WHITBURN ROCKS

1. Last Wednesday neet down High Street West,
Coming hyem from the 'Benbow' with Jimmy and the rest,
There's Bobby, the owld lifeboatman, standing in a crowd,
And these were the words that we heard him shout :
chorus : "Help! Help! Will none of ye help me
To save two score men doon in the sea?"
.
2. Why, the wind blew terrible from the north-east,
It must have been force nine or ten at least.
And though a hundred men or more around Bobby flocked,
Not one of them would gan near Whitburn Rock.
Chorus
.
3. Then up steps young Stanley Smith from Eglington Street,
A butcher's apprentice just aged seventeen,
He says : "I never rowed a boat in all of me life,
But I'll help ye man your lifeboat if I might".
Chorus
.
4. Then Bobby looks down at this skinny bit lad,
He says : "It maks a working man fair gan mad.
This butcher's apprentice'll put ye all to shame.
If them men are lost, ye'll be all to blame."
Chorus
.
5. Then the wives and the lasses looked at their men,
And Bobby had offers a hundred and ten.
Afore young Stanley Smith's name ye could say,
They'd saved every hand and were back again.
Chorus
.
6. When the job was done, they milled all about
The twenty good men who took the boat out,
But for the young butcher's lad some courage for to teach,
There'd be forty dead washed up on Marsden Beach.
Chorus

At one time, before a coxwain could launch his lifeboat, he had to run round the pubs and streets, searching for volunteers. Many lives must have been lost because of the delay. Whitburn Rocks lie to the north of Sunderland, and once posed a great threat to shipping. These days, ships are too big to come that close to shore.