'Mr Price' Have you ever felt vulnerable near the sea? - top of a cliff, drifting off the beach or boating in bad weather - wind, waves and tide. Running through your mind will be the prospect of a disaster - that sudden realisation that the outdoors is so much bigger than you are. There could quickly come a moment when you are desperate for help. Risk is no longer fun - it's got serious. That moment of acute consciousness is when you need the likes of Mr Price. The British people, inhabiting this island, have a passion for the sea. In summer months we flock to the coast, some venture into the waves, some need to go beyond.

Over generations this maritime adventure has taken us to far lands and has given this nation its global reputation as a sea faring nation. This has come at a cost. Charts of the British coast show the marks of wrecks that each tell their own story of weather, misadventure and misfortune. Graveyards in these areas sometimes help tell the grizzly tale of lives ended in such disasters but for so many more, there is no mark on land for those lost to the seas. Back in the early 19th Century when our nation depended so much on nautical supply lines there were an average of 1800 shipwrecks a year. Sir William Hillary set out a plan for a large body of men to be trained and ready to help save lives at sea. And so, in 1824, was born the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. If you have visited the coast you will probably have seen the reassuring presence of those blue and orange craft that you had seen on telly, rescuing lives and craft. It's the RNLI, manifest in its lifeboats, crew wrapped in high-vis oilies and life jackets, helmeted, anonymous. These men and women - all volunteers - represent the bravest of our nation. As we might pray to be lifted from the worst of the weather and the sea, these people respond to the maroon, tog up and set off into the worst of it.

The autobiographical account of Mr Price will take you with them out into the face of danger. Chris Price, a craftsman and highly respected professional out in the gun trade, provides, tantalisingly, just sufficient insight into his private life to help us understand the motivations and relationships that hang behind the lifeboatman. Then, it's all about the team. The ups and downs of progressing through the ranks eventually to be called by the skipper to join the crew on a shout. It's written in Chris's own voice - you will get to know this remarkable character well, on and off the boat. The selected stories of just some of his such shouts reveal the true picture of what goes on aboard a lifeboat on operations. The people, their friendships and the utter reliance on each other to be able to do what they do. The weather, the sea sickness, the routines, the exhaustion. The sense of achievement in a successful rescue and the numbing emotions of body recovery.

You will be gripped as you travel with them. The excitement will be tangible, you will smell the diesel and the sick. You will be part of the team on board and with them you will laugh and cry. At the end of each chapter you will be exhausted. 'Mr Price' is a read for everyone. The life lessons flood out on every page. Only very few books convey the power of relationships and bonds that exist in small teams under pressure; this is one of them. For seafarers, it is a cautionary tale; for landlubbers it is a glimpse into the perils of the sea. For all, it is the story of real people putting themselves at huge risk to help others. It is spellbinding and an emotional roller-coaster.

Simon R West OBE. MA.