RNLI celebrates first all-female rescue crew at station with no women ... trends now
By day they are teachers, civil servants, professors and fundraisers.
But - when the distress call comes in - they don their yellow wellies, overalls and life-jackets and race to the rescue.
Hannah Oliver, Sarah Whitelaw, Rose Short, and mother and daughter Kay and Anna Heslop are breaking the gender mould after becoming the first all-female RNLI crew to save lives in the North Sea.
Until 10 years ago there were no women volunteers at Cullercoats Lifeboat Station, in North Shields, where they are based.
The RNLI is celebrating its first all-female rescue crew - at Cullercoats Lifeboat Station where there were no women volunteers just 10 years ago. Pictured l-r: Anna Heslop, Rose Short, Kay Heslop, Sarah Whitelaw and Hannah Oliver
But much has changed over the past decade, with the five-strong, all female crew taking to the water for their first women only mission, a training exercise in the North Sea, last month.
Lifeboat Operations Manager Kay, a former police officer and teacher who now works as an assistant professor and head of education at Northumbria University, said: ‘It was a momentous occasion and we felt very proud. Launching an all-female team is something we’ve aspired to for a little while.
‘We’ve spent a number of years trying to get more women into the station. It feels like this shouldn’t be news in this day and age, but there is still a way to go with gender equality.
'Women in all kinds of jobs have to work harder than men to achieve certain things.’
Her daughter, Anna, 26, an RNLI fundraising manager, made history in May 2021 when she became the first female helmswoman in the station’s 170-year history, having volunteered at the station for
