John McWhirter.

[Tommy Ralston]

This article appears in today's issue of the excellent online newspaper, 'Forargyll'.
C'mon guys, get your rears in gear and see if we cannot get the recognition that 'Wee Quirty' so richly deserves!

Today, the 28th of January 2014, is the 96th birthday of a remarkable and modest man, John McWhirter, who has served Campbeltown RNLI Lifeboat for no fewer than 50 years, is a legend warmly remembered by everyone who worked with him – and of whom they talk with a huge affection.
John was first the Assistant Honorary Secretary and then Honorary Secretary of the lifeboat – a responsibility known in today’s RNLI as a LOM – a Lifeboat Operations Manager.
He retired in 1989, past retirement age but given a service extension to allow him to complete his stunning record of 50 years.
Born on 26th January 1918, at the end of the Great War whose massive sacrifices are remembered by the nation this year, he became Assistant Honorary Secretary of the lifeboat in 1948.
At that stage the Honorary Secretary was Tony McGrory who had an electrical business in the town and for whom John worked. His old Campbeltown friend, Tommy Ralston, who was coxswain of the Mallaig lifeboat – and is an author amongst whose books are some on lifeboats and fishing boats and their skippers – says that it was John who did the work of Honorary Secretary then, whatever his actual title.
In 1968 he formally became Honorary Secretary and by all accounts was famously prudent with the lifeboat station’s funds for whom he accounted meticulously. Throughout all of his 50 years service, his work was entirely voluntary – and he paid all of his own travelling expenses to meetings in Glasgow of the Scottish Lifeboat Convention.
In the days before the individual pagers that these days summon the volunteer lifeboat crews to a shout, when John got the call, he would gallop down to the lifeboat office on the harbour and fire a maroon.
One of the crew then, Jim McPhee, who later became coxswain of Campbeltown’s lifeboats, City of Glasgow II and then its Arun class Walter and Margaret Couper – which retired from service in 1989, the same year as John – remembers a night when John McWhirter fired the maroon for a shout to the coaster, Gold, in trouble off Sanda island.
Only a handful of the crew turned up – not enough. John first told Harry, his assistant at the time and a landlubber, that he would have to go on the boat. Then he got the Campbeltown police to go round the town and root out the crew. That was his attitude to his job. It got done and it got done well.
On one occasion, the station was paid a visit by royalty, with the crew lined up to be presented by John to the personage of the day. He escorted the VIP down the line, introducing each man as they came to him: so-and-so, a doctor; so-and-so, a solicitor etc. They came to the second coxswain – ‘Robert Scally, a dust bin man’. Others might have tried ‘a local authority employee’ but John McWhirter was never possessed of pretension and, seeing no difference himself between what one man and another did, never expected anyone else to be any different.
Tommy Ralston told us that when John fired the maroon for a shout and got the crew away on the boat, it was his immovable habit t0 go back into his office on the harbour with its one-bar fire and stay there, however long it took, until the boat came back.
It may well be that the most dramatic episode of John’s stewardship was the night of 2nd October 1981 when John fired the maroon for the crew to go the assistance of a Spanish trawler aground on the west of the Mull of Kintyre – the coast open to the full force of the Atlantic. The trawler had its main engine gone, its steering gear damaged – and in a Force 6.
By the time the Walter and Margaret Couper got to her, under coxswain Alexander Gilchrist, the wind was a Gale 8 and the seas were short, steep and breaking. They found her, having floated off, drifting out in the North Channel a couple of miles off the Irish coast. The North Channel is pretty muscular at the best of times but that night it was evil.
When the lifeboat reached her, they found a Scottish coaster, the Ceol Mor, standing by to assist the trawler if she went down before any other help arrived.
The trawler’s crew refused to be taken off their boat so the lifeboat managed to get a line onto her to stop her from going aground for a second time. By now, with the wind at gale strength, the seas out in the open North Channel were 15′ high and beam on to the lifeboat as she tried to haul the trawler further off the coast. The strain of the line in beam-on conditions threatened to capsize the lifeboat and the line had to be let go.
The coaster was called back and the lifeboat managed to get a line in place between her and the trawler – several times, because the line kept breaking. By now the Ceol Mor was running out of fuel and had to leave the scene. Reality was dawning on the trawler’s crew and finally the skipper agreed to abandon ship.
Alexander Gilchrist managed to get the lifeboat alongside the trawler no fewer than five times, able only to take off the crew of fourteen in small groups. At that stage the seas were 30′ high, breaking across both the trawler and the lifeboat. And each time the lifeboat came back in to get another two or three.
They got them all off and made a slow and hairy passage back to Campbeltown with weighty and huge beam seas offering an unending possibility of capsize.
When they got back to the harbour – they had been out in these highly dangerous sea conditions for over 12 hours – and John McWhirter was, of course, waiting for them on the harbourside.
John sadly lost one of his two sons, also John, 15 or 16 years ago; but has his daughter and his other son, David and David’s wife Caroline.
He was given the RNLI Silver Badge in 1970; the RNLI Gold badge in 1986; and the Bar to the Gold Badge in 1989, the year he retired with his fifty years service an honourable and an unforgettable dedication to his town and its lifeboat.
It is more than time that someone with the selfless and first class voluntary public service over half a century should be the subject of a national honour.
It is not beyond the resources of the great and proud Campbeltown and its strong community to make it a communal challenge to get this astonishing omission redressed.
John McWhirter is the sort of son whose working record is something Campbeltown can warm its hands on; and has always been the sort of role model and stalwart friend so many speak of with the greatest of respect and warmth.
What about a maroon today?
Note1: Tommy Ralston’s story of Kintyre’s lifeboats, which we published in January 2010 and which talks of John McWhirter and Jim McPhee, is here.

[Tommy Ralston]

C'mon - has naebody got any good ideas to offer?
As an example of the lack of caring in certain areas of the town, I offer this - added on Friday 31st January.
"The Courier came out today with NO comment on John's career or birthday despite the fact that I gave the editorial staff prior warning of the event.
Aye, but if some poor b****r gets caught haein a pee, THAT'LL get publicity.
I am seek o' they folk!"
TR

[jdcarra]

Remember him well TR.

Nice bit of recognition for a wee gentleman and a few others mentioned also.

Hope there was a nice birthday treat for John