By Sarah Lagan
Morecambe’s weekly newspaper The Visitor has received a special RNLI
award for its support of the lifeboat charity over the past year.
The paper won the award for its coverage of the lifeboats during the
cockle picking tragedy in Morecambe in February 2004, in which 23
Chinese workers died.
When the RNLI launched its Home for Hover
appeal later in the year to raise £250,000 for a permanent base for
Morecambe’s rescue hovercraft, Visitor editor Glen Cooper took the
appeal on as the paper’s official campaign.
The Visitor’s news editor Ingrid Kent also thought of producing a high-quality calendar, which raised £12,400.
Cooper
said: “We have always supported our local lifeboat station and
recognised the bravery and dedication of the crew, so when we covered
the cockling tragedy we paid particular regard to the implications, in
emotional terms, for those affected by the events of that night.”
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