|
 | |  | |
My first trip out to Alderney from the mainland was quite a new experience, in fact it provided me with my first aeroplane flight, reminisced lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor. It was 1971 and I had to travel via Southampton Airport, which had a direct flight to the island.
It was an experience in itself, as when I reported to the desk I was weighed as well as my luggage. Aurigny Airways used the Britten Norman 8 seater aircraft which were well known for their short take off ability. I was sitting behind the pilot.
I was to discover that had I been heavier I might have sat beside him, as they tended to want the weight up front, which was a contrast to later when they introduced the Tri-Lander and seemed to want the weight at the back of these 16 seaters. It was a real thrill to be able to watch the instrument panel during the flight.
On arrival on the island I was picked up by Bill Gates the taxi driver and taken directly to the lighthouse, although I was not due on station till the following day. There I met the keepers, who were Eric Dove, P.K. an over large and obese person who had a bullying approach. He came from the I.of W. Then there was Paul Lee a young fellow of not much more than twenty.
I met Bob Williams who was on station at the time but being transferred away, and for whom I was the replacement. I was offered the opportunity to stay the night in the spare room in the tower. This. was used mainly for visiting workmen of which there were none at the time. I was told that I could order food from the local store and it would be delivered. That evening I went into town with one or two other keepers who had arrived and would be going out to the Casquets Lighthouse which was serviced from the island.
Going up the island was a big mistake, without having found out the local circumstances, which was a disaster for my stomach. The evening was very convivial, I was welcomed to the fold like a lost sheep, all of whom had congregated at the pub called The Coronation, this was run by a very nice fellow called Phil and his wife Pat who seemed to be the bouncing board for a host of people, and one in particular who was the K.I.C at the Casquets, Brian Quigley.
Most of the people in the bar seemed to be members of the local fire service, our taxi driver and the gaoler, so if nothing else they were all set for trouble. We were engaged in playing darts in large and compatible group. The free flow of liquor was phenomenal. Apart from the first round I don't think I paid for any more, and my glass was always full. I had recently found a liking for Drambuie and not expecting to be out long I had not expected what transpired.
I think it was 9 o'clock when I headed for town, expecting the pubs to close at 10.30 as at home. In consequence I had not kept a check on the time. Eventually I found it was past midnight, and then found that the pub would not close till 1 a.m. as we were on summer time hours. The taxi driver had arranged to take me back so I was in his hands. My glass continued to be filled with Drambuie and I had never drunk so much of the stuff before.
I got back to the lighthouse, where I had to climb all those stairs to my bedroom. I had a good nights sleep but was woken in the morning early as the keepers going ashore were catching the first flight out. As I was seeing them off I had this sudden urge to puke, and I am sure that all that came up was neat Drambuie, which put me off the stuff for a long time. Do we ever learn.
My first day was a revelation. My senior hand was Bob Williams, one of those for whom my reason for coming to the island occurred. He was morning watch that day, and in consequence had a sort of unofficial day off. This is really what led to such disorder. For the regime that existed here had a crazy shift pattern. It was that the morning watchman did from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. then he was day off till he resumed duty at 8 p.m. the same day. Which in ordinary circumstances might be fine; but in the system that prevailed and was followed by the P.K. included disappearing up the island ostensibly to purchase groceries.
Having done this however they then went on the booze returning when drunkenness had set in and being poured out on the lawn of the lighthouse. With Bob that occurred about 4.p.m. Where upon he went to bed, and was ultimately awakened to go on watch at 8 p.m. About 12.30 that night I was awakened by a vehicle pulling into the gravel yard of the lighthouse and the car lights flashing around the room.
I went to the window to be met by Bill the taxi driver who told me that the lens was slowing down. When I looked up at it I could see it was nearly stopped. I do not remember now if I was due to go on watch, but it certainly necessitated me making my way to the top of the tower and waking Bob to wind up the lens weights. He was in no fit state to do so, so I did.
The other keeper on station was an S.A.K. by name of Graham Smith, he had only been in a few months and this may for all I recall have been his first station. I found him an amiable sort of cove, with a reasonable intelligence. In fact I learned that he and two others had recently sailed a small open boat from Hong Kong to UK. Whether he had been a serviceman escapes me. He spent most of his free time in sunny weather playing a Guitar on the lawn.
