Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
as an OLK on the Flannans. The point of an OLK was to be available to fill in on the
Flannans in case one of the lightkeepers there became sick or indisposed in some way.
Eilean Mor, one of the lightkeepers had a mental breakdown and the other lightkeep-
er was severely incapacitated with flu. He tried to keep everything running on his own
until the arrival of the relief on the
Pole Star
which was four days away, coming from
Stromness via Breasclete. The mentally unstable lightkeeper had threatened violence to
both MacLeod and the other lightkeeper incapacitated by flu, which resulted in them
having to overpower the out-of-control lightkeeper and tie him up. MacLeod's view
was that this could have been a possibility in the case of the disappearance of the miss-
inglightkeepers, ashehadhimselffearedthebehaviourofthementally disturbedlight-
keeper.
3
Whilstfoulplaymayseemunlikelyatfirstsight,onemustlookatthenatureoflight-
house work to consider the context in which foul play could arise.
When a layman thinks of the life of a lighthouse man, usually one of the first things
that comes to mind is the sense of isolation and deprivation, the sense of an individual
physicallyaloneandfarawayfromhumancontact.Ithastobesaidthatthisviewisnot
necessarily correct but it does lean in the right direction that lighthouse keepers, by the
very nature of the job, are isolated for the most part due to their place of work. While
some lights were fairly close to towns or large places of settlement (such as the Isle of
Man), many were on rocks several miles offshore or on small islands (such as Eilean
Mor on the Flannan Isles). It may seem odd that some lightkeepers found that some of
the mainland stations actually felt more isolated than the rock stations, but this was the
case.
There is another occupation which has close parallels with lightekeeping in terms
of the monotony of work, the isolation of being cooped up for lengthy periods with
a couple of colleagues, and the physical distance from the nearest habitation. It may
surprise some, but the psychological aspects of space travel since its earliest days
have come to closely resemble the conditions experienced by working lighthousemen.
Numerous studies have described the boredom and psychological pressures of space
travel.Whilstspaceflightsaregenerally nowlongerthantheoriginalexpeditions made
by the likes of astronaut Yury Gagarin and the Apollo missions, it was found that in
missions of more than one and a half month's orbit, there were three problems en-
unrelated,butthethirdproblem,thepsychologicaleffectofspacetravel,iscloselycon-
nected to similar issues affecting the life of lighthouse keepers.
The leading medical cause of the termination of some long-duration missions has
