People: Grace Darling

As you enter Bamburgh from the north there is a wonderful RNLI museum dedicated to the life of a true north-east hero--Grace Darling. Life must have seemed fairly ordinary for Grace until an event at 4:45AM on the morning of September 7th, 1838 for it was then that she was woken during a violent storm by the sound of a crash as a the SS Forfarshire hit rocks off the Farne Islands and broke in two. Grace was the 22 year old daughter of the Longstone lighthouse keeper and her father considered the conditions too dangerous to launch the lifeboat from North Sunderland so undertook at the urging of Grace to venture out in a small coble (rowing boat) in treacherous seas to search for survivors--they were able to rescue nine souls--48 perished. The audacious rescue mission turned Grace into an instant celebrity--artists wanted to paint her--she sat for 7 paintings at the same time and William Wordsworth wrote a poem about her heroism, books were written, songs were composed all in her honour.

As I toured the museum I was struck how Grace was the product of a different age--one which loved stories of heroes and selfless acts of courage. Today no doubt there would have been a public enquiry lasting three years into the sinking of the Forfarshire whilst the lighthouse keeper and crew were suspended on full pay before being criticised for not following health and safety rules by launching the vessel which was not 'fit for purpose'. The museum thrust us back into an age of heroics, where selfless and reckless acts in service of others were celebrated by a grateful nation rather than investigated by petty bureaucrats.