Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
out of the door and up the tower; in the lightroom was the old boy fast asleep, his false
teeth perched on the table beside him. He quickly rewound the machine, the noise of
whichwouldhavewakenedthedead,buttheOLKslumberedon.Havingcompletedthe
rewinding, the off-duty keeper decided that perhaps discretion might be the better part
ofvalourandtosaynothingabouttheincident,whichispreciselywhathedid.Nothing
was ever mentioned by anyone, not even the OLK, who woke up shortly thereafter and
wondered why the off-duty keeper (staying to check the light was OK) was present
.
More than one keeper, who has spent any length of time in service, has mentioned
the development of an almost extra sense which they have found hard to explain, but
in the tower of a lighthouse at night, one would get attuned to certain normal sounds,
smells and what has been described as feelings, thus the presence of something oth-
er than those normal senses would be very apparent. An example of this 'extra sense'
was from a lightkeeper who explained that although they were supposed to remain in
the tower when on watch, in practice this rarely happened, particularly if there was
something good on the television (this was pre-video recorder days). The PLK at one
particular station was known to be in the habit of sometimes just standing in the tower
on the catwalk by the lens and saying nothing when others were on watch and went up
towind,whichwasconsideredtobeverybadformand'justnotdone'.Ononeoccasion
the keeper went through the door into the tower and felt straight away that something
was amiss. As he entered the lightroom he could see the feet of the PLK above him.
Saying nothing, the keeper rewound the machine then headed back down to the door
and grabbing the key as he left, he locked the door behind him and ran into his house,
switched the lights off and stood at the kitchen window and waited. After ten minutes
or so the PLK's wife appeared from their house and went up to the tower and unlocked
the door to let the PLK out - unbeknown to all, they had a spare key. Aside from this
'sense' developed by keepers, these little tricks may seem foolish with the passing of
the years, but at the time it was felt that they helped them pass the time, which other-
wise could hang heavily in their isolated stations
.
Another aspect of the isolation of lighthouses meant that the lightkeepers were not
overly concerned about being troubled by any 'outsiders'. One night, on Sanda, a light-
keeper was getting undressed for bed and had not bothered to pull the curtains - there
was no need, the lightkeepers being the only human inhabitants of the island. The night
was pitch black and he casually looked out the window to see a face staring in at him.
Apparently, his scream was something to hear. The face belonged to a member of a
yacht crew whose vessel yacht had come to anchor for the night on the other side of the
island. However, they had come right inside, past the pier, before dropping their anchor
and settling down. Fortunately, the bottom of the bay was both flat and sandy, for at
lowwater,thevesselfounditselfonitsside,highanddry.Thecrewhadwalkedashore,
