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Sitting on the top deck of the RNLI station at Newhaven on England’s south coast, Tony Lewis is surrounded by atmospheric charts, historic photos and models of old lifeboats. He is chatting to me with half an eye on the harbour, watching the boats come and go, cocking an ear to listen whenever the radio crackles.
At one point he gets up to watch the cross-Channel ferry practise a tricky manoeuvre, akin to a three-point turn in a very narrow street, which he talks me through in impressive detail. Suffice to say, he has a lot of love for the sea.
He’s volunteered at the lifeboat station as an operations manager for a number of years, but he never imagined his affection for the ocean would turn him into a singer. Especially as he’d never sung, or had the desire to sing, in public before. Yet that’s exactly what he does every month or so with seven other men, as part of a local sea shanty group called the Wreckers.
