JUST what is going on with the RNLI management and our East Coast lifeboat crews? I find it incredible that we have lost seven

valued members of the Whitby and Scarborough crews in the past week.

We have had the hottest Bank Holiday in memory and no doubt thousands taking to the sea at Whitby, Filey and Scarborough who could enjoy the fun knowing there is always a RNLI crew at hand if things go wrong and who willingly risk their lives for others.

We readily give donations to this wonderful organisation because of the respect and love for the men and women - unpaid volunteers. Indeed, benefactors have generously paid for the lifeboats themselves.

Last week it was announced that two Whitby crew members were sacked because a staff RNLI official took exception to cheeky mugs in lockers with crew faces that are just amusing. Pathetic PC. Four others resigned in protest.

Now the coxswain of Scarborough lifeboat, Tom Clark, MBE, with 34 years service, has been sacked for a sea exercise that was authorised. Mr Clark says the organisation is becoming a form-filling regime.

Time for the chief executive, Paul Boissier, and chairman, Stuart Popham, to address these issues.

Keith Massey,

Bishopthorpe, York

Let’s hope sanity is restored in the RNLI

MY first reaction on reading, in another newspaper, that an RNLI manager had done a spot check at Whitby Lifeboat Station and, finding

some coffee mugs with crew members’ faces superimposed on the torso of scantily-clad female figures, had sacked two of the unpaid, voluntary members, was to check the date.

I was convinced it had to be April 1. I was wrong, it was May 4.

Why were they sacked? Because the manager apparently said some children may see the mugs and be distressed at what they saw.

This ludicrous action was followed up by six other crew-members threatening they would leave the crew if the two sacked members were not reinstated.

Why didn’t the manager just have a quiet word and suggest the mugs were put somewhere that children wouldn’t see them?

It cannot be overstated just what an incredible job the RNLI do.

Rescuing surf-boarders who have been swept out to sea is likely to be the least of it. Their main task, for example, is when winter storms have caused

problems to the propeller, engine or rudder of a large vessel and the crew are in grave danger and need rescuing.

To lose the Whitby lifeboat because there weren’t sufficient crew to affect such a rescue would be devastating.

Let’s hope sanity is restored.

Philip Roe,

Roman Avenue South,

Stamford Bridge