Who was Grace Darling

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A.� Grace Horsley Darling was a Victorian heroine of the highest order. Born in 1815 at Bamburgh, daughter of lighthouse-keeper William Darling, she helped him rescue the survivors of the shipwrecked SS Forfarshire on 7 September, 1838. It was an astonishing piece of heroism that gripped the era.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Where and how did this happen

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Q.� And the passengers

A.�� Nine of the crew and one passenger escaped on the only lifeboat but many of the passengers, who had been in cabins below deck, were drowned. As the morning dawned, nine remaining survivors - five of them crew - were seen clinging to the rocks. Battling the high seas, and Grace and her father rowed the lighthouse coble, a short, flat-bottomed boat - to their rescue and then took them to the lighthouse. There, Grace and her mother tended to injuries and cooked meals. It was three days before the survivors could be taken ashore. A rescuer and a cook, too - what an example of Victorian womanhood!

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Q.� She became a national heroine

A.� Yes - the equivalent of today's tabloid sensation. Her biographer, Jessica Mitford, wrote: 'Grace Darling can be precisely and anachronistically described as the first media heroine.' At first, the newspapers made little mention of the rescue, and were content instead to criticise the ship's owners for allowing a substandard ship to put to sea. Soon, however, a correspondent got on to the story with thrilling, but deep purple, prose:

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Surely, imagination in its loftiest creations never invested the female character with such a degree of fortitude as had been evinced by Miss Grace Horsley Darling on this occasion. Is there in the whole field of history, or of fiction even, one instance of female heroism to compare for one moment with this

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Q.� And fame followed

A. Yes - although by all accounts, Grace hated it. Painters rushed to Longstone to capture Grace's dainty features, then superimpose it in a boat upon angry seas. Poets and songwriters wrote tributes:

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'Twas on the Longstone Lighthouse, there dwelt and English maid;

Pure as the air around her, of danger ne'er afraid;

One morning just at daybreak, a storm-tossed wreck she spied;

And tho' to try seemed madness, "I'll save the crew!' she cried.

And she pull'd away, o'er the rolling sea

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Q.� Any official recognition

A.� A public subscription for the Darlings raised several hundred pounds. The Royal Humane Society awarded gold lifesaving medals and a silver tea set. Grace Darling had captured the public imagination.

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Q.� And then she got on with the rest of her life

A.� Yes - but sadly not for long. She continued to live on Longstone Light with her parents, but was besieged with letters and visitors. She went ashore to Bamburgh in April, 1842, to visit her sister and caught influenza. She died in the October from complications – probably pneumonia. She was buried in Bamburgh churchyard before a vast crowd of mourners.

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Q.� Any memorials

A.� Her grave features a huge memorial, built after a public appeal - to which Queen Victoria contributed �20. A museum in Bamburgh is dedicated to her and St Aidan's Church had a stained glass window showing Grace's rescue. Most of all, though, she is remembered as an English heroine.

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Steve Cunningham