Tracing ancestors is a risky business, you never know what you’re going to get.

I have found a few so far and some of them I wouldn’t want to have met.

Some of them were into dastardly deeds.

A Lowestoft beach company sounds innocuous indeed.

We should not be deceived they were murderous wreckers.

They risked their lives rowing out to the wrecks.

Imagine the crew clinging to the rigging hoping for salvation.

Crying out for help from the perpetrators of the wreck.

They would not have known that to the sand-bank they were lured.

False lights were used to cause the destruction of their vessel.

In no snug harbour would they sit to wait, till the storm did abate.

A cruel death by drowning or at the hands of the wreckers was assured.

The government decided that enough was enough.

The solution they came up with was not too complicated.

They turned the wreckers into heroes who went out to save lives.

The dangerous inshore waters became safer that’s for certain.

That is how the lifeboat service was born.