A long-standing RNLI volunteer has handed over the wheel after more than 40 years of service.

Trevor Lamb joined the charity in September 1977 and during his time with the Margate station spent 12 years at the helm of its all-weather lifeboat.

When Mr Lamb became part of the crew, the rest of the country was busy celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, but uppermost on Mr Lamb's mind was a determination to help save lives at sea.

"I actually married the coxswain’s daughter, so I was asked to join the crew by my father-in-law, Alf Manning." he said.

Mr Lamb served for five years on the station’s inshore lifeboat before moving on to the all-weather lifeboat.

He was appointed second coxswain of the ALB in 1986 and held that position until 2005, when he became coxswain.

Mr Lamb added: "My first experience was with the old traditional slipway-launched Watson class lifeboat on the pier, but following the collapse of the pier in 1978 we moved into our current location at the Rendezvous, first with another traditional lifeboat, the carriage launched Rother class Silver Jubilee, and then in 1987 with the modern fast Mersey class lifeboat Leonard Kent."

During that time Mr Lamb has been involved in hundreds of rescues and incidents, including the collision between the cruise ship Norwegian Dream and the container vessel Ever Decent in the English Channel in 1999 and a fire on the Ramsgate – Dunkirk Sally Line cross channel ferry, Sally Star, in 1994.

He said: "I believe we were out for more than thirty hours following the Ever Decent collision and if I remember rightly we saved around 37 people from the Sally Star which had caught fire."

Mr Lamb says Margate lifeboats had saved more than 350 lives in the 40 years he has served at the station.

He officially stood down on January 31 but admits it has taken a bit of getting used to: "I keep feeling for my pager, I just can’t get out of the habit!" he explained.

To mark his 40 years of service, Mr Lamb was invited by the RNLI to a special event at the Guildhall in London last October and in June, he and Valerie attended a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.

"It was a wonderful event and particularly for Valerie" he said.

"The women are left behind in the background, but they are the ones who have to deal with everything while we are away.

"They are the ones who are left at home, or at restaurants when our pagers go off."

"The RNLI has always been in Valerie’s family ever since she was born.

"With her father being the coxswain she never got any holidays as a child, so the garden party was a great event for her."

Mr Lamb was also presented with gold cufflinks by the RNLI crew at Margate and last weekend was treated to a surprise party to mark his four decades of service.

Like most RNLI volunteers, Mr Lamb has also had to juggle his time with the RNLI with full-time work.

Before joining the charity he worked as a Kent coal-miner for eight years, but after marrying Valerie became involved in the family’s seafood business, which has operated at the harbour since 1962.

Until last year he had also spent 25 years running his own fishing boat out of Margate.

Now 63, Mr Lamb has no plans to retire and now works skippering the boats out to the London Array windfarm off the Kent coast.

"Being actively involved for over 40 years I have seen a tremendous amount of change in the lifeboat service" he added.

"It has been an honour and a privilege to serve both the seafaring and indeed the local community in this most important of voluntary services."

The new coxswain of Margate’s all-weather lifeboat is Kevin Andrews.

Kevin joined the RNLI as a crewmember in August 1978 and was appointed second coxswain in September 2005.