We're making a music video-but I can't play, or even act

I am in a lifeboat station on the south coast, standing beneath the stern of a rescue vessel, wearing a borrowed fisherman's jumper and holding a banjo. There are lights on me, and I am very much at sea.

- Tim Dowling

My band has recorded a Christmas song to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), and we are here to make the music video. As usual, the shoot consists of a group of young people ordering a group of old people to do mildly humiliating things while filming them, like a care home scandal drama set to music.

Beyond the lights there's a small crowd of RNLI volunteers, their families and friends. They are dressed in festive knitwear with Christmas lights strung above their heads, even though it's November. The effect is a little dislocating, but that is not why I am at sea.

It is traditional for Christmas songs to be recorded in high summer, by musicians wearing shorts. This song had an even earlier start: I've got emails discussing the arrangement stretching back to February. At some point a rival version emerged, which we all thought was a vast improvement until we heard the two side by side and decided the original was better.