A CALLINGTON couple have recently celebrated notching up twenty years each in the Dartmoor Rescue Group.

Alex and Nicki Lyons have helped find and rescue hundreds of people who have become lost or trapped on the moor, both averaging around twenty call-outs each year, during their two decades of service.

Nicki has completed all twenty years with Tavistock section, while Alex has completed sixteen years with Tavistock, having spent the previous four with the Plymouth section.

The couple met before they signed up for the Dartmoor Rescue Group.

Both have been members of the Dartmoor Rescue executive group committee.

They are also members of the Search and Rescue Dog Association.

Alex graded his first dog Scruff in February 1987, and Nicki graded her first dog Dart a year later.

In December 1988, with other dog handlers from all around the country they attended the Lockerbie air disaster.

Alex is now training his fourth dog and Nicki is training her third.

Alex said training rescue dogs was 'fairly physically demanding' work.

'We start training a dog at around six-months-old and it takes about two years before we grade them.'

Alex said the culmination of a rescue dog's training came at a four-day assessment at which the dog has to search for five or six hours each day, for people hiding across two large areas.

Nicki is at present chairman of the Search and Rescue Dog Association of England, and Alex is training co-ordinator for Graded Search Dogs.

l Alex and Nicki Lyons are pictured on Dartmoor with their dogs Aiken and Bluie.