Stolen RNLI flag returned after 56 years with apology and donation

Tuesday, April 15th, 2025

Leisure Marine

A Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) flag stolen 56 years ago has been returned to its original lifeboat station, accompanied by a handwritten apology and a charitable donation.

Volunteers at the RNLI station in Trearddur Bay, Wales, discovered the flag on Sunday 6 April. It had been left in a box outside the station, along with a £20 donation and a letter from a 73-year-old man who confessed that he and two friends had taken the flag while on a camping trip as teenagers.

The note read: ‘In 1969 me and two friends were camping up the road from you, one night on the way back to the tent we passed your station and flag pole, one of us climbed up the pole and took the flag!! Wrong of us. We were only 17 at the time, but that’s no excuse!! Just found the flag again, forgot all about it, I was having a sort out and there it was. After all these years hope it gets back to you. Very sorry.’

The flag is now flying proudly above the Trearddur Bay station once again.

Lifeboat operations manager, Paul Moffett, says: “It is great to have a piece of station history returned after so many years. Thank you to the culprits for the kind donation and for putting a smile on the crews’ faces. All is forgiven.

“Any donation, even if it is 56 years later is always greatly received and will help us save lives and our lifesaving work is only possible due to the generosity of the public.”

Last year, RNLI volunteers launched over 9,000 times across the UK and Ireland saving 437 lives and helping more than 17,000 people back to safety.