Last night, Tuesday 10 September, I had the pleasure of attending a weekly training session with the Teddington RNLI crew at the lifeboat station.

The RNLI Teddington lifeboat crew are a group of volunteers who live or work within three minutes of the lifeboat station and are available to pick up their pagers at any time of the day and night to head out onto the Thames and rescue anyone in danger near or in the water.

The RNLI Teddington Lifeboat Station is the furthest upstream, with three more RNLI stations being situated at Chiswick, Tower, and Gravesend.

It's also one of the busiest on the Thames, and its crew members have weekly training sessions.

It has two D class life boats, which crew members use to rescue people from the Thames' murky waters.

Each Tuesday session begins with a debrief of any calls the crew members have had over the previous week whereby crew members can discuss the callouts of the previous week and go over learning points.

For the Station's Lifeboat Operations Manager, Matt Allchurch, this is "super helpful" as the crew consists of people from various career backgrounds, including the ambulance and fire services. There's even a lawyer among the crew members.

Following the debrief is the training session, where members can be given an imaginary scenario whereby they are called out on a rescue and aim to launch the boats in a timely but safe manner.

Last night's challenge, however, was an "extremely difficult one," said one crew member known as Chappers.

I was absolutely amazed at how quickly the team responded to the call; changing into their dry suits, attaching one of the lifeboats to their tractor which drives the boat down to the Thames, and emerging into the water.

The RNLI Teddington Lifeboat Station has two rescue boats and a tractor (Credit:Tilly O'Brien)

An event which, according to Allchurch, usually takes around six minutes from pager to hitting the water.

I also couldn't help but respect the crew members' enthusiasm for what they do, especially as it was a cold and rainy Tuesday night- it absolutely poured down.

Along with the two lifeboats and the tractor, the station also has suits for the crew members to wear, which are individually tailored for each crew member, along with helmets that have cameras installed, and life jackets both for the crew and anyone they might rescue.

The RNLI Teddington Lifeboat Station have specially tailored suits for each crew member to wear on call (Credit:Tilly O'Brien)

The RNLI Teddington Lifeboat Station Crew members wear helmets with cameras installed when on call (Credit:Tilly O'Brien)

According to Allchurch, the RNLI Teddington call are most frequently called to people having issues with their own boats, but mainly their calls are to people who may be in danger near the water.

While, understandably, this can be incredibly challenging on the crew members' own mental health, Allchurch said it is also "very rewarding knowing that we have saved people's lives, especially when they turn their lives around afterwards."

The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) is the charity that saves lives at sea through lifeboat search and rescue, lifeguards, water safety education and flood rescue.

The Teddington Lifeboat Station is one of the RNLI's newest lifeboat stations and is also one of the first to cover a river rather than estuarial waters or the sea.

It frequently holds fundraising events as it is funded almost wholly by donations and brings schools in to show them what they do.