Medals presented to lifeboat volunteers

Iain Tulloch, deputy lord lieutenant for Shetland presents Queen's Platinum Jubilee medals to members of RNLI Lerwick - (from second left): Grant Masson, Michael Grant, Malcolm Craigie, Ian Harms, Gareth Geddes, Ryan Leith and John Best. Photo: RNLI Lerwick

Members of Lerwick Lifeboat have received The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medal.

The medal has been awarded to crew, members of the management team and shore based volunteers who have completed more than five years service.

Across the RNLI, 4,500 volunteers and frontline staff have been awarded the special commemorative Platinum Jubilee medal in recognition of the 69,212 lives the charity
has saved during the Queen’s 70-year reign.

As well as RNLI volunteers and frontline staff, those who serve in the emergency services, prison services and Armed Forces who have completed five years consecutive service have also received the award.

When Princess Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, she also became patron of the RNLI, continuing a lifesaving legacy left by the charity’s first patron King George IV.

The new commemorative medal follows a tradition of using medals to mark The Queen’s Jubilees, with the first one awarded to mark the 50th year of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1887.

Medals were presented in Lerwick by Deputy Lord Lieutenant Iain Tulloch, who has also had a 30-year personal involvement with Lerwick Lifeboat.

Mr Tulloch was crew member from 1980 for 20 years, and a further 10 years as shore crew, acting first as Honorary Secretary and Deputy Launching Authority.

Receiving medals were: crew members Gareth Geddes, Grant Masson, Michael Grant, mechanic Ian Harms, deputy mechanic John Best, lifeboat operations manager Malcolm Craigie and deputy launch authority Ryan Leith.

Also eligible, but unable to attend, were resilience coxswain Darren Harcus, second coxswain Tommy Goudie, second mechanic Sammy Drummond, third mechanic Marcus Thomason and crew members Peter Kerr and Jacqui Murray.

RNLI chief executive Mark Dowie said: “My congratulations and thanks go to all the recipients and our thousands of other volunteers and staff who work tirelessly to deliver our essential lifesaving services”