Month: December 2020

Surrey SAR are now promoting a Lowland Rescue branded gin by Silent Pool distillery inappropriately named “Lifesaver” gin and people quite rightly are concerned about this. 

Silent Pool are a local gin distillery in Surrey and they do make some high quality products however we do question their partnership with Surrey SAR and question their moral values by making money via Search and Rescue.  Donating hand sanitiser was a great idea but selling alcohol in the name of SAR has over stepped the mark.

Alcohol plays a significant part in the final hours of many people either when intentionally taking their own lives or accidental deaths such as falling into water whilst drunk.  It simply isn’t appropriate for Surrey SAR or Lowland Rescue to be promoting alcohol using their name and branding. 

Surrey SAR get a mere £2.50 per bottle sold. We don’t see the Surrey Police Traffic Unit promoting alcohol as they know full well the harm that alcohol does when mixed with driving.  Surrey Fire and Rescue Service don’t sell candles as they know how many people died from house fires due to unattended flames.   It is a shame that Surrey SAR Trustees have such broken moral compasses and don’t follow suit, instead they take money from beer and gin sales knowing full well the role alcohol plays in the untimely deaths of those they are supposed to be helping.  

Comments on the What Ales Yer post raise some very good questions.

Trailer wrote “Today i saw that SURSAR have launched a Gin called Lifesaver. ( I then checked it was April 1st) Can none of their Trustees see that this is totally inappropriate for a Charity who’s prime purpose is to preserve lives? Surely they have been to enough despondent death scenes to remember that alcohol and drugs play a very frequent part in the ends of very unhappy and ill people. To blazen the LR lozenge on a bottle of gin over the name ‘Lifesaver’ leaves me dismayed. Where was their ethics when they agreed to this or approached Silent Pool asking for it?

Buck Tarbrush wrote “I’ve just been reading on Facebook about Surrey SAR gin now too. It beggars belief that a SAR team is looking to make money from advertising alcohol. I think the poster who says he thought it was an April’s Fool joke is on the money. It seems a very strange decision by the committee to back this one.

The only one of the individuals named in this blog I have met is the fat one who pretends to be in the army and given his attitude it doesn’t surprise me that things are as they are with your trustees.

I hope that the moral of the whole team is still high despite their behaviours.”

What more can we add, these posts? They sum up how people in Lowland Rescue are thinking. We too find the choice of name highly inappropriate.  Sadly it is not a joke and Trustees Dr Piers Page (Surgeon), James Rossell (IT geek), Seamus Kearns (serial job hopper) and Jill Thorpe (teacher) have made a conscious decision to generate funds from selling alcohol.  Dr Piers Page should know better but if any of the others had common sense they would have learned from the numerous searches over the years that alcohol does have a negative impact on the lives and deaths of those who go missing.   

Sadly Buck Tarbrush, morale is at an all time low on the team and the Trustees seem hell bent on destroying Surrey SAR from within. No one likes or trusts the Trustees except the few sycophants who are blinded by the bullshit. The Trustees all need to stand down and completely disassociate themselves from the team along with Jill Thorpe who is increasingly coming to our attention for the wrong reasons.

If you disagree with the Surrey SAR gin or the Surrey SAR beer then don’t buy it, don’t buy the products of those companies or visit their pubs.  We won’t be buying any of their products now that we have an idea of their ethics.