During this first month aboard the Supt. visited the station, arriving in a car driven by Barbara, a lady who acted as barmaid at the Divers pub on the quay. I got to know her better later, as she usually finished work about the same time that I left the bar, and so drove me home. However on this occasion I found that she was in fact the Supt's girl friend and the reason why he made so many more visits to the Channel Islands than to other stations. Not forgetting that he was on transport and subsistence allowance whilst doing so.
During the course of his visit he asked if everything was going all right and whether I had had any trouble. Knowing that he was on friendly terms with all and sundry who had anything to do with the lighthouse I told him of the incident the first night I was on station. I also told him that the reason in my opinion that so much could go wrong was the system that was adopted, which was contrary to that of almost every other station I had been.
His reply was for me to change it. I pointed out that I was only the keeper in charge, and that it either had to come from him or he had to tell the P.K. His get out, was for me to tell him. I did eventually when he came back on station, but as I guessed it fell on deaf ears. Of course the system had been worked out by the likes of him for their own benefit.
My month continued to be good. Although I chose to walk into town each time I was day off, rarely did I manage to walk back, as always someone would offer a lift, and it proved very difficult to refuse as they wanted someone different to talk to themselves. I got to know a couple who ran a restaurant called the Old Barn; they were Kurt, an Austrian and his wife Aylene, who was a Tynesider.
One interesting aspect of this station was that with modernisation of the telephone system, there had come to the point of not having a permanent staff at an office for duty. They worked out a system, that as the Lighthouse was the only place that had a 24-hour watch this would be an ideal place for the 999 emergency system to be placed.
Arrangements were made with Trinity and the keepers were asked if they were prepared to perform that service. This meant that three phones were installed in the passageway down stairs at the lighthouse and another three in the service room at the top of the tower. The purpose of this was that more than one person might be reporting on a situation.
At the same time we would need a phone to contact the requisite branch of the emergency service. We also had a means of starting the fire alarm siren in the town. What would then happen would be the first man to arrive at the station would ring through to us and find out where they were needed. Although one often found that members of the brigade would ring in to find out if they were on the route to the where the fire was, so that they could be picked up as the engine made its way to the scene.
One other person who would ring in was the doctor to find out if his services would be required. There was a St.John's Ambulance Brigade on the island, and a purely local Police force. The constable was elected by the Senate, but during summer months this was re-enforced by two constables from Jersey.
Most of the cases that occurred were a combination of road crashes with stolen vehicles which involved all three services. They could not proceed against such joy riders, because being an island, one could not prove that the car was stolen with intent to permanently deprive the owner. The previous P.K.'s son was killed at the gates of the lighthouse not long before I arrived on station, although the family had moved off the island. He was there on a visit.
Later on they tried a manoeuvre to try and have radio control to the policeman when he was on patrol. This was a dead loss. They provided some quite heavy portable equipment. Unfortunately the lighthouse was on low lying ground with the bulk of the island blocking our signal, so unless the police car was within sight of us we could not raise him even if we went to the trouble of taking the set to the top of the building in cases of dire emergency.
It could be very frustrating. Jersey Police would pick us up, and try themselves to contact the car, but without success. Fortunately the policeman would call into the station twice a day, like many other people.
In fact we always seemed to have visitors and considerable quantities of tea and coffee were provided.
The grocer, the baker and the milkman called twice a day so there was little difficulty in getting things you wanted and really there was no need to go into town.
Came the time when my first month was over, Bob went ashore and Graham went to Casquets to perform his second months duty. Eric the P.K. returned with Paul Lee. Eric was a bully, being over 6 feet in height and weighing over twenty stone his size was in itself menacing. He could never leave people alone, always gripping them to hurt or getting them in bear hugs.
It was embarrassing and annoying. He never did it to me, perhaps he would have got some retaliation. He always picked on smaller people. One day, but I do not think it was this relief, following a conversation with Paul in which he had been complaining about Eric's attitude, Paul said to him, 'Harold reckons your a queer, always touching people.' You could have heard a pin drop in that crowded room. It seemed to do the trick though for I am sure there was less of this un-pleasant interference afterwards.
One piece of news that Eric brought back was that the replacement keeper for Bob was to be Ray Stone, this threw all conjecture to the wind, because Ray would be senior to me therefore I would not in future be in charge. He was adamant on this because he was in the habit of visiting the depot, as he lived on the I of W. The next time the Supt. visited to see his lady friend we brought up the subject, but he was still of the opinion that it was to be Dallas Stone as replacement, a man I had been with before, who had left the service and rejoined.
