Man the lifeboats! JO HAYWOOD talks to Jo Ward, an East Yorkshire mum-of-two who is turning that phrase on its head by running the lifeboat station at Filey.

"I'M on a very steep learning curve. No scrap that, it's more of a learning cliff. And if I lose my footing it's a sheer drop straight down."

Running a lifeboat station is daunting for Jo Ward, a mother-of-two from Filey in East Yorkshire.

"It's scary if you think about it," she said as she surveyed the bay from the first floor of the station house on Coble Landing. "So it's probably best not to think about it too much."

At least she knows she has the support of her 27-strong crew and 12 shore staff, including her husband John, who is Filey's deputy coxswain.

"This station runs like a community," she said. "There's no rigid hierarchy as such. It's a team effort. People's lives depend on us working effectively together."

Jo, a reprographics technician at Filey School, is the RNLI's only female voluntary operations manager which, in simple terms, means she is the only woman running a lifeboat station in the UK and Ireland.

She has a long association with the sea. Her father, Captain Dennis Croft, was in charge of bringing the ships in to port at Trinity in Northumberland when she was a child.

When the port stopped trading in the 1960s they moved to Scarborough, where Dennis became the deputy launching authority at the lifeboat station.

"My dad died ten years ago," said Jo, "but I know he would have been tickled pink with my new role.

"I think I inherited my love of the sea from him. I start to get withdrawal symptoms if I'm away from it for any length of time."

She is an experienced sailor in her own right. She has been awarded her yachtmaster's qualification, has sailed extensively with Scarborough Yacht Club and was a member of the Royal Naval Reserve.

Jo came to Filey lifeboat station as administration officer after meeting her husband, a crewman with 30 years experience. They have two children, seven-year-old Alex and Dougie, five.

When the job as operations manager came up, she jumped at the chance and, on February 1, she took over the helm.

The lifeboat operations manager is responsible for the day-to-day running of the station and for authorising the launching of the lifeboat at the request of the coastguard.

Jo is on 24-hour call, although she does have three deputies who can step in if she fancies a night out or a holiday, and is paged directly if the Humber coastguard receives a 999 call.

"Sometimes the sea conditions are so bad that you can't put a boat out, but that is very rare indeed," she said. "Normally the rest of the crew is paged and it's all systems go.

"When everyone arrives at the station it is utter mayhem for a while, but then we all pull together. The coxswain gets a situation report from the coastguard and picks his crew."

Who is chosen depends on which boat is being launched.

"The ILB (in-shore lifeboat) is definitely a young person's boat," said Jo. "You get thrown about and battered and bruised.

"The OLB (off-shore lifeboat) is hard work, but you're more likely to come back in one piece."

The youngest member of the Filey crew has just turned 18 and the oldest is 62, although he doesn't go to sea any more.

The lifeboat station celebrated its 200th anniversary last year. The town marked the occasion with parades and a civic reception - an indication of just how strongly they feel about the crew.

"We are a valued part of the community," said Jo. "Unlike a lot of other places, we still have a lot of fishermen in Filey and they like to help their own. We also have people who genuinely believe in community service.

"No one would ever join a lifeboat crew for the money (there is a small fee for each call out). It's about loving the sea and loving what you do."

When her pager goes off she has no idea what awaits. In the past the crew has been called out to everything from a crashed RAF plane to a dog which has done a nose-dive off a cliff.

A successful call-out depends on her retaining her cool.

"I can easily get flustered if the kids drop their tea on the floor, but I don't get flustered here," she said. "You also need a good sense of humour. It's like being in the fire or ambulance service; if you can't see the funny side, you've been here too long."

Jo is proud of her achievement, but not as proud as she is of her crew. "They do the real work," she said. "I would have no problem if Alex and Dougie wanted to join the lifeboat crew when they are older. My heart would be in my mouth every time they got called out, but I would know they were in good hands."

Updated: 08:46 Tuesday, March 22, 2005