Tributes have been paid to former Broughty Ferry lifeboatman Frank Donnelly who rescued three people when their plane came down in the Tay, and a five-year-old who was mistaken for a seal.
“I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Frank Donnelly. His quick-thinking saved my life,” said Bruce Gall – who fell off the slipway in Broughty Ferry in 1964.
Frank – who grew up on Broughty Ferry’s waterfront – was awarded a Royal Humane Society Award for resuscitating the child.
His heroic actions when a light aircraft succumbed to fog were also recorded in The Evening Telegraph.
Broughty born and raised
Francis Joseph Donnelly – known as Frank – was born on November 1 1934 in Fisher Street, Broughty Ferry. Son of lorry driver Francis and wife Ethel, he had one sister who died in infancy.
He attended Eastern Primary then Grove Academy Central School but left around the age of 15 to take on an apprenticeship as a joiner.
When his time was served in March 1955 he signed up the army just one month later.
A gunner in the Royal Artillery, he was posted to Wales and Germany.
According to his records, during his time with the military he worked as a driver and served three years and 166 days. He had left the army by October 1960 and had already started courting Agnes Beaton – known as Nancy.
Canada bound
The pair met at a YMCA dance in Broughty Ferry while he was home on leave, and wrote to one another while they were apart.
They were married in St Aidan’s Church on August 26 1959.
In 1959, in search of a better life for him and his new bride Frank set sail to Canada. He stayed with his cousin while he looked for work.
Initially working as a chauffeur he went back to his trade when he found a job as a joiner in Toronto. Nancy moved out three months later after sailing from Greenock to Montreal then taking her first flight to Toronto.
The couple lived in Canada for three years before coming home to Scotland.
Life-saving rescue
Not long after returning home, on October 17 1964, Frank was talking to a neighbour of his family on Fisher Street when five-year-old Bruce Gall fell into the water.
Bruce, now 64, said: “I had been playing around on the slipway – though I don’t remember much about it.
“The way I understand it Frank had been talking to someone… he often stood and looked out to the water. At first they thought I was a seal just bobbing about.
“Thankfully he realised that wasn’t the case.”
Restored to life
Five-year-old Bruce had to be plucked from the water and resuscitated.
“I’ve been terrified of the water ever since. I’ve never been able to swim or be near the water to much of an extent.
“I often think what would have happened had Frank not been there at that exact moment. Had he gone inside, or turned away I wouldn’t be here.
“He absolutely saved my life.”
The following year the Royal Humane Society awarded Frank the “resuscitation certificate” for the “humanity, promptitude and skill” demonstrated when he “restored life to a boy”.
Broughty Ferry lifeboat
Frank and Nancy, who then lived on Castle Street, Broughty Ferry, started a family. Son Greig and daughter Karen were born in 1967 and 1971, respectively.
The couple would go on to divorce when the children were young.
Frank worked as a joiner for Charles Gray Builders, then McCabe and Robertson’s joiners.
A knee injury meant he retired early; however, in 1972 he joined Broughty Ferry lifeboat crew.
“My dad had grown up next to the water, and he’d always been interested in the comings and goings of the lifeboats.
“He had to get a phone installed in the house so he could be called upon in an emergency. I remember him saying mum thought it was affa posh,” said Karen.
“When he got divorced he moved back into his parents’ home, where he had grown up, near the station.
Tay plane crash
In February 1978 Frank was involved in another dramatic rescue when a Piper Comanche light aircraft plunged into the wintry waters of the Tay.
Frank was instrumental in pulling two men and a teenage boy out of the water after three Dundee schoolboys sounded the alarm.
Ian Hamilton, 30 at the time, businessman Frank Gillan, 39, and 15-year old Mark Donaldson survived the accident.
A letter to the Evening Telegraph praised the heroic rescue.
‘In his happy place’
In the early 1980s Frank retired from the D-class crew but continued on with the larger vessels, the Robert and the Spirit of Tayside until 2005.
“My dad just loved being part of the lifeboat team. He was still he was in touch with everyone.
“Even during Covid, well retired by that point, he and ex-coxswain Murray Brown would sit outside the station with a flask.
“That was his happy place,” said Karen. “He would still pick up the donations in aid of RNLI right up until he passed.”
Guard of honour at funeral of Frank Donnelly
Also a member of the Royal Tay Yacht Club and a regular in Doc Ferry’s and The Gunners, Frank had four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
He died on May 30 at Roxburghe House aged 88.
A flag is flying at half mast at Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station and former crewmates will stage a guard of honour at his funeral on Wednesday June 14 at 10.30, at William Purves Broughty Ferry.
Frank will be laid to rest in Barnhill Cemetery, with an RNLI flag on his casket, beside his baby sister.
You can read the family’s notice here.
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