When Edinburgh-based director Shona Thomson began exploring archive footage from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), she expected to be looking into the past.
But what she found, while trawling through hours of old films and head-cam footage, was more like a reflection of the present – and a window to the future.
Shona leads A Kind of Seeing – a company which screens archive films all over Scotland, alongside mobile cinema organisation The Screen Machine.
Her latest film, Launch! On the Sea with Scotland’s Lifeboats, celebrates the brave RNLI crews and communities across Scotland, using archive footage spanning from 1929 all the way to the ’70s, as well as video and photographs taken right up to the present, and boasting a soundscape by respected sound artist and beatboxer Jason Singh.
And during her deep dive into the RNLI archives, director Shona discovered that while the haircuts may have changed, the perilous job of a lifeboat crew is not much different now to what it was when the organisation was formed nearly 200 years ago.
‘The sea is ever-changing, but always there’
“I kind of thought, when I put all the head-cam films together from over the years, there’d be a real difference between them,” explains Shona. “Obviously there’s a difference in that some are black-and-white and some are colour, and you’ve got different clothing styles and things.
“But actually, when you see what they’re doing in 1930 compared to in 2010, it’s really not that different – to a layperson like myself, at least.”
It makes sense – there’s only so much you can modernise against a force as powerful as the sea.
“A lot of what you’re seeing – what they’re seeing – is the sea! And the sea is ever-changing, but it’s still always there,” Shona observes solemnly.
“And the crews are still doing the same thing they’ve always done – going out into these horrific conditions, rescuing people and saving lives.”
‘Cold feet’ no match for women of RNLI
But one thing has changed over the years, and that’s who has been on the crew.
“I was really aware, as a woman filmmaker, watching these films from the 1930s and onwards, that it was all men,” explains Shona. “One of my main contacts for the projects was Dr Samantha Jones, who is the lifeboat operations manager in Tobermory. And so I knew there was some amazing women working in the RNLI. But there was nothing in those archive films back then.”
To remedy this, Shona has included a section in the film entirely dedicated to the women of the RNLI, populated by more modern footage, as well as glass-plate photographs by artist Jack Lowe, who is on an eight-year mission to capture all the lifeboat stations and crews in the UK and Ireland.
“I wanted to show that these women are there, and that their strength and pride is helping crews look into the future,” she says. “Which the RNLI is!”
And although there weren’t many women in the archive films, audiences at Launch! screenings have proven that the women of the RNLI’s days gone by are very much present in the memory of its communities.
“I heard at a screening last weekend, in Aberdeen, that women actually were quite crucial back in the 1930s and ‘40s,” says Shona. “They weren’t on the boats necessarily, but they were the ones, in some places, doing the launching.
“At that time, the crew wore leather boots – they didn’t have the rubber boots that they have now. And if they got wet feet before they went out to sea, it would be freezing – it would be a real safety issue.
“And so some women would carry their men on to the boat, through the water!
“It’s those kind of stories, that are passed word-of-mouth, which are so special.”
It takes a village to launch a lifeboat
For Shona, meeting crews and lifeboat communities has been one of the most rewarding parts of the film’s journey. Indeed, it was her experience of audiences after showing an old RNLI film back in 2016 that inspired her to dig further into the organisation’s archives in the first place.
“Everybody had a story about the RNLI,” she says. “And some were really personal – maybe a family member was a volunteer or has been saved by the RNLI. So there was a general sense of ‘thank goodness they’re there’. It was obvious how important the RNLI is.
“But it is also quite unique in that it’s an emergency service which runs as a charity,” Shona goes on. “So it needs that support financially.
“It really does take a community launch a lifeboat, in terms of the crew, the fundraising, and the support of everybody left on land.” (With 93% of the service’s funds coming from donations, she’s not exaggerating.)
Mooring at Montrose
And with the Montrose RNLI base featuring in Launch!, Shona is especially excited for the upcoming Montrose Playhouse screening, which will feature local historian John Aitken as a guest speaker, as well as members of the Montrose crew.
“I’ve been to Montrose quite a few times but I’ve never actually been down to the lifeboat station, so I’m looking forward to doing that at the weekend and comparing that with the 1930 film of it,” she says.
“And I can’t wait to see the beautiful playhouse as well!”
Launch! On the Sea with Scotland’s Lifeboats was created as part of the Scottish Government’s Year of Coasts and Waters. Funders included Screen Scotland and Film Hub Scotland.
It is playing at Montrose Playhouse on October 23, and at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on November 18 2021.