RISKING his own life to save a suicidal man who set himself alight and threw himself off the cliffs at Daddyhole Plain in Torquay earned volunteer coastguard Eddie Weller a medal for courage.

The 58-year-old Berry Head search and rescue station officer was awarded the Chief Coastguard's Commendation for Bravery after scaling the rockface to rescue the burning man, who had become caught up in a tree.

Sadly the man died from his injuries five days later, but many other people are alive and well today thanks to Eddie and his team.

It is one of the best bits about his job, he said.

"Searching for and finding a suicidal person and giving them another chance is fantastic, the best feeling in the world.

"They are the ones you do it for. You feel such a pride when you've given somebody this chance.

"They've had a moment of almost madness, depression probably, and they didn't mean it.

"Quite a few of them are alive and well today, they've put their lives back on course and haven't done anything silly."

Devoting 40 years of your life to work voluntarily is a huge commitment, but he wouldn't change a thing.

Eddie freely admits he loves carrying out search and rescue operations because of the adrenalin rush.

"There are a lot of people who say they do it for the community, and of course we do, but we are all very selfish as well," he said. "It's a great feeling to help your community and give something back, but I'm very selfish, I like the adrenalin rush.

"You get to ride a blue light vehicle and you are making life and death decisions in a split second.

"It's totally different from your day to day work, it's exciting. I may be sitting here talking to you quite relaxed on the sofa, but if my pager goes off I haven't got a clue what I'm going to.

"It could be something simple or a it could be a major search for a person, or a person stuck on a cliff. It could literally be anything."

Joining the search and rescue arm of the Coastguard was a natural choice for Eddie, whose father was a regular Coastguard in Northern Ireland, where he was brought up.

"My father was in the Navy and joined when he came out as he had experience of the sea," he said.

"It almost seemed a natural progression for me that when I was old enough at 18 I could join.

"But I wasn't able to because in those days, even though I was brought up by a father in the Coastguard, they were reluctant to take me because I hadn't done any national service or sea service.

"It seemed natural to go into the rescue side of it rather than the operations side. I don't regret that because I'm a practical person and I would rather be out there.

"The date I started is a little bit ambiguous. They are trying to find out. I joined in Northern Ireland, where my dad was stationed as a regular Coastguard, on November 11, 1968 which means I should have completed 40 years' service last November.

"I moved to Brixham in June 1969 and I had to wait a few months before I could join here because I was waiting for a vacancy.

"I rejoined the Brixham team, as it was in those days, in October 1969 so I lost a few months in the transfer. If it happens these days you are automatically entitled to an immediate transfer whether there are any vacancies or not."

Of Eddie's three children, his son Ian, 30, has followed in his footsteps, joining Paignton search and rescue team four years ago.

"When he first joined he didn't feel he wanted his dad as his boss," Eddie said.

"He thought it might have caused problems in the team and that it would be more prudent to join the neighbouring team."

Even though they are in different units, Eddie and Ian work together a lot.

One of Eddie's proudest moments was when he coordinated a rescue at Berry Head cliffs in May last year, which resulted in Ian receiving his own bravery award.

Eddie said: "We had a young woman who went over Berry Head 18 months ago.

"Because it was such a big job I called for back up from Paignton. It started off as a search so we needed people on the ground.

"It just so happened Ian was selected to be the cliff man that day. I didn't go over because I'm too old now, but Ian did.

"That gave me an awful lot of pride. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind we saved that woman's life that day because Ian caught her as she jumped.

"Hopefully now she's been given the help she needed. Unfortunately for us we don't hear the outcome in the end, which can be hard.

"But I'm very, very proud of Ian. We back each other up a lot and we work well together as part of a team."

Twenty years ago, Eddie was presented with a long service medal. He has since added two long service bars to that, awarded after 30 and then 40 years in the job. And he is rightly proud of his achievement.

"There's not many of us in the country who have managed to do 40 years so I'm quite proud of that," he said.

Eddie is also the proud owner of an award from the Royal Humane Society for rescuing a goat called Pagan from a sea cave at Berry Head in 1993, and an award from the Marine Society for his part in rescuing three dolphins, including a beached one, in Tor Bay.

"The goat was up to his belly in water when we got him out," Eddie said.

"I was the cliff man in those days, when I was young and fit.

"When I got my award, Pagan came along too.

"A couple of years ago there were some dolphins in Brixham harbour in distress.

"We got an award for our assistance in rescuing them and getting them back to the sea.

"One had beached himself on the Breakwater Beach and we took going out in the water with him until they could refloat him. As far as I know, he's still swimming the seas today."

Eddie, of Queen's Crescent, is on call most of the time and says he is very lucky that his employer is happy to let him rush off whenever he gets a call on his pager, and that he has an understanding wife.

"We are always on call and you need a terribly understanding family and my wife Anne is a saint," he said.

"I remember once I was shopping with her in Paignton when our three children were small and my pager went off in Woollies.

"There was a major incident going on. It was the power boat race and there were boats crashing ashore all over the place because of the fog.

"I just took the car and left them there. Anne shouted: 'How am I supposed to get home with the kids and the shopping?'

"I told her 'There's a bus station around the corner'. She has put up with it over the years. You couldn't do it without 100 per cent support from your family as it can be very disruptive.

"My employer is also absolutely brilliant, they let me out any time of the day. I'm so lucky, they are fantastic employers."

Luckily for Anne perhaps, Eddie says he has reached the pinnacle of his volunteering career and is looking to retire in the near future.

But for now he intends to make the most of the time he has left as a search and rescue officer.

"I am at the top of my career and I'm looking to retire in the next couple of years," he said.

"Obviously I'm station officer these days, but I have progressed up through the ranks from an auxiliary to deputy station officer.

"It's my station, they are my team. I make the day-to-day decisions on what happens when we're out on jobs and it's a great feeling to do something like this, to come away maybe having found a lost kiddie on the beach.

"The mum comes up, puts her arms around you and says she was really worried.

"Just someone to say thank you very much, that's all you need, it's absolutely brilliant."

For years there have been eight in Eddie's Berry Head team, but now he must have a crew of 12 and is in the process of recruiting.

"I can always get evening and weekend cover, but it's daytime cover that I really need," he said.

"I need shift workers or somebody who works in Brixham or this side of Paignton whose employer will let them out."

To apply phone Brixham Coastguard Station on 01803 882704.