Nick Scaife, who works at Whitby Coliseum and his wife Christine, hosted an evening of music and a supper at the Friendship Rowing Club recently for the service, which is not funded by the RNLI.

The evening consisted of an open music session where players took turns to entertain the audience with a number of different music genres including folk, bluegrass and country music and song.

This was followed by two more sessions held at the Endeavour on Church Street and the Runswick Bay Hotel on the following Saturday afternoon and Saturday night.

The supper was prepared by Nick himself and there was a raffle and auction of a hamper donated by Whitby Co-op manager, Denis Gilroy.

As well as many locals attending, support also came from people who had travelled from as far afield as Durham, Essex, Lancashire and Staffordshire.

The money was later handed over to Andrew Hargreaves, treasurer of Runswick Bay Rescue Boat on the Sunday morning and the lifeboat crew were then put through their paces during their weekly practice where they had to ‘rescue’ several of the people who had supported the event.

Nick said: “My wife and I have been raising money for the past 10 to 12 years. It started off with raffles, where the most we’d raised was £500.

“The atmosphere during the sessions was brilliant. We just went around the room and everyone took their turn to play.

“The Runswick Bay Rescue Boat costs £8,000 a year to operate and is not funded by the RNLI, which means this donation should help considerably.

“The reason we had chosen the Runswick Bay Rescue Boat was because it’s tangible.

“You can see it. The boys up there are always happy if you want to go and see what your money has done.”