Hartlepool RNLI volunteers awarded Platinum Jubilee medal ahead of nationwide celebrations

Around 4,500 RNLI volunteers across the UK have been given a commemorative medal in recognition of the 65,886 lives the charity has saved during the Queen’s 70-year reign.

This week, celebrations will take place across the nation to recognise Her Majesty’s seven decades of service on the throne; a first for any British Monarch.

The medals, created especially to mark the Platinum Jubilee, have also been awarded to frontline staff, those who serve in the emergency services, prison services and Armed Forces who have completed five years of consecutive service.

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.

Chris Hornsey, Hartlepool RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager, said: “It was a pleasure to present the volunteer crewmembers with their medals in recognition of there commitment and professionalism when dealing with incidents at sea.

"I am very proud of them all and I think its a marvellous gesture to mark a very special occasion."

On 17 July 1972, Her Majesty became the first reigning monarch to name a lifeboat, which took place at Henley-on-Thames. The new all-weather lifeboat joined the relief fleet serving around the coast of the UK and Ireland.

The Queen then went on to name a number of other lifeboats, including one relief lifeboat named Her Majesty The Queen in 1993.

She also named the all-weather lifeboat at Falmouth in 2002 as part of her Golden Jubilee tour.