WHEN Jamie Staple joined the West Bay coastguard there were no mobile phones, internet, Islamic state, Facebook, Google or DVDs.

The world might have change out of all recognition but what hasn't in the last 30 years, the retiring station officer said, was the dedication and camaraderie of the volunteer emergency service.

Jamie joined the West Bay team when he was 35 and in that time he's seen the service change with the world but he wouldn't change a minute of the last three decades, he said.

He was joined by colleagues, past and present, for a retirement farewell at Highlands End on Saturday.

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TEAM WORK: Jamie Staple at his retirement with friends Picture: TIM RUSS

Station officer Mark Collins paid tribute to him: "Jamie has served as the team's station officer, deputy station officer, agony aunt, disciplinarian, mentor, wet nurse, confidante and has always been the rock of the team.

"He has been the source of great wisdom, the dispenser of sage council and the provider of much banter and humour even after the most difficult of jobs.

"He is greatly respected by every member of the team, and will leave an irreplaceable void on his departure.

"As time goes by we forget the names of the people that we help. Their faces begin to fade from our thoughts, and we start to notch things down as ‘another cliff job, another dog, another search.’ "But there are many hundreds of people out there, men, women and children, who will never forget the day, that a man named Jamie, dropped everything he was doing, and rushed to help them, in their time of need."

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Jamie said he'd enormous fun with the two teams he'd served with - despite some of the tragedies they'd been involved with.

He said: "I have had an absolute ball for 30 years.

"We've done hair-raising things, we have been out together and had fun, but when we are needed we are professional. When we are not we can have a good laugh and have some fun together."

When Jamie joined they only had one piece of equipment, a breeches buoy, and it was used for training for two hours a month.

Training is still only two hours a month but the team is expected to do much more, from cliff rescues to mortar searches.

And the area is now much more populated by holiday makers, dive boats and swimmers.

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For all the work they do the coastguards only get paid the minimum wage when they are training or on call out.

But its very much a vocation, said Jamie, "The coastguard gets a very good deal out of us - we are not retained like the firemen so we get no retainer fee we get a minimum wage for our training hours and we get paid for any call outs, most people lose money so it is still very much a vocational thing that people do.

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"There are 12 men on duty, 24 hours a day 365 days a year who are prepared to drop everything on a cold winter's night- it's a hell of a deal - that's all the way round our coast."

During his career, Jamie has been involved in some of the most high profile events from the Lyme Bay canoe tragedy, to the search for abducted eight-year-old Gemma Lawrence, the murdered Jo Ramsden, the fatal Freshwater cliff fall and the Napoli shipping disaster.

And the drowning of a young man in West Bay in front of his father.

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Jamie said: "That one really sticks in the mind.

"We have had the amusing incidents, searching for people who weren't necessarily lost and if we'd popped into the pub first we would have found them a hell of a lot earlier.

"And of course we have a good few people who have come off the East Cliff. That is something that has really changed in my 30 years.

"We hardly every dealt with a body and if we did it was one that had floated into our area "In the last few years we have quite a few people who have fallen or jumped off and they are difficult to deal with.

"All the other services do that far more than we do but it still gets to you.

"One that really sticks in the mind is the father and son who went to West Bay after a day's work and the son decided he'd go for a last swim and he dived in and that was the last his father ever saw of him.

"I looked in his father's face and I've never seen such devastation.

"We have a counselling service but we just talk to each other.

"The last time I went over the cliff was off Burton. I just turned 60 and I was coming up with the stretcher with a dummy in it and I looked out and there was an absolutely fabulous sunset. I could see Golden Cap all along the beach you are 60 years old you are half way up a 200 foot cliff and it is just absolutely awesome."

Jamie said he'd had an excellent send off with a standing ovation - and a farewell present of a shed for his allotment, put up without his knowledge and complete with a brass plaque.

It was the right time to go, he said and he's confident the team can cope without him - and his son Danny is now taking up the Staple baton on the team.

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ON PARADE: The West Bay team

BELOW: With team wives, teams past and present at his leaving party: Pictures: TIM RUSS

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