Living life on the Humber's edge

Spurn Point: An isolated community in the North Sea.

This thin spit of land stretches out nearly five kilometres into the North Sea.

Its constantly shifting sands are only 50 metres wide at some points.

Once home to a thriving community of military personnel the Point is now home to the UK's only full-time RNLI lifeboat base.

The crew, on 24-hour standby, live with their families in seven specially built houses.

Operating in the Humber Estuary, one of the country's busiest shipping routes, the lifeboat is frequently in demand.

Over the years, crew members at the station have been officially recognised for their bravery and dedication.

The first boat was stationed at Spurn on October 29th 1810. To mark the start of the 200th anniversary, BBC Humberside is presenting a series of programmes reflecting life on Spurn Point over the seasons.

Send us your memories

Do you have any memories of Spurn Point you would like to share?

Send an e-mail to [e-mail] and we will feature the best here on the website.

Your memories

From James Lodge, UK:
We (myself, my wife and - at the time - 3 young kids) were spending the weekend at our caravan in Kilnsea on 1st June 1974 and decided to go to Spurn for the Saturday afternoon and have a picnic "tea".

There was a cooling onshore breeze so we took up a position on the Humber side of the peninsula. Just before 5.00pm, as we looked upstream, there was a blinding flash and a huge fireball rose into the sky, causing very dark smoke clouds.

Our first thoughts were that Saltend had exploded, but I realised that it could not be and that it was further distant and the wrong direction.

One of the lifeboat men, who had been relaxing at the time, had also seen the blinding flash. He was old enough to recall the war years and described the flash as the biggest thing he had ever seen.

It was the Flixborough disaster, which devastated the Nypro plant and was the biggest peacetime explosion for over 30 years - until the Buncefield disaster just over 4 years ago.

Along with the others who were picnicking at Spurn, we "raced" back to the caravan site and turned on the TV's and radios to learn what had happened. Within 24 hours debris was landing - only small pieces - at both Spurn and Kilnsea.

I spent many a happy hour at Kilnsea and also at Spurn, but that was (and probably will remain) the strongest memory of them all.