The lifeboat that features in the penultimate chapter of Barefoot on the Cobbles is the Elinor Roget, or ‘Elinor Rocket’, as she was affectionately known. The Elinor Roget II replaced the first lifeboat of that name in 1907. She was a rowing lifeboat and the crew’s only protection were their cork lifejackets. In the novel, it is Albert who forms part of the crew but depending which account you read, it may have been his brother Alfred instead. Having tried to untangle the conflicting lists of the men who manned the lifeboat on New Year’s Day in 1919, it seems the crew is likely to have been: Tom Pengilly (coxswain), William Prince (Bowman), Oscar Abbott, Herbert, Albert (or Alfred), Charlie Headon, Philip Dunn, Richard Headon, R Hortop William Hamlyn, Fred Headon, Tom Jenn, Captain James Jenn, James Jenn junior and Arthur Shaxon. We do know that some of the crew stood down to be replaced by fresher men, when the lifeboat put to sea a second time. The new men were probably Richard (Dick) Cruse, Sidney Abbot, Richard Foley and Steve Headon. Despite there being a policy of not taking more than one man from each family, the Headon and Jenn families made a significant contribution to the crew. In fact, in a community such as Clovelly, where the families intermarried over successive generations, most of the crew were related in some way.

‘Albert was amongst the fourteen men with oars at the ready, cork lifejackets tightened. The watching crowd, apprehensive and fearful, strained to see the struggling fishing boat dipping and tossing in the distance. The lifeboat listed alarmingly as the oarsmen fought to maintain a steady path through the waves.’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.