Glasgow Humane Society officer George Parsonage’s rowing boat is a familiar sight on the Clyde – a welcome one for anyone in difficulty on the water.
He tells Scottish Field about his job.
My father was the officer for the Glasgow Humane Society and I was born in the lifeboat station. They joked we could row before we could walk. I started helping my father when I was 14, I’m 72 now. It felt like second nature.
We work a lot with the police, although we’re not on emergency call now. We still do about 20 rescues a year, just by virtue of being on the water, you are there when things happen. There’s no such thing as a typical rescue, not in a million years – I hope I never see another one.
Mostly we concentrate on prevention work, putting up lifebelts, inspecting the river. The university clubs and the boat clubs are all here. Our day starts early, but rowers are not allowed out on the river before dawn or after dusk.
When Glasgow Green was redone, we got the fence brought to the edge of the water (it used to be 40-50 feet away from the water’s edge). People want to sit on the bank, that’s one of the most popular parts of the park and people can now sit there safely; dozens of people drowned there in the past.
And we produced the GPS system that’s all over the river now, at most of the lifebelt positions, so in an emergency the police know where you are.
It’s dead easy hauling someone into the boat. The boats are built specially for that. There’s no trick to it, you just lift them in. You know that the boat’s not going to capsize. If you go to the transport museum, they’ve got a film of it because the old boat is there. It’s the only time I’ve ever allowed filming of me lifting someone out of the water.
If people end up in the water, it can be very sad for them, and even the ones it’s not sad for, they’ve made a mistake, so 99% of them want to forget about it, so no, you don’t see them again. I have no idea how many lives I’ve saved.
According to the Royal Lifesaving Society, they gave us an award for saving 1,500 people, but I’ve no idea. Prevention is best.
For more details, visit www.glasgowhumanesociety.com.
This feature was originally published in June 2016.
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