Posted By: Peter J Hill
First days in the service - 11/20/09 12:16 AM
I've found myself with a bit of time on my hands, so as there is no time like the present I thought I would honour my pledge by telling you what it was like for me as a lighthouse keeper.
I am always asked what attracted me to the lighthouse service, in a way I am a bit of a romantic at heart but I also have my feet placed firmly on the ground. I had not long come out of the Army and had found the first couple of years of married life a bit of a struggle so what I yearned for more than anything was stability. My wife had just lost her mother and at the time we were living 409 miles away in Basildon, so moving to Scotland was a priority even if I found little in the way of work to start with.
It was not a certainty that I would be accepted into the service, Margaret didn't need much convincing it would be a good step for us and like me she is a bit of a romantic; she used to have this plaster of paris model of a lighthouse ( a holiday souvenier) of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse. In truth it looked nothing like it in life and little did we know at the time that Margaret would fulfil her childhood dream of living at the Mull of Galloway. For now though that would be in the future, my application had to be accepted.
After going through the process and having to wait for a while at last I had to report to Edinburgh to be measured for my uniform and to get instructions for my first posting as a supernumerary lightkeeper. I would not get my dress uniform unil I was appointed Assistant; so until that day I would wear a boiler suit and a navy pullover. The dress uniform was made to the same exacting standards as the Royal Navy Officers, (in fact the Northern Lighthouse Board used the same tailor as the RN. The only difference was in the badges of rank the buttons and the hat emblems. As an assistant I would have no arm insignia and my hat would carry the emblem of rope braid with a lighthouse in the centre.
Principal Keepers would have arm insignia of a lighthouse in the centre of laurels and the hat emblem was much the same. It was a uniform to be proud of but for the moment I would have to make do with the boiler suit and wooly pully.
My first posting was back the way I had come earlier in the day but further on by train to Stranraer and the a taxi the seven miles to Killantringan Lighthouse. The nearest town was Port Patrick which just happens to be the closest point from Scotland to Ireland, at 18 miles and good weather it was always a nice vista.
I was a bit nervous when I arrived and as it was 8.30 pm darkness had fallen and the light was lit; so I had my first glimps of a lighthouse as the taxi made its way down the single track road.
I was not expected to start straight away and what is more Bill Rosie the PLK and his family had prepared a nice supper for me. Nothing could have done more in the way of welcoming me into the service than that simple act of hospitality.
Next morning I awoke to the sounds of the foghorn going off at 4 am. Later on Bill would instruct me on how to start the fog horn but for now I was too inquisitive, so had to take a peek out. The fog was thick so as you could hardly see any of the lighthouse buildings at all. In the end I went back to my bed to read a book and fell asleep after half an hour or so. That was the thing with foghorns once you got used to them they disappeared into the background.
When I got up at eight the foghorn had ceased and by the time I turned out for work at nine you would have thought that there hadn't been any fog at all.
The engine room was attached to the light-tower and there were three big Kelvin diesel engines with compessors for the diaphone foghorn. It took two to keep the big air receivers full of air to power the horn. The engines were started with petrol but ran on diesel, if they were warm as two of them were,it was possible for them to start on diesel but the one that had been idle needed to be cold started by filling a resevior and injecting petrol into the cylinder heads. A starter motor turned the engine over and provided the spark for the ignition but once the engine had momentum a lever was thrown across and diesel was injected into the cylinder head compression and combustion did the rest, all that was left to do was to throttle up. The light was provided by a mercury vapour lamp and it was enhanced and given character by lenses, the mercury vapour lamp was in use since the sixties but the lenses had been in operation since before the turn of the twentieth century. A clockwork mechanism rotated the lense carriage and had to be wound up every forty minutes. So delicate was the mechanism that only minor adjustments had to be made in order to keep it turning to character. In winter we had to put old pennies onto the counter weight, and when asked what or entering into the log the state of the light we would refer to how much in money was on the weight. If it ever got to two shillings and eight pence in relation to the temperature it was considered time to clean the carriage and replace the oil. If the electricity failed then we would have to light a liverpool lamp ( a bit like a hurricane lamp but less powerful ).First of all you would have to dismantle the mercury vapour lamp assembly and place the liverpool lamp in its place.
I liked Killantringan and I liked the Keepers there, you could not have asked for a better crew on your first posting. Killantringan was a shore station so the keepers lived with their families on station. Port Patrick was only three miles away and I loved walking there on my days off.
Supernumerary means spare, so after a Keeper came back from his two weeks holiday I found myself with plenty of spare time.I was there for four weeks and at that time it looked like that was going to be the pattern. Four weeks away a week or two at home then away again for another four weeks. The Northern Lighthouse Board has a favorite word and that is exegencies and I was to be bound by it throughout my service.
