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My arrival on Sark was not so momentous as for some, wrote Harold Taylor, reminiscing about a five-year tour of duty there as lighthouse keeper, which began on 5th June 1975.
I had been there before, but there were a lot of changes that had taken place. There was now a bus of sorts to take people up the hill instead of horse and cart. People joined the carts after reaching the top. There was even a cafe on the approach to Creux Harbour. I recognised some of the islanders like John Perrie.
There were however a lot of new people who had arrived in the intervening years and settled down. The pubs had quite changed too. I cannot remember if Lane McComie travelled with me or not, but I presume so. Neither can I recall who we relieved other than Bert Troman, the P.K.
When I got to the lighthouse I found that my other keeper was Geoff Gurden, Yorkshireman through and through. A man I was eventually to rely upon with gratitude, a pity that he later saw fit to resign. He was a product of a northern Art College, and had a talent not only with the brush but with his hands and voice.
He now lived on the island, having married Brenda a girl working locally, who came from the Bristol area. She worked in the local Chemist come book shop owned by Mrs Betty who lived on the harbour hill.
I soon knew I had a problem with Lane and his drinking.
It was the habit for one keeper to go to the farm at the top of the steps around noon to collect the mail from the farm; owned by Charles Carre the Island Grieff, and to collect milk for the day. The first time it was Lane's turn, he did not arrive back and we got on with our dinner without him.
As we were in need of the milk, I went up to collect it. Whilst I was away the Supt. phoned, and wished to speak to me, not being available he apparently led off about keepers being away up the island drinking. When I got back, and tried to contact him he was not available. Eventually we caught up with each other where upon he gave me a lecture about always being on station etc, and not causing him inconvenience.
This is such a contrast to the attitude that he had on Alderney. Lane came back drunk at about 4 p.m. I told him what I thought of him, but the same thing happened next time. In the end I ceased depending on him and went up to collect the items after he had gone up, as we knew he would not collect them till on his way back.
I renewed several acquaintances this first turn off and made new. Some of those I had known in the past were able to recall me after a good nudge, but most were not. The Mermaid pub was still owned by the same fellow; Pat Taylor, who now had a grown family, his establishment had expanded also.
The Beau Regarde pub was still owned by the same family, but was open now on a more regular basis. The Bel Air was run by a Guernsey Brewery with a manager. The others such as the Sablonnerie, the Stocks and the Dixcart now seemed to rely mainly on residential trade.
The Stocks being in the process of being taken over by new owners, an Englishman resident on Jersey. He was not taken to kindly, because he did not wish to settle into Sark ways, and his son left a nasty taste in every ones mouth.
Lane's behaviour became so outlandish and unreliable that at the end of the month I requested his transfer. When the relief arrived Bert had a new hand, he was Peter Bridle who had been a light ship man and transferred. He had married into the family of one of the local pubs at East Cowes.
I do not recall who the other person was, but there was an islander who was employed as an Occasional Keeper. His name was John Carre, known as Lobster. He was a local fisherman, jack of all trades and lived in the middle of the village. When I had been there before, his father had been the local post master, and they had both lived through the Occupation.
I do not recall whether my replacement crew joined on the next relief or not, but when he came he was a disaster. Roger Greet, a Cornishman, was virtually illiterate. It seems hard to appreciate how such a person joined the firm.
I know myself that the entrance exam was not hard, and from my own and other recantations of their experiences I know when it came to dictation the tester usually put the paper down beside the candidate so that he could copy it.
But in Roger's case he could barely write, and his spelling would have put a babe in arms to shame. I recall on one occasion Geoff came to me with a letter, which Roger intended sending to the depot in the hope that he could get a posting near home where he had a wife and about four kids. I have never seen anything so disgraceful It was near impossible to understand what the fellow wanted, for the spelling was so bad.
We decided that Geoff would find out what it was he wanted to say, write it out and get Roger to copy it. In between this time Roger gathered together some pieces of timber and was busily engaged in the engine room.
I had not taken a lot of notice as to what he was doing. He had told us that he had been employed by the DLF at Penzance initially as a labourer and was later promoted to carpenter. Naturally I presumed that he had some ability.
One day we had some workmen on station and during coffee break, when Roger was not present, someone said have you seen what Roger is doing in the engine room. I remarked that I thought he was cutting up some firewood. After a few guffaws, I was told that he was building toys to take home for his kids at Christmas. I could not believe it until later he asked for paint to paint these items.
