The Surf Life Saving Club of Great Britain has eight clubs at Devon beaches on both our coasts. Fran McElhone went to meet the self confessed ‘water babies’ in Exmouth, who volunteer for lifeguarding duties and keep us safe in the sea
A very pregnant Vicky is walking towards me along the sand. Now 31, Mrs Marshall-Gall (to her secondary school science students) has been a volunteer beach lifeguard here on Exmouth beach for 14 years.
She joined Exmouth Beach Rescue Club as an earnest teenager, to learn how to lifeguard and do it as a ‘fantastic summer job’ and then ended up working as a professional lifeguard for the RNLI during her university summer holidays. She’s been a volunteer with the club all along, and has been club captain for five years now.
And no, she’s not planning on stepping down just because motherhood beckons: as Pete Lawrence, club chairman and lifeguard at the Bantham club says, ‘there is nothing more courageous than the heart of a volunteer’.
‘I’ve always been a water baby,’ Vicky tells me. ‘And I loved the idea of being able to combine something you love with helping people.’
Club members are darting in and out of the water around us being assessed for lifeguarding qualifications, while a bunch of nippers (under 10s) enjoy themselves racing each other on the sand behind us.
‘I agreed to take the captain role because I saw it as an opportunity to be a good role model,’ she says, adding that since being pregnant, she hopes that younger women will feel empowered by seeing a heavily pregnant woman ‘unapologetically getting in and out of a wetsuit’.
‘Every beach has its own risks,’ she continues. ‘Off Exmouth beach there are currents, either up or down the river depending on the tides, and rips, and because of the shelving it gets deep very quickly and you can end up in the shipping channel before you know it.’
While working with the RNLI, Vicky came to the rescue of a father and son who had been caught out. ‘They had drifted out into the shipping channel in their dinghy. The son had fallen out and was drifting one way with the tide and the father was in the dinghy drifting in the opposite direction with the wind.’
‘The beaches are getting busier,’ she says. ‘We’re seeing an increase of people on stand-up paddleboards, and a concurrent increase in the number of inflatable craft rescues in general, so this is a real challenge.’
It’s not just water rescues members are trained to do. Because they’re trained in first aid, club members are geared-up to help the public ashore too.
‘During a Park Run last summer a man had chest pains, and a member of the public came running up the beach looking for help,’ says Vicky. ‘So we treated him while waiting for the ambulance and he was taken to hospital and fitted with a stent straight away. A paramedic told us that the outcome would have been “very different” if it wasn’t for our early intervention.
‘When you do have to help, it reaffirms the decisions you made to invest your time to learn and train.’
Vicky is one of 10,000 members of the Surf Life Saving Club of Great Britain which has 90 clubs nationwide with 1,784 members across Devon’s clubs: Woolacombe, Croyde, Saunton Sands, Bideford Bay, Sidmouth, Exmouth, Teignmouth, Dawlish Warren and Bantham.
The clubs aren’t just about saving lives. They provide a system of education and activity encouraging fitness and wellbeing, bestowing a sense of confidence and capability upon members. Over half of all members are under 18 who all enjoy being on the beach and having fun, while also learning basic but vital first aid.
Established 70 years ago, the search and rescue charity provides the highest level of training and qualifications, including the Beach Lifeguard Award, required by the RNLI’s professional lifeguards.
But while our beaches are getting busier, and the need for lifeguards is increasing, funding is not. Money aside, there are other challenges facing the clubs. In April the Environment Agency released figures revealing that South West Water discharged sewage into our rivers and waterways for more than half a million hours last year, an 83 per cent increase on 2022. And we all know where our waterways end up.
Surf lifesaving sport is the other arm of the organisation which involves both recreational and competitive disciplines associated with surf lifesaving. There is a busy events calendar throughout the year involving five key disciplines: Pool, Ocean, Beach, IRB (inflatable rescue boat) and Surf Boat. Athletes can compete at club, regional, national and international levels and currently Devon has three athletes in the GB squad.
While the sport side of the club is distinct and valuable in its own right, its athletes play a part in raising the profile of beach safety.
Each member has their own reasons for joining; social, health, lifesaving and sport being the main ones, but everyone I speak to at the club’s annual conference at Sandy Park in Exeter, told me the same thing, that ‘the club’s like an extended family’.
‘You meet people of all ages and life experiences and make friends with people you might not have been friends with in normal life,’ agrees Vicky. ‘It’s wonderful really.’
Vicky is a trainer, assessor and IRB driver for Exmouth, and also competed in the IRB discipline in a national championships as the helm (driver). ‘We didn’t train, we just turned up to have fun and ended up with a bronze medal.’ It’s also apparent from athletes at the conference, that it’s very much friendly competitiveness when it comes to competing.
While the physical impact of running around on the sand is obvious, there are hidden benefits of surf lifesaving too. ‘Volunteering has a positive impact on you; knowing you’re doing something for the greater good and can help, if it comes to it,’ says Vicky.
‘And you get endorphins from exercising, particularly in the natural environment. There’s something very powerful about being surrounded by something more powerful than you. The ocean needs our respect. It’s the stronger one in the relationship.’
While the RNLI provide the lion’s share of lifeguarding on Britain’s beaches, the beach rescue clubs provide additional coverage, and offer flexible ‘out-of-hours’ cover. ‘If it’s a beautiful day and there’s an outgoing spring tide first thing in the morning, we’ll patrol to cover the dippers,’ says Vicky. ‘Same goes for nice evenings. We can be flexible to conditions and tides because we’re volunteers.’
The clubs welcome members from the age of seven. There is no upper age limit with senior members with decades’ experience under their belts still patrolling and passing on their wisdom.
Barrie Charlesworth, 77, from Croyde and Saunton Sands lifesaving clubs, was one of four members to receive a Life Member Award at the club’s annual Heroes of the Surf Awards in February. The award recognised his commitment to beach rescue for more than 60 years, including as an IRB trainer and driver.
In 1962 he was a founding member of the North Devon Surf Lifesaving Club and championed women’s equality in surf lifesaving, instigating the inclusion of women in the club as lifeguards and sport competitors.
‘I was virtually thrown out for suggesting it,’ he says. ‘Two years on, female members were allowed. They’re an integral part of our clubs. Women are people, we shouldn’t look at gender; all our lifeguards are good role models.’