However, when the next relief arrived it was in fact Ray. My position was saved by a bit of fate to another keeper. Brian Quigley who should have returned to the Casquets had been taken ill, and instead Ray was to go there for the month.
It later transpired that Brian was believed to have had a heart attack and was eventually off for 6 months. He was to have been pensioned off, but he fought the decision, which I think was foolish, because he would have got a lump sum and a pension of one quarter pay, which in effect was half pension. He did eventually leave the service during 'cut backs', but is now dead.
There must also have been a period at this time, where either Paul was changing shift or had gone sick or was loaned to some other station. Because this particular month because of Ray's departure to Casquets we went short handed for a couple of days until a replacement was found.
This lad eventually arrive he was Melvin? Taylor. He came on station in a very bad state of health, Flu. or some such ailment. We sent for the doctor who had him admitted to hospital, where he stayed for about 4 days. When he arrived on station, he accompanied me to the lantern to become acquainted with the lighting up procedure.
This entailed going to the engine room first and turning on a valve from the fog air tank which supplied air to the top of the tower to save us pumping it laboriously. Having carried out this operation we then went to the I.O.B. in the service room at the top of the tower, where I got him to open the valve to let in the air.
I think because of the height of the tower, the pressure was kept at something like 84 lbs. I had told him this but he was not paying attention, so I got hold of his shoulder and pointed out that it had got up to 96 lbs. He jerked away, this was unfortunate, as I was standing awkwardly; having recently sustained a back injury, thus pulled me off balance with the result I grabbed him to prevent falling down.
After we had lit up I was at the top of the tower when Eric came up and said that the policeman was down stairs and wanted to see me. It transpired that as the S.A.K. went down the tower he had rung the police and made a complaint that I had attacked him and tried to strangle him. Which of course was ridiculous.
I had to explain to the policeman that the previous month whilst going through the performance of the 'Relief Clean' I had been cleaning the lens when it had taken charge and knocked me off the step ladder I was using and I had fallen about eight feet on to the collapsed steps and had badly bruised my back.
I was very stiff and in some pain and discomfort. When the S.A.K. had pulled away from me I had one foot on a rigid iron stand and I was leaning on an upright iron stanchion. When the lad had pulled away from me he pulled me away from where my weight was supported and my legs were caught in the steps. I had to grab him for support or I would have fallen badly.
It meant making a statement and everything, but nothing further was heard of the incident. I did tell the lad in the presence of the policeman, that I would strangle the little bastard if he did this again.
It was during the first winter on the island that I made a decision. There had to be something to fill in the time. It was either to learn to play golf on the Golf Links which was reasonably close to the lighthouse, or learn to drive a car.
The tester was a proper M of T Examiner. The day I made the intent to do something about it was wet, so golf was out and I went to the registered instructor. I carried out the course and was granted my licence. When I come to think of it, I think the area encompassed in the lessons and test was as complete a mix of competence and skills as I am sure will be met on most mainland test areas.
In Paul I found a very useful and congenial partner, he was a son of the fellow I had met on the Needles and was even more nature orientated. We spent many hours studying the Flora and Fauna, where he introduced me to many things I was not aware of. He had discovered some of these on his walkabouts with Eric, whose sole interest during the right season was looking for mushrooms, for which you might say he had a nose.
His other interest was recovery of golf balls which he audaciously sold back to members of the golf club where he was a member
Paul was also a very keen photographer and fisherman. his main aim always to do better than anyone else, which also probably accounts for him being a Twitcher. However I learnt a lot from him especially about butterflies and moths.
I made a very interesting acquaintance one day, brought about because of the wandering eye of Uncle Tom when he made one of his more than necessary visits to the island. This lady Mrs. Cornu, was a widow and lived in one of a pair of cottages close to the lighthouse, I knew her enough to say 'Good day ' to, but one time Tom had come to the island, and Barbara was unavailable to him. She had met a sudden and tragic bereavement.
Her daughter, away in Lancashire, had committed suicide. Tom went on the prowl, I had earlier been in the Coronation and Pat had told me the Superintendent. was on the island, as he had been in the pub making himself a nuisance to her.
As it was, I was going down the main street when Mrs Cornu, approached me asked if she could accompany me as there was a man who was pestering her. When she pointed him out it was Uncle Tom. I saw her back to her car and she drove me back to the lighthouse, so I missed my usual second visit to a pub that day, at the Divers.
