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Retired lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor continues his memoirs:-
Many stations over the period of time had become painted, whether officially or not I do not know, but theoretically it was frowned upon as it was said the granite needed to breath and therefore should not be painted. However the day came when they decided to paint the Eddystone inside throughout.
A wharf labourer came off to do the job and took three months. A few years later it was decided that the station was due for another paint, and the keepers were asked if they would do it. At the time we had a full complement and our most regular crew for a long time, and they and I were prepared to do it, although Stan was not, but he agreed to report our willingness.
The money offered was 2/6d per hour. This was a new venture for Trinity. It gave us a little and saved them hundreds, at the same time it kept us free of visitors, and gave the lads something to do.
In the past on most stations, rather than clean the place up, they would paint over the dirt, and you could see this. Occasionally, a Superintendent would ask the keepers to paint an area and offer them a sum of money to do it. This rarely happened because of the previous remark.
Anyhow here we were with the opportunity to earn a little extra, far below the going rate, but Trinity's argument was that we were already being paid for being there. So as to make the job worth while I kept a careful check on the hours and made our hours match those that their own fellow had taken. My portion of the final payment was £58, which purchased our first 'fridge' at home.
Stan stopped the other two painting whilst I was ashore, so actually the total job was not finished although reported as so. The other keepers on this occasion were John Cox and Sean Coglan, both Cornishmen. Sean was a useful fellow and could pull his weight anywhere, and I gave the more intricate part to him, whereas John was a poor painter, and was given mainly the undercoat and washing down jobs or areas which would not be easily seen, whilst I did most of the overhead and plain wall finish work.
Sean later left and joined the tender crew in the engine room.
The means of filling our oil tanks was a bit tricky, for it allowed water to get into the oil. The launch would have to go along side the tender and in would be placed four square tanks (the same would be done for water). Then a hose was put into the tank and the oil was pumped in, but of course splashing water could also enter.
The launch then came and tied up off us and hoses were passed and connected to our input pipe which fed straight into our tanks. Here again splashing water could enter the boats tanks as they pumped the oil into us with a portable pump.
There was another difficulty here: the tanks had been sealed at the top, so theoretically, as the tanks emptied, they created a vacuum, which made it easy to pump fresh oil in. That is fine in theory, but sometimes the pumps pumped air, with the result that the vacuum did not exist. Then the pump would be trying to pump the oil against a back pressure, our tanks could not take any more oil, but they were not full and the ships officers knew it.
Because they filled the boat with enough oil to fill us which we could not get in the tanks, the launch returned to the ship with some left over which they could not or would pump back aboard and therefore pumped into the sea on their way back.
We would register that we had only received so much and the ship would say we had received more. There was always an argument over the air as to what we would settle for to keep both our books reasonably straight.
Through our distribution system it was possible to connect any tank individually or ganged to the engine room, but because of the distribution system, we were never able to drain any tank lower than just under half, from 220 to about 90 gallons.
Therefore we drained all tanks down to that level before transferring any from one tank to another, to give a height for feeding the engine room. Always hoping that the ship would call and top up our tanks before this was needed.
On one occasion we had to transfer and to do this we had within the system a hand pump called a Swicky pump. We had found that this was getting stiffer and stiffer to operate, and there happened to be a mechanic on station at the time, so he took it apart and found it had a filter that was bunged up due to water.
There were some drain cocks right on floor level, but too low to get any sort of receptacle under. Eventually workshops constructed a coupling with a hose that enabled us to drain the water from these tanks by passing the hose to the floor below. As the result we drained off about 5 gallons of water from each tank.
About this time, other stations were having trouble with water in tanks, and they issued a substance called 'Blue Chalk', which was intended to be rubbed on a dip-stick for detecting the presence of water. With sealed tanks, of course we could not use it.
There were two sequels to this situation which I will recount as I reach the period of time.
Fishing from a tower rock surrounded by water is a bit of a difficult situation, but there were ways of surmounting it. First of all one could not cast a rod from the landing, unless the conditions were ideal, and you would not be swept off it by the sea.
