Aberdyfi man who's spent 50 years saving lives at sea - and on land

On a cold afternoon in January this year, Aberdfyi Search and Rescue Team (SaRT) received a call from a farmer whose sheepdog had fallen into a quarry near Pennal and was stranded on a ledge. Heading out to the scene in the gathering dusk, the team set up a rope system so they could lower a volunteer down the rock face and bring the dog back up to safety.

Helping to coordinate the rescue was David Eilian Williams MBE, a member of Aberdfyi SaRT for 50 years. He's been part of Aberdfyi Lifeboat for the same amount of time - and over five decades has saved countless lives from both the mountains and the sea.

In fact, David had only just joined the lifeboat crew when he rescued a father and his three children from the water, earning him his first award, a bronze RNLI medal, which he received from the Duke of Kent in London.

"I joined Aberdfyi Lifeboat in May 1974, did a couple of training exercises and helped out on a couple of shouts (callouts)," recalls David. "Then in July I had my third shout. There'd been a storm a couple of days earlier and there was still a big sea running. A family of four had gone out in a cabin cruiser, and as they got to the bar, where the Dyfi estuary meets the sea, the father was thrown out of the boat. The eldest child, who was about 13, had the common sense to throw him a lifejacket, but she and her two siblings were left in the boat at the mercy of the sea."

Alerted by a member of the public, David and two other volunteers jumped into the lifeboat and set out for the bar, only to encounter waves that were higher than the 21ft length of the vessel. "Eventually we managed to cross the bar and follow the tide, which had turned. We were able to pick up the father, who'd drifted a mile towards Aberystwyth, but there was no sign of the cabin cruiser."

After handing the man over to the coastguard, the crew resumed their search for the children.

"Suddenly we saw something on a sandbank to the south of the estuary, and there were the three children, along with debris from the boat, which had broken up and sunk."

Locating the youngsters was one thing; getting to them was another matter. "We got in as close as we dared, but the waves were very big, so we couldn't get the boat right up to the sandbank."

After dropping anchor, David - a keen surfer and canoeist - sprang into the water to rescue the children, half-swimming, half-surfing to reach them. He was then able to help them across the channel to the coastguard on the Borth side of the estuary. Although cold and shocked, they were otherwise unharmed. 

David has lived most of his life next to the sea. Born in Llanberis, he moved to Tywyn when he was four. "My father was a quarryman and was offered a job at Tonfanau. He also worked at the quarry in Corris, just before it shut down, and at Aberllefenni."

At school, David was heavily into sport, and when becoming a PE teacher was suggested to him, he decided to give it a go, enrolling at teacher training college in Cearleon, now part of the University of Wales.

"I had three years there, during which I met my late wife Pam, before moving to Bedfordshire, where I worked in a large, well-equipped school in Luton."

During the long summer college vacations, David had worked at Outward Bound in Aberdfyi and thoroughly enjoyed it, so after four years in Luton he applied for an instructor's job there. "I arrived in April 1974 - and stayed for 20 years, ending up as chief instructor."

At the time David joined, Aberdfyi Outward Bound had become the centre for the local mountain rescue team, so he became part of that too. "Coincidentally, RNLI Aberdfyi had just had a new lifeboat, and I was asked if I'd join the crew - so I did that as well!"

Although the number of lifeboat shouts has remained steady at about 20 a year, Aberdfyi SaRT callouts have shot up from about 20 in the 1970s to an average of one a week now. One reason for the steep rise, says David, is social media - with people being drawn to wild, remote locations after viewing photos and videos on the likes of Instagram and TikTok. 

"Social media has definitely played a part. Other reasons are the sheer volume of people coming into the area and the lack of experience and skills needed for the terrain. There's also the fact that people overly rely on smart phones these days: rather than carrying a map and torch with them, they use the ones of their phone. But what they often don't take into consideration is that when the weather's cold, a phone battery doesn't last as long as it does in warm conditions, so they get caught out."

David helps with a mountain rescue

After 20 years at Outward Bound, it was time for a change, and David became a warden - later, senior warden - for the southern end of Eryri National Park (Snowdonia). "The experience and skills I had lent themselves to the job, plus being local was useful, as a lot of the work involved dealing with landowners, many of whom I'd been at school with. It helped massively that I was a native Welsh speaker and I wasn't someone from London telling them how to run their hill farm!"

Having settled in Aberdfyi with Pam and their two children, Sian and Glyn, David became a member of the village community council in 1991. He's been a member ever since and has held the position of chairman three times.

Over the years, David has seen lots of changes - as well as a lack of change. On the controversial topic of second homes and the recently introduced Article 4, he says: "A lot of it is politicking. What the council and the government are trying to do is blame high house prices on second homes, but market forces would have pushed them up anyway. If you want to encourage young people to stay in the area, then do something about the quality of work that's on offer - work that would generate the kind of salary needed to buy a house. Even in the '60s, you had to leave if you wanted too do something different: I had to go to south Wales, one of my sisters went to Wrexham to train as a nurse and all my friends left to get a career elsewhere because there were so few jobs on offer here."

Not that David would want to live anywhere else, for the sea and the mountains provide him with the volunteer rescue work he's loved doing for so long - work that in 2014 earned him an MBE.

"I received the award from Prince William at Buckingham Palace, which was rather nice because he'd just finished his stint at RAF Valley, during which we'd worked with him on a few jobs."

Most 75-year-olds who'd spent half a century serving the local community would probably think they'd earned a rest - but not David. As well as his continuing roles with the community council and Aberdfyi SaRT, he remains Chair of Aberdfyi Lifeboat. 

"I've got far more out of it than I've given," he insists. "I wouldn't have done it for 50 years unless I enjoyed being part of it. There's something very special about working with like-minded people who all have the same motive and focus. And, as volunteers, the rescue work is only possible with the support of family and local employers; they are the unsung heroes!

"I've been involved in thousands of rescues and it's very satisfying to know I've helped save people's lives - but it's always about the next one rather than the ones that went before."

David with two of his four grandchildren

Aberdyfi Lifeboat

  

Coordinating a rescue

Rescuing a sheepdog from a quarry near Pennal