeboat and inshore lifeboat, before going on to become an all weather lifeboat emergency mechanic in 2003.

After a few years away from Falmouth Station, Alan later returned as a deputy launching authority before his final role as Falmouth’s lifeboat operations manager.

Andy Jenkin, who was deputy second coxswain and assistant mechanic for the all-weather lifeboat – and an inshore lifeboat helm – left the station in February after 17 years.

At a ceremony during a recent crew meeting, outgoing crew members were thanked and presented with engraved glass tumblers by current lifeboat operations manager Nick Lewis.

Jonathan Blakeston, coxswain at Falmouth Lifeboat Station, said: “I salute Alan, Andy, Tom, and Neil for a collective 67 years of volunteering for Falmouth Lifeboat Station. It’s been a pleasure to work alongside them and they should all be extremely proud of their outstanding contribution to the local community.

“After the past 18 months, it was fantastic for the crew to be able to get together in person, to say goodbye to them all, and wish them well for their next chapters.”

Dedicated volunteers are the lifeblood of the RNLI, making up 95% of people working for the charity. Nationally, there are over 5,600 operational crew, over 3,500 shore crew, 140 lifeguards and 23,000 fundraisers enabling communities to save lives at sea. Find out more at RNLI.org/volunteer