Oban Lifeboat’s bell emigrates to Melbourne with first male baby born on board

A baby who bounced into the record books as the first boy born on board the Oban lifeboat will have something special tucked in his suitcase when he emigrates to Australia.

Taking up around 2 kilos of 19 month old Van Harris Wilson’s 7 kilo luggage allowance, when he flies to Melbourne, will be his very own lifeboat bell, engraved with his name and date of birth.

The brass bell – an exact replica of the one on board Oban’s RNLI lifeboat the day Van was born there, in August 2009, was presented to the little boy and his parents, Junelle and Stuart, yesterday March 3.

Douglas Craig, Lifeboat Operations Manager at Oban, who presented the bell as the crew looked on, said: ‘It’s a navy tradition that if a child is born on board a navy ship they are presented with a ship’s bell when they are eighteen. We have adopted that tradition, but because Van’s family are emigrating to Australia we thought we should present him with the bell now, because it would be a long way for us to go when he is eighteen’.

Mrs and Mrs Wilson, who have been running a camp site at Craignure, on the isle of Mull, for the past three years, will leave the island to start their new life in Australia in May.

Mrs Wilson said: ‘I think it’s a lovely idea to give him the bell, it will be on show in our new home and it will be a good story to tell people’.

Van, who weighed in at 9lb 4oz when he was born, was delivered by a midwife from Mull, who accompanied Mrs Wilson on the lifeboat, with help from lifeboat crew member Donald Matheson (know as DM) of Oban.

Van’s  birth certificate gives his place of birth as Oban Bay. Mrs Wilson said: ‘I had been hoping to get in the birthing pool at Oban hospital, but we didn’t get there and he was born on the water instead’.

She revealed that her very own water baby – who was born as the RNLI relief lifeboat,  Edward Duke of Windsor, sailed into Oban Bay – can already say ‘sea’ and ‘pier’ and is a  good little swimmer. Mrs Wilson said that although the family love the west coast of Scotland they are looking  forward to moving to her husband’s homeland with Van and their other son, Jude, who is almost three. She said: ‘We are looking forward to the sunshine and the outdoor life’.

Van was the first and – to date - only boy to be born on Oban llifeboat, although three baby girls have also been born aboard over the years. However, the three brass lifeboat bells, engraved with the girls’ names and dates of birth, will be kept at Oban Lifeboat Station until their eighteenth birthdays.