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Soon after I went to Sark in 1975, reminisced retired lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor, there was a project to build a residential shack for visiting mechanics. Up till then they had always slept in the store room at the base of the tower next to the engine room. It was a very make shift affair, but then visiting staff did not stay long in theory. Being able to get to and fro to the island they were able to leave as soon as they had finished their particular job.
The fact that they were reluctant to leave such a paradise, was not taken into consideration. So it was not unusual for these workmen to assume the same habits that they did on a tower. Not opening their tool box till they had been on station a week. Then wanting a holiday after they had done a days work.
No wonder Out Station workers were unwelcome.
The idea conceived, was to put a Portakabin on the cliff side. One idea being to bring it in by helicopter, but as there were rules about over flying the island, special permission would be needed. DLF personnel from Penzance arrived and excavated a shelf on which to place it.
When I came back from a leave the building was in situ, but I forget now how it was transported. Soon after it was in position there were complaints that it was an eyesore. In my opinion there was not a lot of justification in this as it was as good a construction as about a quarter of the dwellings on the island, and it only made another square box on the cliff side, the lighthouse being one and the house immediately above it the other. This belonged to John Valentine and was a square box like structure built on top of a German gun emplacement, which was now the water storage tank.
Eventually Trinity were required to bring the thing lower down the cliff, but I am sure I do not know what improvement that made except John and his wife would no longer be looking down on its roof. Again the question of how to do the job cropped up and helicopter being the preferred option.
I believe it was taken to pieces and re-erected. Again, I have no proof, it was done whilst I was ashore and I forget what I was told. What I do know is that the bunk mattresses were damaged by black rats because they were left out in the open and nearly all the covering was gnawed off.
The new owner of Stocks Hotel was interested in the idea of Portakabins and came to me to find out a lot of detail and inspect them as he was keen to get some for his new place, probably for staff accommodation
Around this time I had been suggesting to Trinity a use for some of our catchment water which we could not drink, and was stored in the old engine room storage tanks.
We still had to use a lot of catchment water, because a bore hole which had been provide at the top of the cliff had missed the water and only drew up about 3 gallons per day, which was insufficient for all our uses, although it probably met all our cooking and drinking needs. We now had a flush toilet which was new since I had been there as a S.A.K. This was pumped up daily by us, manually from the old catchment tank.
In times of drought it did not produce enough for the toilet. I had suggested the erection a tank on the roof above the toilet that could be topped up from the disused engine tank and the dirty water could be made good use of. With the removal of the Portakabin lower down near the lighthouse.
Trinity came up with a better idea eventually. They engaged a local plumber to install water tanks where the cabin had originally been erected. With a set of electrically controlled floats and a single suction pipe fitted with non return valves they tapped both catchment tanks to give a supply of water to the cabin and our toilet.
This firm of plumbers had been called in when I had complained of the inefficiency of our central heating. The only response I had got from my own Supt. was for me to drain the system down. I knew enough about plumbing that it was not as simple as that. I think what turned the tables was when I asked him if I could use the cabin for my quarters when there were no workmen on station, as the cabin was warmer than my own room in the winter.
The plumbers were on the job for about a week as the radiators were so silted up having been fed by catchment water for so long. My room still did not get the full benefit it should. I did have the oil room below me into which the cold east wind blew.
I think it was during my first year on Sark that the Supt. instructed that the bank grass be trimmed. The lighthouse property stretched from the lighthouse to just below Valentines house, so this was over a hundred feet of steep slope. The steps bounded it to the north, but to the south there was almost no limit by way of fencing.
When I had been an S.A.K. the bank had been a impenetrable mass of gorse, but Norman had decided to go in for sheep and bought one ram and three ewe lambs. He thought to be economical in the hire of land and slowly cleared all the gorse so that grass could survive and feed his sheep. With annual cutting the gorse had not returned, but it had made an annual chore for the keepers. Now a days he had a large flock and rented land all over the island.
I started the cutting and developed severe Hay Fever, so much so that I lost my voice. I had always suffered from a sneezing allergy, but since I had been in the service it had virtually disappeared with the clear air of my surroundings. It was not only grass that brought on the allergy.
I suppose my system was not used to the pollens of Sark and it re-enacted my distress. It took me a long time to subdue it; and many years since, I have not been as clear as I had become. This incident took place before the hut was built. It was in fact whilst I was engaged on this task that one day the Supt. rang up and wanted me. By the time I had got down to the phone he had rung off. This was before we had dinner, and it took me till after 3.30 p.m. to contact him again.
In the intervening years, Pete Bridle was replaced by Tony Wibberley on Bert's watch. I met him on one of the reliefs and introduced him to the girl who became his wife. She worked at the Mermaid, and by the time I got back on station they were engaged. She was a pleasant girl; in fact had invited me out when I first arrived, to show me around the island.
It transpired that she was also the girl friend on this island of the Supt. She informed me that one had to be careful, as there were a number of people who were only too willing to tittle tattle back to the Supt. about the goings on of the keepers out of a pique of jealousy.
When Tony eventually married the girl it sort of queered the Superintendents pitch.
It was one of those strange coincidences one meets in life. I have rarely met anyone I knew of old. Yet Tony turned out to be an ex-pupil of my next elder brother, when they had both been at Maidstone Grammar School. I had had a similar meeting on Alderney when a fellow I had been drinking with turned out to be a pupil of my other brother when at Poole.
The only two circumstances I have had of a like nature, were during the war when I walked into a services canteen in Sydney and met a chap I had lodged with in London whilst attending the same Radio School. The other was after the war when two of our stewards, who were arrested in Lagos and sentenced to three months hard labour.
When I arrived in Liverpool they were in a the M.N. Ocean Club long before their sentence should have been completed, having been flown home too.
It was very true that there was a lot of 'back biting' and I suspect that our O.K. John Carre was one of the worst, although he put on a front of being very friendly. One of his aims of course was to get more hours in. If there was any over lap of duties caused by transfers, he was called in do to work. In the winter months this was almost his only work.
There were also the Supt's. cronies at the Bel Air pub, who hoped to get minor contracts out of him. He often stopped after the last boat was gone and some person would offer to take him back to Guernsey. This is where he could act so contrary.
When he came to inspect the station, he would have a carriage to bring him, but he nearly always walked back. He would invite me to join him for a drink at the pub with all his mates, and discourage me from returning to the station, even if he knew I was officially on duty.
Later Bert had another crew change, this was Dave Sleight a fellow I had had with me for a time on the Needles, a steady and reliable bloke. Bert was very lucky to have such a good crew. I was not so fortunate. Paul was taken away from me, but I forget where he went. I think it might have been the Royal Sovereign.
He was replaced by one Peter Bix. An odd name, for an odd fellow. There is a place north of London named so. He did not start off too well. He was like all the others prepared to carry on the usual communal messing, which had died out on most station since double manning.
He professed to be a non-drinker but periodically would go off the rails. The first indication of this was one day after he had come back from shopping and he went to sleep on the lavatory, and we could not get in. Later going up the island on my own shopping expedition; one of Pat's daughters serving in the bar told me how worried she got in the bar with this fellow continuously staring at her while he consumed his beer. She felt that he was likely to attack her, as he continued to stay there when all the others had gone.
This attitude continued, he did not always come back and fall asleep, although not visible drunk he did take on a Zombie-like manner, as though walking in a trance.
Continued in part 5.
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