Capturing the drama of a Yorkshire lifeboat man at sea with the documentary maker dubbed television's own 'Indiana Jones'

A military plane had crashed off the coast at Saltwick Bay, but there were no survivors. He had stood and watched from the shore as the wreckage was brought into harbour.

It was an image that was to stay with the Bafta-award winning filmmaker as he travelled the world, bringing him back to Yorkshire where he would go on to found Humber Rescue from his own back garden.

Over the years he has attended more than 800 sea rescues, first as a cameraman capturing some of the drama, then as crew, station founder, and now as charity trustee.

Now he is returning to Whitby to share some of his story with Whitby Civic Society on Tuesday, November 8, on a life behind the lense.

"Seeing the lifeboat men, in their yellow sou’westers, that was amazing," he said. "That's how it all started. I never thought I'd end up running Britain's busiest lifeboat station."

Mr Berriff's lifeboat story began as a six-year-old boy, lying in bed with mumps on a family holiday to Whitby in 1952. In the early hours of the morning, he heard a plane overhead.

"Not long after we heard the lifeboat maroon rockets go off," he recalled. "The following morning we learned they had been called to a plane crash just off Whitby.

"We could see the lifeboats out, searching for any survivors. It was all very dramatic, to a six-year-old boy.

"That was the seed, I think, that planted lifeboats and Whitby in my memories."

Mr Berriff, now 76 and living near Northallerton, would go on to forge an incredibly successful career, first for this newspaper's sister titles as copyboy, then press photographer, then as a cameraman for the BBC.

Even as a teenage paperboy, delivering Saturday's Picture Post, he had been fascinated by the power of the black and white photographs in newsprint, he said.

In time, his skill behind the lense would see him become a documentary filmmaker, capturing dramatic scenes from volcanic eruptions to helicopter rescues, escaping a sinking ship and the Twin Towers while working with the likes of Royals and Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Still, that interest in lifeboats remained. Eventually, after his first feature film aired of a daring expedition down the Colorado River, Coxswain John King had told him: "If you can do that, on rafts and kayaks, you can certainly do it on the Bridlington Lifeboat."

It was to prove an adventure, which saw him dubbed an "honorary lifeboatman" with the Bridlington crew. When he wasn't on assignment, he would join them on missions.

Once, he recalled, the call came at 1am, in the middle of a force 11 northerly gale in "horrific big seas and squalls". A father and son were missing, they hadn't returned.

"I remember switching the searchlight, back and forwards over the front of the boat, while throwing up over the side," he said. "We were out for hours but we never found them.

"The following morning they were seen by a fisherman, 50 miles off Flamborough Head. They were alive.”

Mr Berriff would serve with the Coastguard in Bridlington, carrying out search and rescue patrols, cliff rescues, all in his spare time. Then, filming a BBC documentary on the building of the Humber Bridge, his attention turned to rescue facilities on the Humber estuary.

"I set up a coastguard station - at my house - and brought in 10 guys on the team with me," said Mr Berriff. " The problem was we didn't have a lifeboat."

There was a Mayday appeal with local media that provided the means. The boat was housed in his garden, on Woodfield Lane. They would launch it using a Land Rover. But soon demand outpaced capacity. A station was built, next to the Humber Bridge.

Now, Humber Rescue as an independent charity with three boats, is one of Britain's busiest stations. Mr Berriff was awarded an OBE by the Queen for his role in making it happen.

As a filmmaker and fine art photographer, Mr Berriff has survived four near-death experiences, most notably 9/11 when he was caught in the rubble of the Twin Towers.

There was a helicopter crash, in the Cairngorms, filming a series called Rescue. A fishing boat sinking in the North Sea. And a volcano eruption in Nicaragua, as he was filming a documentary on the first sailor to sail solo around the world, Sir Francis Chichester.

"It blew most of my clothes off," recalled Mr Berriff. "We managed to escape with our lives but I lost my camera. Everywhere I go, and I'm noted for this, major events seem to happen.

"All of that I will talk about at the Whitby Civic Society. Whitby still links very much back."

Mr Berriff is to share pictures and video from his life behind the lense in a special talk with Whitby Civic Society on Tuesday, November 8, from 2pm at The Coliseum.