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Retired lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor continues his memoirs:-
We had a breakdown one day when there were no mechanics on station, and we made quite an extensive search through the engines to find the cause. Eventually I found a broken cable. All the wiring had been done in the Pyro cable. There was a wire which went to the engine that had parted. This was possibly metal fatigue, because these engines shook considerably on starting and finishing.
I found a piece of wire and a connector and joined the wire by using a 'pigs tail' which would absorb the vibration, and the unit was as good as new. When subsequently an Electrician, Duncan visited the station he was content to leave the connection as it was. It was still there when I returned 15 years later. Duncan had been a ships Refrigeration Engineer, and we had a good understanding between us. He was a sound practical man, not all degrees and theory.
We used to have some entertaining and hilarious afternoons and evenings. One of the magazines that was provided for us by a benevolent body was, 'Country Life.' Between us we would endeavour to complete the crossword. Later 'Scrabble' was produced and we would have a game of that. Stan's game was dominoes we also played 'Cribbage'.
We also had fitted at this station a V.H.F. telephone, which was equally in- efficient as at the Needles, because the authorities expected it to work over a greater distance than it was designed. Our base station was Penlee Fog Signal Station, about 11 miles away. We were ever grateful to the keepers of that station for their efforts to keeping contact with us when the equipment failed, by keeping relays depressed and supplying us with a service, when it was personal, not business.
Why I bring this up, is because of another incident when Ron was still on station. Before I went on leave one time, we had received notification that there was to be an International Yacht Race, organised by the Ocean Yacht Club, which was going to start at the Ambrose Light off New York and end on a bearing from the Eddystone.
Someone had been out and marked on our gallery the bearing which represented the finishing line. We were to record the passing of the yachts, and the time. Then report it by telephone to a particular number. I estimated that the first yacht would be pass us in fourteen days, and the race would be over before I came back.
I paid no more heed to the event, until the day I was returning, and before I left home, heard reported over the radio that the first yacht had been timed past the 'Stone.' By the time I got aboard I found that only the first two had so far made it. On station was an extra hand. Bovenizer a Radio Mechanic, known in short as an RMA.
I had met him before at the Hanois, and knew him to be another with the same qualification as me. The purpose of him being there was that Trinity recognised the inadequacy of their telephone and had sent him to ensure that the thing worked to get the results through.
The first night aboard, I was called out of bed because one of the yachts was approaching, I think it was John Bell who was on watch, and could not read Morse by lamp, which he was supposedly able to do. The RMA, was up, but he was not going to do the reading( if he could do so) because he was only there for the telephone link.
I found that there had been little thought put to this practice. The only place we could signal from was the gallery, which put us in line with the flashing light from the lens, with the result it took these yachts a long time to pick up our invitation to sent a message.
In the dark they had to be identified, as we could not see their sail numbers or name. Sods Law, most passed in the dark over the next week. The last one was out of limit and passed us well away and did not answer our signal. To send the RMA out was one of the ridiculous, extravagances of Trinity, to save face, rather than adequately to fund a venture in the first place. More of such waste later.
Another humorous piece I had with Ron, was over Distilled water. As an over hang from the days of installation were two 10 gallon carboys. These were filled with distilled water. One being sent ashore as it was emptied for re-filling. Initially they must have been filled with dilute acid for the vast emergency battery bank.
The Emergency bank had a lower specific gravity rating to those we used for the radio equipment. So old labels attached to these carboys related to this. In consequence when I was drawing off distilled water from one of the jars for use in the batteries, Ron told me I was using the wrong distilled water. It was the wrong strength.
He could not see why I laughed. I tried to explain to him that it was either distilled water or it wasn't, you cannot have different qualities, although the sources might be different.
Not long after I joined the 'stone' the relief contract with the tugs was given up, and the relief was carried out by district tender which meant that I now had to travel through to Penzance to pick up the ship for the relief.
It made little difference to me as I caught the same train. I only had to find different suppliers of food and take a little more trouble, because Waldron at Plymouth had his shop at the dock gates. Because of my contact with the dockyard police, I considered applying for the Dockyard Police, and was very annoyed when only the morning before I was going for interview, I suddenly had the interview cancelled without explanation.
