For over half a century Dick Evans has been associated with the lifeboat at Moelfre in Anglesey, one of the most dangerous stretches of British waters. He is the only lifeboatman to hold two RNLI gold medals - that institution's equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Saltwater has been practically flowing in his blood since his earliest days: the sea has been his life, as merchant seaman and as coxswain of the lifeboat in which he had served as a boy - one of the few men living today who has served in such a craft under sail. lan Skidmore's book allows him to describe in exciting detail some of his most hair-raising 'Services' in storms that gusted at up to 120mph. Two of the epic rescues were when he and his fellow lifeboatmen saved the lives of the crew of the Greek ship Nafsiporos and the MV Hindlea. The waves rose forty feet high and, in one case, the lifeboat was washed for perilous seconds on to the deck of the endangered ship. Excitement is here in plenty but, just as importantly, this account allows us to share the life of a man who has always lived bv the sea except for one short break as a butcher), be it fishing or skippering a dirty British coaster with salt-caked smokestacks or in the lifeboat service. We are allowed to sense too the real comradeship of his crew who worked together, without ever losing their determination to complete a successful service or their confidence in their coxswain. Dick Evans has only recently retired as an active lifeboatman but he still works for the Roval National Lifeboat Institution by touring the country to talk at fund-raising functions. He is one of three men to receive a standing ovation at the Guildhall in London and, when he was the subject on TV of This is Your Life, the producers described it as the most memorable programme in the series. Lifeboat VC is the story of a man in the great tradition of the British merchant marine who has much to say, in his modest way, about the human experience as well as seamanship.