Stargazing. Peter Hill

was just across the water from where we now conversed. He then went on to give me a brief overview of lighthouses and their upkeep before progressing to the detailed instructions outlined above.

      He told me that there are three types of lighthouse: rock lighthouses come straight out of the sea and as a keeper you spend all of your time living, sleeping, and eating in the tower. Coastal lighthouses skirt the British Isles and are on the mainland, allowing keepers to live with their families. Island lights are situated on uninhabited islands. I would eventually work on three of them. A trainee lighthouse keeper entering the job for life would spend 18 months serving short periods of time on many different lights around Scotland, as my taxi driver had tried to explain to me earlier in the day. They would also undergo strict psychological tests before gaining employment as prior to this there had been a few ugly murders and suicides – but Duncan spoke little of those, although others would later.

      Thereafter he (and there were sadly never any shes since the job had ceased being a family one many decades ago, when husband and wife teams kept the lights burning) would be posted to a variety of lights for three years at a time. In the space of less than a decade a keeper might find himself on a rock west of the Hebrides, then on mainland Orkney, and after that in an inner- city harbour station like Footdee in Aberdeen.

      Each light had three keepers and each keeper took two four-hour watches in every 24 hours. These watches rotated daily.

      Let’s say you were on from ten at night until two in the morning. You would then sleep until breakfast at eight (always attended by all three keepers) and then from nine until twelve two keepers would perform any duties that needed doing around the island.

      During this period the third keeper would prepare the sort of lavish three-course lunch which I had recently enjoyed. Usually it would be eaten at noon or one o’clock depending on the light and the whim of the different keepers. One keeper would be on lunch duties for a whole week while the other two spent the mornings working on whatever ‘84’ decreed needed doing about the place. Your next watch would then be from two until six in the evening but as a daytime watch it was usually a quiet period with only a few radio tests to make to all the nearby lights and coastguard stations. You would then have a night watch, a ‘Rembrandt’ as I immediately nicknamed them, from two in the morning until six in the morning, the worst of the three since you would be lucky to get an hour’s sleep before you had to be up again for breakfast. The following afternoon you would sleep. And so it would go on, seven days a week. The longest I kept up such a regime was eight weeks without a break and I can tell you I was ready for a pint of export and a ‘nippy sweetie’ when I eventually hit the high-life in Girvan.

      We were kept pretty busy. I never did complete many haikus or watercolours. The light had to be wound up like a giant grandfather clock every thirty minutes. Every twenty minutes we checked the air pressure to the paraffin and if necessary pumped it up. This was a subtle ruse to keep us awake and alert, as was the little hammer that banged away on the brass every second through the night – for a lighthouse is nothing if not the most phallic clock in the world. At the highest level the light itself burned and the giant mirrors, the reflectors, turned like a slow-motion merry-go-round supported on a huge bath of mercury. To light the paraffin one had to cause a mini explosion within the light room, allowing a small cloud of paraffin vapour to form in the air, tucking one’s face under ones arm for protection while igniting the gas with a burning taper.

      Duncan explained that many lighthouses still used paraffin as their source of illumination because the beam was stronger and travelled a greater distance. Increasingly, new forms of electric light were being introduced into the service.

      The most magical moments happened when we changed watches. There was an unwritten rule that the keeper about to head off for bed would stay up for an extra half an hour and engage in conversation with his colleague in order to help him stay awake. A large pot of tea would have already been prepared along with a plate of digestive biscuits and cheddar cheese. It was at these times that I really got to know my fellow keepers. One person would be consumed with tiredness, the other trying desperately to shake off his dreams. Magritte would have loved it. It was at that hour in the morning with the wind whistling like a devil outside that I would hear the tales of lighthouse murders and suicides. After bridges, lighthouses are a favourite spot for those who want to take a header from a great height.

      Isolation affects people in different ways, and island life can be utterly surreal.

      But I’m getting ahead of myself. At this point all these adventures were up ahead and I had still to work through a complete watch.

      ‘Come on, laddie,’ Duncan said, looking up at the grandfather clock. ‘It’s time to light the light.’