Lifeboatman Daniel Potter is celebrating 20 years with the New Quay lifeboat.

It is quite obvious why Daniel's life led naturally into membership of the lifeboat crew, hailing as he does from a well known lifeboat family, the Davies of Rock Street. Two of his late mother Gina's brothers , namely Daniel Owen Davies and David Davies had long and distinguished service before him as members of the crew. Daniel himself joined at seventeen and worked his way up through crew member and second coxswain before taking over twenty years ago as coxswain from the legendary Winston Evans who had held the position for twenty nine years.

Whereas the position of coxswain is very time consuming, Daniel still finds time to run his company New Quay Marine and have part ownership of a fishing boat in the bay. He has also served as a local councillor for the last twenty years, having twice served as Mayor.

When asked to sum up his service so far, Daniel said,

" It has been an honour to serve as coxswain, a role I thoroughly enjoy. I am indebted to my friends, Winston and the late Mervyn Thomas, who taught me a lot about lifeboat operations and to the brilliant people who form the crew. We all have to rely on each other and I get tremendous cooperation from everyone concerned. We also have a lot of fun on and off duty. I hope to carry on as coxswain for some years to come and one day bring the Shannon into New Quay when the RNLI hopefully allocates the newer all weather lifeboat to us."

The photograph shows Dan at the helm of the all weather lifeboat, the Frank and Lena Clifford, in New Quay bay.