I am always asked what attracted me to the lighthouse service, in a way I am a bit of a romantic at heart but I also have my feet placed firmly on the ground. I had not long come out of the Army and had found the first couple of years of married life a bit of a struggle so what I yearned for more than anything was stability. My wife had just lost her mother and at the time we were living 409 miles away in Basildon, so moving to Scotland was a priority even if I found little in the way of work to start with.
It was not a certainty that I would be accepted into the service, Margaret didn't need much convincing it would be a good step for us and like me she is a bit of a romantic; she used to have this plaster of paris model of a lighthouse ( a holiday souvenier) of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse. In truth it looked nothing like it in life and little did we know at the time that Margaret would fulfil her childhood dream of living at the Mull of Galloway. For now though that would be in the future, my application had to be accepted.
After going through the process and having to wait for a while at last I had to report to Edinburgh to be measured for my uniform and to get instructions for my first posting as a supernumerary lightkeeper. I would not get my dress uniform unil I was appointed Assistant; so until that day I would wear a boiler suit and a navy pullover. The dress uniform was made to the same exacting standards as the Royal Navy Officers, (in fact the Northern Lighthouse Board used the same tailor as the RN. The only difference was in the badges of rank the buttons and the hat emblems. As an assistant I would have no arm insignia and my hat would carry the emblem of rope braid with a lighthouse in the centre.
Principal Keepers would have arm insignia of a lighthouse in the centre of laurels and the hat emblem was much the same. It was a uniform to be proud of but for the moment I would have to make do with the boiler suit and wooly pully.
My first posting was back the way I had come earlier in the day but further on by train to Stranraer and the a taxi the seven miles to Killantringan Lighthouse. The nearest town was Port Patrick which just happens to be the closest point from Scotland to Ireland, at 18 miles and good weather it was always a nice vista.
I was a bit nervous when I arrived and as it was 8.30 pm darkness had fallen and the light was lit; so I had my first glimps of a lighthouse as the taxi made its way down the single track road.
I was not expected to start straight away and what is more Bill Rosie the PLK and his family had prepared a nice supper for me. Nothing could have done more in the way of welcoming me into the service than that simple act of hospitality.
Next morning I awoke to the sounds of the foghorn going off at 4 am. Later on Bill would instruct me on how to start the fog horn but for now I was too inquisitive, so had to take a peek out. The fog was thick so as you could hardly see any of the lighthouse buildings at all. In the end I went back to my bed to read a book and fell asleep after half an hour or so. That was the thing with foghorns once you got used to them they disappeared into the background.
When I got up at eight the foghorn had ceased and by the time I turned out for work at nine you would have thought that there hadn't been any fog at all.
The engine room was attached to the light-tower and there were three big Kelvin diesel engines with compessors for the diaphone foghorn. It took two to keep the big air receivers full of air to power the horn. The engines were started with petrol but ran on diesel, if they were warm as two of them were,it was possible for them to start on diesel but the one that had been idle needed to be cold started by filling a resevior and injecting petrol into the cylinder heads. A starter motor turned the engine over and provided the spark for the ignition but once the engine had momentum a lever was thrown across and diesel was injected into the cylinder head compression and combustion did the rest, all that was left to do was to throttle up. The light was provided by a mercury vapour lamp and it was enhanced and given character by lenses, the mercury vapour lamp was in use since the sixties but the lenses had been in operation since before the turn of the twentieth century. A clockwork mechanism rotated the lense carriage and had to be wound up every forty minutes. So delicate was the mechanism that only minor adjustments had to be made in order to keep it turning to character. In winter we had to put old pennies onto the counter weight, and when asked what or entering into the log the state of the light we would refer to how much in money was on the weight. If it ever got to two shillings and eight pence in relation to the temperature it was considered time to clean the carriage and replace the oil. If the electricity failed then we would have to light a liverpool lamp ( a bit like a hurricane lamp but less powerful ).First of all you would have to dismantle the mercury vapour lamp assembly and place the liverpool lamp in its place.
I liked Killantringan and I liked the Keepers there, you could not have asked for a better crew on your first posting. Killantringan was a shore station so the keepers lived with their families on station. Port Patrick was only three miles away and I loved walking there on my days off.
Supernumerary means spare, so after a Keeper came back from his two weeks holiday I found myself with plenty of spare time.I was there for four weeks and at that time it looked like that was going to be the pattern. Four weeks away a week or two at home then away again for another four weeks. The Northern Lighthouse Board has a favorite word and that is exegencies and I was to be bound by it throughout my service.