This caused me lengthy correspondence with the Home Office, because I considered dirty tricks were being played by West Sussex Constabulary. I subsequently applied to 6 other Police Forces, from some I did not even get a reply.
I recall that when Bob Kett joined the station, he had just been in trouble with the police. Apparently when he came ashore after a period of duty at Portland Breakwater, he had got drunk, and was fined heavily for having smashed up a telephone kiosk. Bob was an east coast lad, and proud of the family connection with the Highwayman of the same name from days of yore.
Whilst I was at the 'stone' the Eastern Block countries decided to scour the Channel clean of fish. In those days the International limit was still three miles. About 200 trawlers and factory ships would steam up and down day after day, so I am sure there were few fish left to catch. No doubt there were also surveillance vessels mixed in and there were also suggestions that they may even be attaching listening devices to the sea bed.
However the time came when I suppose they decided that there was little more use to stay in the area, and the sea was clear except for one or two which we assumed were there for observation purposes.
One morning as I switched on our transmitter to carry out my test with Rame Head C.G. I heard a 'May Day' message being broadcast, by a trawler, which said it was sinking three miles north east of the Eddystone. Well I knew there was no vessel in that vicinity, but where was it. Rame Head asked me if I could see it and I replied in the negative, and by then had got out the binoculars and was scanning the sea.
I informed the C.G. that all I could see was a Russian trawler which was heading for us from their direction and would be over the spot reported. Two trawlers which were west of their station and a submarine nearby one of those.
There must have been a tug handy on call, which came round the headland and I suppose listened in to our communications, and headed for the trawlers for further information. The tug eventually took one of these trawlers in tow.
It was miles from that given as the incident position. The tug eventually deposited the trawler on a sand bank in Cawsand Bay as it was sinking. The ridiculous story was revealed on T.V. that night. The local trawler, PH6 had been fishing in a submarine exercise area. A submarine had surfaced and told them, literally to 'f*** off'.
As the sub. manoeuvred away, a hydroplane had sliced into the trawlers hull. The skipper of the trawler panicked and ordered abandon ship. They had all piled into the life raft and cut the tether. They then fired a distress rocket or some such gadget through the bottom of the life raft and sank it.
They could now not remain afloat, nor re-board their boat, and were fortunate that the tug had been about and more or less accidentally found them. The sub. in the mean time, oblivious that they had struck the vessel, and ignorant of the 'May Day' sailed on. Eventually there was an inquiry, and the submarine faulted.
One useful facility had occurred from the modernisation programme. Instead of having the one large fridge for the keepers, due to the increase of man power on station they had provided three small ones. Still operated by paraffin of course.
When the main body of workers had disbanded this left the keepers in the comfortable position of having one fridge each. This also meant that you could maintain it yourself, instead of the usual weekly round of service. Because of the low quality of paraffin that Trinity used the fridges needed extra attention, but they did not get it, so when I had my own, the wick got trimmed more frequently and the quality of refrigeration was better.
The paraffin was referred to as L.M.O. Light Mineral Oil. It was clear and was reputed to have a high flash point to avoid risk. It was also inferior. The oil pipes of the old oil burners would get coated in an glutinous substance which I sometimes put down as part of the trouble at the Breakwater.
As there was no other oil burning equipment at the light after the Argand was removed we did try to get a more refined and commercially named product, but it was more than ten years later before it was forth coming. Oddly enough when it did come these well known brands seemed to contain more water, and we still had trouble with the wicks.
From this convenience of extra fridges, I experimented, bearing in mind some things I had heard on radio programmes, namely, Women's Hour. I started freezing bread and found it successful, but it had a bad effect, because people would start bringing off large quantities of bread to save baking.
Then sometimes you would find you had extra hands on station and there was nowhere to store it. I found that with careful study, many fresh vegetables could be preserved by using other sensible means. Cabbages could have quite a length of life stored out of the light and in a cool place, as could carrots and other root veg Rarely did I have to resort to tins other than for podded veg.
Continued in part 4.
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