RNLI Lifeboat Station

Berwick-upon-Tweed changed hands between England and Scotland thirteen times between 1296 and 1482, which is the kind of history that makes institutional continuity difficult. The RNLI established a lifeboat station here in 1835, then almost immediately had to move it from Spittal across the river to the Berwick side, because finding volunteers willing to row into North Sea storms had proven, in the borderlands, to be a matter of some delicacy. The current station building dates to 1928 and still operates today, which makes it either very well built or very stubbornly positioned, depending on the weather.

The station has earned nine gallantry awards in the intervening years. The most noted came in 1915, when a rescue proved so punishing that when the crew finally made it back to the pier, the fishermen waiting on shore had to haul them in with ropes. Every man was too frozen to move under his own power. The Silver Medal awarded afterward did not mention the cold, because it did not need to.

Berwick remains, technically, part of England, having last changed hands in 1482 and stayed put since then. The lifeboat volunteers are drawn from both sides of a border that has meant, at various points in history, everything and nothing. In a town that spent two centuries being passed back and forth like disputed luggage, the crew requirement has always been simpler: willing to go out, capable of coming back.