To encumber ones self with a rod amongst other luggage with possibly little chance to use it was also against one. I tried to make do with a hand line casting from the 'set off' but the fruits of my labour were not encouraging enough to make a very prolonged effort.
One could not reach the area where the Bass were, and there were many of these fish. Anglers would come out in boats from Plymouth and meander about round the rocks and catch little.
One period, we had with us a new boy by the name of Ken Clark, he was a keen angler, although he had never tried sea fishing. With his rod and my instructions as to where to cast he caught a surprising amount of fish, which made me think again. I had one really good fish on my line which escaped. The old fisherman's story. It had happened when Ron had been P.K. I was casting away at very low water one day when the line got snagged as I thought. I dragged it in to find this enormous Pollack on the line.
I had seen a 29 pounder landed by a fellow Middlecombe, when we had been at Plymouth Breakwater, and he had won a Sunday Express rod for it. This thing I saw was twice that size, or the part that I saw out of the water was as large. I was in a predicament as to what to do. I had pulled the fish as far out of the water as I was able, and needed assistance. I called up the tower, but got no response.
To climb 20 feet down the ladder to the rocks would still only leave me with one hand free, then there would have been about 6 feet of slippery weed covered rock to get to the fish. Frankly, the fish itself frightened me, with the gape of its jaws I could have got my arm in it. I really needed a rope and assistance.
I decided as none arrived to try and pull the thing up out of the water, where it was being washed about and I feared losing it. The effort I gave was all in vain because as I pulled something gave and the fish fell back in the water and swam off. When I pulled my line up I found the hook had pulled out straight.
There was another method of fishing, which I had never tried but I knew about the theory. It was Kite fishing, which to many as soon as you say it they think more of 'kite flying', but it is a fact. Under the lantern were stored three cloth kites of different sizes, for use in different strengths of wind.
The sails were sewn from old lantern curtains, and the frame made with rocket sticks. There was also many yards of discarded rope for paying out. The theory is, you fly the kite which holds about level with the height of the gallery and from the tail of the kite you attach your lead which is a piece of cod line with your lure. This dangles in the water many yards away from the tower.
When a fish bites, the kite sinks and you haul in as per normal, but you need someone down below to un-hook the fish. In rough weather this can mean someone leaning out of a door or window. I must admit that I only caught one fish that way and it must have been an accident, as it was a red bream, which do not usually go for lures. Many who I instructed, were more successful, or more patient.
The biggest fish I saw landed this way was a 9lb Bass, caught by Ken and hauled up to the kitchen window for me to un-hook.
In the summer we used to get the Basking Sharks swimming round and through the rocks, huge things over 20 feet long, which you could almost reach out and touch, as they sifted through the water with their great mouths agape.
I carried on my bird ringing here, as the light was quite an attracter of birds. In fact, I never mentioned it in my earlier visit to the light with Alf, but almost the first night aboard we were 'attacked' by a flock of Lapwing, which swooped and swirled around the lantern, not visible but obviously present in almost equal numbers were Golden Plover.
There were quite a number killed; and when I found there to be the latter type, and knowing that they were supposed to be a delicacy, I decided to try some for myself. Studying the cooking section of Pears Encyclopaedia, informed me that you cooked them with their guts in, as you do a lot of game birds. I tried, I liked, but I found the plucking exceedingly tedious, I therefore skinned them, also the Lapwing. They made some good meals, but they were decidedly better with their skins on, and the Golden were more delicate in texture and taste than the Green Plover.
I made several interesting ringings, but the most surprising, was not so much the birds taken at the lantern as one I found running around the bedroom one night. I heard this scratching around as I woke, and saw this bird slipping and sliding on the polished linoleum.
When I got out of bed to see what it was, imagine my surprise to find it was a Corncrake. I took it down to Stan who was on watch and in the kitchen. It escaped from my hands and disappeared behind the cooking stove through a gap less than 1 1/2 inches.
I was worried, expecting it to stay there till it cooked. Fortunately it had more sense and shortly appeared out the other side where I again captured and ringed it. In about 1000 birds ringed there I had 13 returns which is a higher than average returns.
Continued in part 7.
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