Two-lovable cartoon characters have returned to the fold after 50 years in a campaign aimed at people who forget to ask for the coastguard in a coastal emergency after dialling 999.

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency has today launched a promotional video to raise awareness and to mark the half-century anniversary of the service being put in place.

It comes in time for the Bank Holiday weekend and the school half term holiday next week.

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Research suggests 50% of people in the UK still don't know they can ask for the coastguard when dialling 999.

The new video shot on the White Cliffs of Dover uses Joe and Petunia, the cartoon characters used in the original public information film when the system began.

Julie-Ann Wood, head of maritime operations for the MCA, said: "We are hugely proud of our Coastguard service in the UK.

"We are one of the most technologically advanced in the world and it comes as second nature to call ourselves one of the four emergency services.

"However it seems that 50% of people still don't know that they can dial 999 and ask for the coastguard.

"So we are hoping that Joe will work his wonders again and remind a new generation."

The agency believes too few people know because they have not needed to call the coastguard.

It is thought these are more likely to be people visiting the coast from inland areas.

The one and a half minute 1968 film showed Joe and Petunia using 999 when they see a dinghy sailor in difficulty.

The clip became hugely popular throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The new film brings Joe and Petunia back in cameo roles but shows Coastguard and RNLI volunteers and staff in action, a Coastguard operations room, a cliff scene and a sea scene with a helicopter.

Kaimes Beasley, controller at Dover Coastguard Operations Centre at Langdon Battery, said: "When HM Coastguard was not in the 999 system we relied on receiving those sorts of calls more routinely from other colleagues in the police, fire or ambulance service.

"Our role in itself has not changed.

"When a member of the public or vessel calls us asking for some assistance then we provide that.

"What has changed is the methods by which we gather that information.

"The systems, radio and communications that we use obviously have changed as a result in improvements in technology."

Matt Pavitt, Dover-based coastal operations area commander for South East England, said. "We get calls for all manner of incidents.

"Some people are in distress on the cliffs, some people are lost, some people are injured."

Other calls can be for ordnance, such as wartime weapons, washed up on the beach.

Additional ones are for walkers who have not returned home or missing children, particularly at Camber Sands.

The Dover Coastguard station co-ordinates rescues along the coast from Lowestoft in Suffolk to Rye.

It uses the rescue helicopter from its nearest base, at Lydd, one of 10 launch sites in the country.

The present base at Langdon was built in the late 1970s so in 1968 one station was on the site of the present Bluebirds Tea Rooms at St Margaret's-at-Cliffe.

Members of Dover Coastguard also co-ordinate with French counterparts at Cap Griz Nez, west of Calais, in cross-frontier cases.

The 2018 film can be viewed on the web page gov.uk/government/news/the-return-of-joe-and-petunia