How a pier and lifeboat station were destroyed overnight

A Margate lifeboat volunteer has described how they were met with "scenes of utter destruction" the morning after a storm destroyed the town's pier and lifeboat station in 1978.

RNLI press officer Peter Barker, who has volunteered for the service for 59 years, said the incident also resulted in the loss of the last traditional lifeboat slipway in Kent.

"It happened overnight, so no one actually witnessed it," he said, adding that the locals "woke up to the amazing scenes the next morning" on 12 January.

"Only the lifeboat house itself and the extension beyond remained. The mostly wooden remains of the jetty itself were washed up on the main sands."

Barker and other members of the crew were winched down to the boathouse by the RAF rescue helicopter, he said.

"The sides of the boathouse were swinging freely from the roof, large sections of the concrete floor had fallen into the sea," he said.

"Miraculously, apart from one section of door resting on its bow, the lifeboat itself appeared completely untouched and undamaged."

Barker said it was clear to the crew it was the "end of the line" for the station but it was felt the lifeboat itself could be saved by launching for what would be the final time.

After loading the North Foreland lifeboat with as many items of value as they could salvage from the stricken boathouse, the crew's thoughts turned to the launch.

Barker said: "The engineers, they couldn't guarantee that the boathouse itself would withstand the shock of the boat going down the slipway, so everyone had to be on board the lifeboat itself.

"I drew the short straw, you could say, and I laid on the stern of the boat and held the pole with the hammer on the end and released the slip hook from the lifeboat with the crew hanging on to my legs."

With the destruction of the jetty and boathouse, the RNLI transferred its crew to Ramsgate for 18 months before they moved back to a new boathouse in Margate, where they remain to this day.

Remembering the 1978 storm, Barker said it was "almost as though some higher power said to the weather 'you can take the boathouse but leave the lifeboat alone'."

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