Vogue was spot on when they wrote “The t-shirt may be a simple, universal garment, but it is currently fashion’s most powerful device for activism…the item functions as a threaded billboard, displaying thoughts and meaning on its blank canvas” (Nick Remsen 2021). This is so very true when we think about our own t-shirt. When the news first broke that the lifeboat was likely to be removed from the village of St Abbs in 2015, we all know that the community was galvanised into action in all sorts of ways. Today however we are chatting to Steven and Natalie Hill from Dunbar T Shirt shop and Karen Murray from St Abbs Lifeboat Trading company specifically about how our t-shirt was born and the impact that it had on the story of the campaign.
If you look at most success stories, it starts with simple human connection and in this case Peter Nisbet, designer of the original incredibly effective “Save St Abbs Lifeboat” logo knew Steven and Natalie who had recently started up a garment printing business in a little shop on Dunbar high street. Peter had done a lot of work on developing a plan for the campaign, designing materials, a website, social media and, as part of this work, he asked Steven to mock up a sample t-shirt using his logo. Despite living in a very lifeboat focused town himself, with its own RNLI boat and shop, Steven remembered a couple of hairy moments surfing at Coldingham Bay and, acknowledging that lifeboats are needed all along our coastline, decided that it was a campaign he’d like to help. A navy t-shirt with a white logo was therefore printed, given to Peter, and Steven thought no more about it.
The t-shirt however journeyed to St Abbs Village Hall where a packed meeting of lifeboat supporters loved it and decided that Rachel Crowe, who was one of the main initial “Save St Abbs Lifeboat” campaigners, would take it on, gather orders and sell the shirts. The mock-up t-shirt was given to her husband and helm, Paul Crowe, who modelled it down the harbour and from that moment on the t-shirt became an unbelievable success.
Steven was surprised when he got the phone call off Rachel in which she explained that all the other campaigners in the village wanted a t-shirt and her order book was overflowing. He had never envisaged that the “save” t-shirt would be for sale, or that it would be a core part of an emerging business for the Lifeboat, but the orders started coming in thick and fast. Divers that visited St Abbs wanted one, visitors to St Abbs who heard the lifeboat story wanted one, locals from far and wide wore them with pride to spread the word. Within weeks the t-shirt had become the unofficial St Abbs uniform. Rachel was at her kitchen table compiling stock and sales lists on wadges of paper and selling t-shirts out of the back door of her house. There was a sense of urgency that brought everyone to work together and strong relationships were formed between St Abbs and Dunbar T-Shirt shop. At this stage the petition to save the lifeboat, which ended up gathering 13,000 signatures was well underway – the t-shirts delivered it, press articles on the threatened closure were a weekly occurrence – the t-shirt was ever present in the pictures, and when 300 people gathered in a protest, almost all were wearing the distinctive t-shirt.
Steven recalls that emotional highs and lows were the name of the game at that time for his family and the business. News came that the “save” campaign had not been successful – the boat was to go and it looked like all the work had been in vain. Karen Murray, now a director of St Abbs Trading Company Limited, recalls the day the boat was taken away when people appeared from out of their houses with sombre faces to wish it farewell, and every single person was eerily dressed in exactly the same clothes – the ever-present t-shirt.
But then “save” became “support” after another community meeting where it was decided that a new independent lifeboat would be the answer. There was a lengthy email debate about which word was the right one to replace “save”, and the current logo was born. Now focus was really on the sale of any merchandise that Steven could get printed up to raise funds – hoodies, hats, tees, aprons, bandanas and buffs – all in the signature navy colour. He recalls how he and his dad, Gavin, were up one night until 2am frantically printing merchandise to meet the demand and as the shirts aren’t screen printed, they took a fair amount of time to produce. At home, his baby daughter and young son had no idea how totally invested their family had become in the campaign of a little village 20 miles away.
Next, the boat was secured and the t-shirt became a limited edition “launch” special and the family worked tirelessly to get these printed and delivered so that the harbour on 19th September 2016 was a sea of red with everyone wearing the new teacake coloured t-shirt. Gavin, Steven’s dad was absolutely delighted to be there and, as a self-proclaimed chocoholic, was thrilled when Boyd Tunnock threw open the boot of his car to reveal a whole trunk full of chocolate Tunnock-heaven. It meant all the hard work had truly paid off.
Then came the steady time of business development once independence had been secured for the lifeboat. Rachel, Karen and their faithful rota of volunteers were, by this stage, taking merchandise to markets, to stalls outside Morrisons and selling regularly in a trailer in the harbour, rather than out of Rachel’s kitchen. When it was windy, items were sometimes lost into the harbour, and when it was cold, everyone froze. Then, in the summer of 2019, thanks to the Harbour Trust, merchandise sales moved into the purpose-built shop. The relationship with Steven and his business remained the same during this period as they printed to cater for our demand rather than dictating order sizes and delivery dates as other companies would most certainly have done. This relationship remains to this day to such an extent that Natalie laughs and says when they are planning family holidays they discuss when the Lifeboat is likely to have “busy weekends” and avoid being away at those times. They are totally tied into our story, have been there for the whole journey, invested in our success and are one of our most faithful supporters in this respect.
Steven thinks the future is really bright in terms of our Trading Company which is run entirely by volunteers with two directors – Karen and Helen. He and Natalie had long been pushing for an online presence and have done a huge amount of voluntary work to develop the online shop which was launched last year. He enthuses about lots of online sales techniques which could improve our fundraising through the sale of a wider range of merchandise, and as ever they both help the process with many hours of voluntary input. Whilst Steven misses those phone calls from Rachel which would make him think “Oh god, its going to be a late one”, and he’s sad that he hasn’t had a bacon sandwich with Gus and Moira at the Food Hamper for a while as they no longer pop up to collect stock, he sees the story successfully continuing for his family business. The “little weird idiosyncrasies” that made the journey so much fun will always be happy memories, that distinctive t-shirt logo will never change and Dunbar T Shirt shop will always be a focal part of our Lifeboat story.
Our thanks go out to Steven and Natalie and their family.
