200 Years of the RNLI - The Call Out
The Call Out
The Call Out is a creative collaboration in illustration and poetry to celebrate Redcar’s part in the 200th anniversary of the RNLI. I worked with w
riter, Carmen Marcus to depict the dramatic stages of a lifeboat call out, from the first call for help, to the perilous rescue and finally the return home.
We wanted to make work that was rooted in history but also captured the voices of real people who had deep connections with the lifeboats.
Carmen composed the poetry from interviews with Rodney Thompson, a helmsman who served on the Sir James Knott Lifeboat in 1980s: Allison Davies, the daughter of legendary David “Barney” Buckworth, who was appointed as Coxswain of Sir James Knott in 1974 and fisherman-craftsman, Tony Young, who restored the Zetland Lifeboat to her former glory. These conversations revealed a kinship between the people of Redcar, the lifeboats and the sea and are interwoven throughout the poems. Carmen was interested in telling hidden lifeboat stories – of ordinary life interrupted by the call, the story of those watching and waiting at home for the boat to return, a seagull’s eye view of a rescue, and the expertise it takes to bring the boat in.
The artists visited Arthur and Jim at The Zetland Lifeboat Museum, who shared their incredible knowledge of the boat, the crew and Redcar’s dangerous rocks. You will see and read the inspiration from the museum in the artwork and poetry.
To create the artwork I began with the text, and through conversations with Carmen she found the ‘heart’ of each story. Kat set out to create an emotive and visual narrative to reveal the relationship between humans and the sea. Kat was interested in exploring differences in scale between the sea and people to show both bravery and vulnerability, the perilous and the domestic. Through this process Kat was able to convey character and place through the limited colour palette informed by storms and RNLI colours. Kat has drawn influences from her creative background in children’s illustration and the historical research engaged with through the process.
The poems and images span 200 years of call outs, rescues and returns, revealing the changes in boats, technology and people, and celebrating the kinship between the crew members who first manned the Zetland, to those who serve now to keep all souls safe at sea.
Listen to Carmen reading The Aurora, as you watch the illustration slowly appear.
The Call Out is available to view at Kirkleatham Museum.
With thanks to: Ellen Bissell, Jo Hodgson, Liz Vine and the team at Kirkleatham Museum. Jim and Arthur from The Zetland Lifeboat Museum. Allison Davies, Rodney Thompson and Tony Young for their stories. Mike Sreenan and Ree Kirkbride and “Let Not the Deep Swallow Them Up”. We’d like to acknowledge the following sources All Her Glories Past & Come Along Brave Boys by David Phillipson; Redcar A Pictorial History by Phil Philo and East Cleveland Image Archive.