From this new acquaintance another useful pastime was created, for she was very lonely in her house, her husband had recently died, and a weekly visit to pay Scrabble ensued, this always received innuendos from Eric.
Her story was rather interesting; she was from outer London and had been in the habit of visiting Alderney with her female friend when she had struck up the friendship with this retired Colonel. I learned that before he retired he had been the British Governor of Spandau Gaol where he was responsible for Rudolph Hess.
She was in poor financial straits, and asked my advise as to the disposal of some of her husbands possessions, which included many signed letters of gratitude from several of the War Criminals now released. I thought they had a possible marketable value, but I do not know if she ever did sell them.
I certainly would have liked to have got my hands on some. She later moved to the other end of the island as she was offered a good price for her house and could buy a new bungalow and bank the rest of the money in an Annuity.
Eventually Ray Stone returned to the island after Quigley had returned to Casquets. This month we spent together was significant for the prolonged period of Fog that we had. It so happened that during two weeks of that time my wife and youngest daughter were on holiday on the island.
In all we registered 240 hours of sounding, which is 10 days, how many of them were continuous I do not remember. Some days the top of the island would be clear and sometimes the bottom. Incoming flights were off for several days, with the continuing change in cloud heights, sometimes flights would get in but could not leave and there was a build up of holiday makers for which accommodation had not been cleared.
At one point they had to hire a Railway Ferry to take off 300 surplus people. As the time came for my family to depart it was touch and go all day, eventually they got off on the last flight of the day, which was good for them and the airline.
I think it was the next turn when I returned to station and for some reason the grass had not been cut. The lawn was almost white with a flower that turned out to be Autumn Ladies Tresses an orchid. It was during this same turn that we were instructed to check our latest escape apparatus in case of fire.
This was a geared pulley with a long rope sufficient to reach the ground from the gallery, at each end of the rope was a harness to put your body into and lower yourself to the ground, which in turn would leave the other harness at gallery level for the next person to use. We were asked to check the rate of fall, as apparently there was a flaw.
Having tried the escape inside the tower dropping from a height of about 20 feet I was now keen to try the descent from the gallery over a hundred feet. This was successfully carried out although we did find a flaw, not in the gear but in the departure from the gallery.
This was later corrected by fastening a stanchion on the gallery, which allowed one to start their descent clear of the gallery coping which we had found obstructive.
Various times during my stay we had been invaded by the D.L.F. carrying out minor works, at greater expense than could be done by local labour, and at far greater cost in material. Here I again met Taffy Kemp who now seemed to have the role of Jack of all Trades. He came to install a boiler room, or more particular to enclose the boiler from the rest of the out house.
I asked him if he would re-washer a tap, and he quite unnecessarily fitted two new ones. When he was due to go home, all the rest of the D.L.F squad arrived on station with the Clerk of the Works, who quite unnecessarily had chartered the aircraft for all of them to waste the day, during his visit.
They arrived on station nearly paralytic and commenced to play football until they flaked out with exhaustion. Then rapidly had to organise taxis to rush them to the airport to catch the plane they had chartered back to Guernsey.
Trinity wasted a lot of good money on the D.L.F which could well have been spent improving our living conditions if used sensibly by the use of local labour. There was lack of supervision on this department.
Visiting mechanics that I recall were Don Cochane, who serviced the more modern 4 cylinder diesel engines which had replaced some ancient Hornsby's.
One of the reasons for his attention was earlier complaints before I joined about poor starting of these machines. Don put the blame on the batteries, so he was followed by Dave Brown, who stripped them down and found that they had been poorly maintained. These batteries were the alkali Nife batteries, which had been introduced and upon which I have reported earlier that few people had troubled to take any notice of the different treatment that was required to that of the more usual lead acid type.
A thing that I had taken the trouble to find out about when I first came across them. It was all contained in a handbook supplied with the batteries, although no particular point had ever been made by the relevant authority.
The engines were still connected up with the old water cooling system, although they did not need it so much as the previous engines had. This system consisted of all the rainwater from the building being collected in an underground reservoir at the bottom of the garden.
After use, this water which would have been sucked through the engines was then returned to an open pool above the tanks where it would then cool before returning to the tanks by means of an overflow device, which could be removed and allow return immediately instead of laying in the pool. This was necessary at times of drought when there was not sufficient water in the tanks to allow the pool to create.
Continued in part 2.
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
