A WATER rescue team is marking their 20th birthday in a special way to honour their decades of service.

Ulverston Inshore Rescue is celebrating the milestone this September with a full-filled event in the town.

The life-saving service has been in operation for two decades, sparked by the tragic deaths of father and son Stewart and Adam Rushton who lost their lives during a fishing trip in Bardsea in 2002.

Coastguard teams were dispatched from Walney and Arnside after the distress call came in, however, it was too late for the pair who emergency services were unable to locate.

The incident led to calls for an emergency lifeboat to be placed in Ulverston to prevent such an event from re-occurring.

Ulverston Town Council held a meeting to launch a group made up of coastguards, Ulverston councillors and Duddon Inshore Rescue members to help raise an estimated £20k to fund a new boat and running costs.

The team, which currently has 14 operational volunteers and four committee members, was successfully set up that same year and is still operative two decades later.

Since then, the team has attended hundreds of incidents – most notably of which is the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster in which 21 Chinese illegal immigrant labourers drowned in 2004 after picking cockles off the Lancashire coast.

Mike Davis has been a volunteer with the crew for six years now, describing it as a ‘rewarding’ role which he enjoys.

In honour of their decades of service, Ulverston Inshore Rescue is hosting a 20th birthday fun day on September 18 at Glaxo Sports Club.

Emergency services will all be present alongside a hovercraft and other fun-filled activities including a raffle.

“We wanted to celebrate the milestone and remind people that we’re still going after 20 years,” Mr Davis said.

“We formed in 2002 after a father son were caught off by the ride and tragically died. The community really came together. After that, they formed – with the local town council – the Ulverston Inshore Rescue.

“It was set up off the back of that. At that time there were other rescue services nearby but none around Ulverston – it was well-needed.

“20 years on we attend around 10-12 incidents per year, and work closely with the coastguard and the Blue Light Hub in responding to incidents.

“We often respond to incidents where people have been cut off by the tide, help with missing persons searches led by police or respond to flooding incidents in Ulverston.

“It’s quite an expansive thing to run – there’s a lot of fundraising needed to keep us going.”

The event is open for all to attend.