'I owe you everything' - Man's emotional thank you to RNLI 50 years after rescue

Watch a full report from ITV News Anglia's Rob Setchell.


A retired Cambridgeshire headteacher has penned an emotional thank you to the RNLI, five decades after they saved his life.

Dr Martin Stephen, who now lives in Norfolk, was pulled from the sea and resuscitated by a lifeboat crew in Scotland almost 50 years ago.

He was visiting family and had gone to Dunbar Harbour with his cousin. When he was swept into the rough sea, Martin jumped in to try and save him."I had what seemed like a very long time swimming in the sea, absolutely convinced I was dead.

"I didn't think anyone had seen me. I could feel the hypothermia starting at the end of my feet. That was the last thing I remember."

Martin was unconscious and sinking beneath the waves when Dunbar RNLI lifeboat crewman David Brunton jumped into the water to grab him, and his colleague Jonathan Alston also leapt in to help.

The rest of the crew then hauled the three men back on board and managed to get Martin breathing through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The lifeboat searched for his cousin's body but he could not be found.

As the 50th anniversary of the rescue approaches, 71-year-old Martin wrote to current Dunbar lifeboat coxswain Gary Fairbairn to thank the crew.

"I've had 50 years of the happiest possible marriage, three sons and five grandchildren," he said.

"All in all I've been able to live a wonderful life, but only because of the bravery of one man, the skill of another and the dedication and courage of the crew of the Dunbar lifeboat."

Before retirement, Martin was a respected headteacher in some of the country's leading schools - including The Perse in Cambridge. He is also a widely published author.

"I don't enjoy telling it - but the only way I can pay back the RNLI is to tell that story and try in my own way, from my own experience, to make it absolutely clear what these people do.

"I leave it to others to decide whether my life has been useful. I'm pretty sure the life of my sons and grandchildren have been useful.

"The plain fact is without the RNLI, volunteers paid for by private donations, none of it would have happened."