The Lifeboat Station Project has been peppered with all kinds of stories and happenstances over the years but there’s one layer to this coastal cake that I couldn’t possibly have anticipated.
Nearly 10 years ago, I introduced the With Courage Keyring — a simple leather fob bearing the motivational words of Sir William Hillary, the founder of the RNLI:
With Courage, Nothing Is Impossible
I’d concentrated on producing prints and postcards to support the project up to that point, so to sell a different kind of luxury item felt like another thing altogether and a little bit of a risk.
After much deliberation, I placed my very first order for 25 keyrings with the supplier and announced it online. The orders started flooding in straight away and I had to increase the quantity to 200 by the end of that weekend!
The excitement was palpable as the first keyrings started to land with their new owners. Soon afterwards, Simon from Cardigan RNLI sent me a picture which I found very moving — he’d clipped his new keyring to his emergency pager:
I asked if he would mind me sharing it online. This sequence of photographs best describes what happened next:
I don’t think I’ll ever get over these montages. Isn’t it wonderful that so many lifeboat volunteers now have Sir William’s words clipped to their emergency pagers?
I love that such a simple item had struck a chord with the very people I was documenting around the coast of the UK and Ireland; it was a clear sign that The Lifeboat Station Project was engaging people on a level that far transcended the glass plate photographs.
The keyring’s success continued for several years. It’s not just clipped to emergency pagers, of course, but to hundreds of keys in all kinds of contexts around the world.
I also released two limited editions of 238 (one for each lifeboat station), which sold out incredibly quickly — especially the orange and blue edition which were all snapped up in under 2 hours!
IT’S BACK
Now, nearly a decade after its first release, I’m bringing the With Courage Keyring back at a time when we all need such motivational words more than ever.
They’re currently being made by the same craftsman to the same exacting standards and I will start shipping them by the end of this month.
Order yours via this brand new page:
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