Happy anniversaries

Today is the bicentennial of the RNLI and to commemorate this, I drove down the coast to North Berwick to get today’s blip.

Founded in 1824 as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, it soon afterwards became the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck under the patronage of King George VI. On 5 October 1854, the institution’s name was changed to its current name (RNLI), and in 1860 was granted a royal charter.

The RNLI's lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved more than140,000 lives since 1824. The RNLI makes a distinction between people aided and lives saved. There were 8,462 lifeboat launches in 2014, rescuing 8,727 people, including saving 460 lives. Lifeguards helped or rescued 19,353 people. Flood rescuers deployed seven times. In 2015 crews rescued on average 22 people a day.

An organisation that this country can be mightily proud of. 

Coincidentally, today is also when John Cadbury, a Quaker founded Cadbury’s, in Birmingham. 

This well meaning Quaker company, which believed in prioritising its employees welfare, lost its independence in 2010, following a hostile takeover by Kraft. Certain promises made at the time have been broken inc. the closure of the Keynsham factory in Somerset, with the loss of 400 jobs, whose closure was announced by Kraft a week after they took control of the company. 

Much of Cadbury’s chocolate is now made abroad, in Egypt, Poland, America etc. That said, Kraft (under Mondelez) have kept a number of sites including the iconic Bournville, in production. I’m not sure now if I should feel guilty or not about my extra photo. 

Anyway, an important day for these two organisations.

Have a good Monday all.