MINEHEAD Lifeboat crew member Richard Huish has just achieved his life’s ambition - securing a full-time job with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

And not just any job, the 36-year-old volunteer has been appointed to one of the most high-profile posts in the entire lifeboat service - that of a Thames Commander.

Richard will next month join a team of eight full-time crew and 40 volunteers who provide round-the-clock emergency cover at Gravesend, one of four stations the RNLI maintains on the Thames.

He said: “I am absolutely over the moon.” 

The father of two, who currently works as an emergency care assistant, will be the second member of the Gravesend team to have come up through the ranks in Minehead.

Karla Thresher, the first woman to take command of a Minehead lifeboat, secured a similar posting last August.

Like Karla, Richard will be rostered for four-day duty tours but will remain a volunteer at Minehead whenever he returns home.

He joined the Minehead crew 12 years ago, eventually passing out as helm on both the station’s D class and Atlantic 85 boats.

Richard is used to coping with the treacherous tides and currents along the 30-mile stretch of the Bristol Channel coast covered from Minehead.

But he said he would encounter a different set of challenges at Gravesend, where rescue missions were carried out along a 26-mile stretch of the river downstream from the tidal barrier to Sea Reach.

Richard said: “It is a heavily industrialised area with a lot more commercial shipping, a big contrast with what we normally deal with at Minehead.

“Obviously, there is a lot still to learn about the operational area but I cannot wait to get started.

“I have been wanting to work for the RNLI full-time almost since I first joined the Minehead crew.”

RNLI Minehead local operations manager Dr John Higgie said everybody at the station was delighted for Richard.

Dr Higgie said: “It is not the kind of job you can just walk into. It is a highly-responsible position and one only people with the right level of training and ability can hold down.

“It says a lot about the RNLI that people like Richard and Karla, who join with little or no seagoing experience, can be trained up to professional standards, and equally their appointments say a lot about the general level of ability of the Minehead crew.

“Equally, we are particularly grateful that Richard will remain a highly-valued member of our team in between his duty tours at Gravesend.”