Not a
household name now, but one of the great
exemplars of
courage held up to us in earlier generations. She lived with her father the
lighthouse-keeper in the
Farne Islands off the coast of
Northumberland. On the night of 7 September 1838, when she was 23, a terrible
storm wrecked the
Forfarshire. She and her father William Darling
rowed out and
rescued many
survivors. For this they, and she especially, were received as
heroes. A
medal was struck in her honour.
She was born in nearby Bamburgh in 1815, and died young, in 1842. An old book I had, full of tales of heroic courage, impressed upon me the dangers of sleeping with the windows shut, because that, it said, is what did it in for Grace Darling.