I was told , ' you can't let him take those things home he'll be a laughing stock'., but he did, all wrapped up. The wrappings were better than the product.
Roger did not have long to wait for his transfer. I recall that the Supt. had visited to ascertain why he wanted the move. During his visit he had seen Roger's handy work and mentioned about cleaning the engine room up and not leaving all that rubbish about. I think when I told him that that rubbish was Roger's handicraft, was what decided him to grant the man's request.
Roger's replacement was Paul Lee a much better kettle of fish and the three of us got on famously. Geoff and I had got into the habit of playing Scrabble after lunch and at change over of the midnight watch each day. Roger had wanted to join in with this, that was when we first became aware of his illiteracy.
It was pathetic, he would put down three letters and state something, which had no relation to his play, and when we tried to help him, found that he had not even got in his hand letters that would make up such a word. Whether it was Dyslexia or just ignorance I do not know. Paul was not quite the same.
He could not spell, but he had some idea of what he wanted to do, and as we did not stick rigidly to the rules we were prepared to help him out. He admitted that he neglected school, and it became apparent that not only was his spelling bad, but he could not string many words together. I think he realised his handicap and later thanked both of us for helping him and he put his mind to educating himself after he left our company.
He became a very able writer of material for his interest in birds and nature generally. He gave us a run for our money in Scrabble, with a little help, whilst Geoff and I were more or less equal. This inability to spell I had found with another keeper when I had tried to get him interested in the game, that was Bob Goldsmith. Like Paul he had the same aptitude but lacked the ability. I found it uncanny they saw the opening ,but were unable to fill them.
Between us we were a good and accommodating trio. Paul had little interest in drink, and a great desire to Bird Watch. We discovered that there was an active Bird Ringer on the island, Philip Guille, and he soon became enmeshed in this hobby as Paul was anxious to gain a licence.
So except for days when it was my day off and I needed shopping, Paul had all the days to himself as we knew that except for special occasions he would not go out at night. Geoff of course being a family man with his wife on the island, we allowed to have the evenings off even if he should be on duty.
He always did his morning duties, but was sometimes sent home in the afternoon if the weather was not suitable for either of us others to go out. It did not need three people to sit around and do nothing.
My own activities were adequately satisfied. I had my usual days off which sometimes led to me being late for lunch. I normally tried to make it but there was a persuasive set of local friends which prevented this at times.
Then two evenings a week I went out to organised card activities. One in the village hall was Whist, the other in a cafe, during the winter this one became a Euchre game. When the cafe changed hands it was not so homely so we removed to one of the family's home. It was not so convenient but it worked quite well.
Through going to the local church I also got invited out to musical Sunday evenings with some of the more elite of the expatriates. Whereas the other activities were mixed but mainly islanders.
Paul with his interest caused havoc with the island bird record list, because although there were a lot of interested parties, no one really made it a hobby. He found a lot of birds nesting on the island which were not even listed as migrants. These included the Dartford Warbler, Cirl Bunting and the Short Toed Treecreeper. Although there were many knowledgeable people about in this line there was a competition one year on birdy subjects in which I came second.
I gained another interest, or shall we say an occupation. I became quite friendly with the owners of the Beau Regarde tavern, I cannot quite recall how it came about. The real owner was Ma Falla, her eldest son William, who was my age, was retarded or was it as they said, due to a fall or kick from a horse. There was a daughter Reg (Regina) older than me who ran the pub, whilst Stan who had introduced me, was a younger son who ran a small business which was based at the pub.
During a visit one day, a brother in-law who lived in the other end of the building, which was run as a guest house, arrived with some lengths of timber and I got dragged into a conversation about renewing the weather board to the doors of some chalets. These were used to house summer workers and friends staying overnight.
The result of this was that I was asked to do the job. In going there to do so I usually went to the bar first, or even entered the premises via the bar. Thus I learned that before the lunch time rush had finished the girl Christine, from Sheffield, who did the bar work, was too drunk to carry on, and so Reg took over.
She was responsible for running the kitchen and feeding the tours that visited during the afternoon. Finding that she had a tame keeper on tap, she began to use me as the barman, while she went up to bed before the afternoon rush began. Thus, I did not get a lot of my intended work done. I did not care as I enjoyed meeting the people who came in, local or visitor.
Harold Taylor's memoirs are continued in part 3.
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