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There was another throwback to the old days, wrote lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor, for the supply of paraffin for the lamps. This was 1972 and in the base of the tower were some lead-lined sumps where the oil was stored. Whereas in most lighthouses this oil would have been carried to the top of the tower to fill the IOB's, here there was a rotary pump.
This enabled you to pump the oil straight into the filling cup of the IOB. It was considered a two-man job because one man was expected to keep an eye on the level on the IOB to turn off the valve at the right time and shout down the tower to stop the other man pumping.
When it came to my turn to do it I normally managed to do it by myself because I found that by careful management one could gauge the required amount of pumping. There was also an overflow return pipe, where by careful listening you could hear when oil had started to flow down it.
This of course meant a change of routine, but only when it was my responsibility with others. I could do it during free time, allowing the time that would have been used later for more desirable pastimes.
One of these pastimes was gardening. There were three cultivated plots within the walls and all round the walls there were flower beds. This was where another fiddle took place. Goods would be ordered for the station, but never obtained, making some of our work tedious or difficult. The P.K. would convert the goods value into flower seeds for planting the garden, probably vegetables for his use as well.
One amusing, if not serious incident arose while I was there. As I have mentioned, the Casquets relief assembled the same time as our own, so we usually had colleagues to drink with in the Coronation. One particular occasion Robbie the P.K. was going off to the Casquets.
When doing so he would lodge in a guest house almost opposite the pub. They must have gone to bed quite late for Danny the taxi driver had not gone home, and was sharing the same bedroom. During the night Robbie had got up with the intention of relieving himself into the street through the first floor window.
In his paralytic state he fell out. The following morning when he came too in the hospital he was told he had a broken leg. Looking across to the next bed he saw Danny, on enquiring why he was in hospital, it transpired that he had been admitted in shock, having seen Robbie fall out of the window.
I also discovered that Graham who had left me to go to the Casquets had resigned. When Quigley had been in charge he had subjected this fellow to doing all the most obnoxious and menial jobs. One very often gets these situations where the senior person is of poorer quality than the junior, and for some perverse reason advantage is taken to denigrate. I experienced it with sergeants and new joined constables in the police, with the new recruit being unfavourably reported upon so that their service was terminated for no more reason than they are more intelligent than their sergeant.
Reverting back to the Fog horn. It was of the type known as a siren. The noise was created by the air blasting on the two cylinders one inside the other which in rotating allowed air out through slits in the sides. During our long periods of sounding, for some reason these would jamb and we would not get our full signal out.
It probably made little difference really as there was no other fog signal of a similar nature near, but of course people passing by would remark upon the fact and local fishermen would also comment. It caused a lot of problems for me and Ray, who was in charge. He would not report the fault, so we were constantly taking the instrument apart and trying to rectify the problem.
Immersing the cylinders in paraffin would ease the problem for a while. I found the best result was not tightening the fixing bolts up too tight, but this meant frequent attention as they tended to work loose. It seemed to me that there was some mis-alignment somewhere, either by warping or prolonged used causing overheating and consequent warping. However I did not have that problem for much longer.
During my second month of that turn I received notice of transfer. This was ostentatiously because of overloading of seniority, but in fact it made little difference as to where I was going the same thing occurred. But that is jumping the gun. The whole change of events produced its own nightmare for me.
My son was studying geology. He had written to me and stated that the only place in Britain for one rock form was on Alderney. Paul and I searched this out, and found this one and only spot and collected quite a few rock samples, as well as others I had been asked for.
I was heavily laden with goods to bring ashore, on top of which I decided to bring all my ripened crops from the garden. I left a lot of my Trinity gear to be brought by the tender later. I however loaded up all the other for Trinity to pay air freight prices for. The helicopter service to lighthouses had started by then so removal from Alderney to Guernsey was done by contract, but Guernsey to Eastleigh was done by air, from there it was rail home.
Harold Taylor's short tour of duty as lightkeeper at Alderney lighthouse was completed in 1972.
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