TRIBUTES were paid at Staithes and Runswick RNLI’s Lifeboat Weekend to the nine-year-old girl who tragically died on the coastline last week.

The lifeboat teams thanked all who turned out for their hugely successful Lifeboat Weekend which raised more than £14,000 for the lifesaving charity.

An estimated 3,000 visitors descended on the two villages over the three day celebrations.

Organisers were delighted with the public support, especially as the event came so soon after the dreadful tragedy of Harriet Forster’s death only 48 hours earlier.

Harriet, who was visiting North Yorkshire from Oxford, died on August 8 in a rockfall at Seaton Garth.

She was remembered by a minute’s silence at the Lifeboat Weekend’s closing Thanksgiving services at both Staithes and Runswick Bay where Rev Alan Coates, the station chaplain, read out a specially dedicated prayer.

Lifeboat Weekend co-ordinator Colin Harrison said: “The public response was fantastic.

“It was a weekend tinged with sadness but the money raised goes a very long way in training and equipping our crew so that we can go on and give the best help we can when the call comes in.’

“And very big thanks to our volunteer crew who give so much of their free time to make this event such a success.”