Largs RNLI champ tells of his ordeal and receives long service award

A VOLUNTEER from Largs RNLI who has just received his 20th anniversary award has told how he feels lucky to be alive for it after a near death experience last year.
Alan McNaught started off in 1976 helping launching the lifeboat but left the crew in 1998 and only received his long service medal over 20 years after leaving.
However, the 59 year old shrugged off his extended wait for his award after revealing to the 'News' he nearly died a year ago due to a health complication.
Alan, who worked as a gardener from the Largs Town Council days, said: "I nearly died on an operating table last February.
"I had had hernia operations previously and they used mesh on it and the mesh worked its way out of the stomach and weaved its way into the vital organs."
Partially sighted because of Albinism, Alan was primarily based on land rather than water when he was a member of the RNLI, and his role was mainly concerned with launching the boat and getting it out on to the water.
The original D-class boat was based where the concrete garages at Moorburn Chambers, and the launches which were much more physical then than nowadays.
Alan's late brother Malcolm was involved in the local lifeboat for 40 years, having passed away six years ago, and his nephew Malcolm is a training officer in the RNLI for Scotland and North England. 
Alan's late father Robert was also involved and helped provide a lot of the interior work in the first RNLI base in Largs in the 1960s, with Joe Duffield and Robert Watson. 
Alan said: "It was my job to get the boat out of the shed and turned and at that time, we didn't have a tractor to launch the boat.
"It was all manual labour.
"It took around three or four of us to get the boat out of the shed and this took place while the seabound crew were getting ready to get onboard.
"In those days it was a block and tackle hoist that we had to use."
Alan recalls a number of highly challenging call-outs over the years.
He said: "My job was more shore-side - we dealt with casualties when they arrived onshore if the emergency services hadn't yet got there, providing first aid."