A packed boathouse saw Lady Sylvia Hermon present two members of the Donaghadee lifeboat volunteer crew with their twenty year service awards. She said she was delighted to present the awards to John Petrie and John Allen who had both given twenty years of devoted service to the RNLI.
Lady Sylvia has been a long supporter of the lifeboat in Donaghadee and last year took up an invitation to join the crew on exercise, which she admitted being a little nervous about but once at sea enjoyed herself immensley and did not want the day to end.
Coxswain Philip McNamara said that both men were a great example of the volunteers around the coast of Northern Ireland who risk their lives daily to save others at sea.
