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Harold Taylor has lent me a colossal amount of written memories from his childhood days, through his days as a police officer and onto his days as a lighthouse keeper. The following is an extract taken from these memoirs.
I joined Trinity House as a lighthouse keeper on 31st December 1956, at nearly 31 years of age. I had just had a period of illness, which had kept me off work for about three months.
Previous to that I had served just over 8½ years in the Police. This had been quite successful, but did not lead to promotion, although I was always sure that it was just around the corner. I did, however, receive three Chief Constables Commendations for exceptional work.
Having joined TH (Trinity House) late in life, I found that I was, in most cases, much older than those who were senior in service to me were. I also was much more experienced in life. This was no problem as far as I was concerned, but I am sure it intimidated some. I had a lot of experience and expertise, which was useful to the job. If the people with whom I was working realised this and accepted it, I could not only be useful to them, but also advise on adopting useful work practises, which did not become a bind.
Being a prompt and reliable person, when I received my instruction to report to Harwich, I set out to arrive there at the start of the day. Because money was now in short supply I left home to travel overnight to the depot. After spending several hours on King's Cross Station during the middle of the night, then travelling the rest through the eastern counties, I eventually arrived in the early hours and hung about until the office opened.
They were clearly surprised to see me and completely taken aback. In fact the place was so lax that I was there before most of the office staff, who all arrived late and in dribs and drabs.
At lunchtime I went and got mine, but when I returned no more of the entrants nor the instructor had turned up. The latter eventually put in an appearance and shortly after two o'clock one other trainee arrived. We commenced to get a few formalities dispensed with, and at 4.30 p.m. the last trainee arrived. He was a fellow who had been in the job before and was going to have another bite of the cherry.
When they had sorted out the last arrival, they eventually started sorting out digs for us. We were sent to a guesthouse on the seafront at Dovercourt, about a mile up the road. The husband of the house had been a lightship man during the war. We were quite comfortably housed and the food was adequate and good.
A few office staff from various places came in to lunch each day. One of them was a friend of the daughter of the house, both pleasant girls, the former being the nicer. John, one of the new trainees, fell for her and left the job after his first posting to return to her - whether anything came of it I do not know.
The daughter was set on another lodger in the house, Jim Box; he was working in a local factory as a production inspector, but he had first become acquainted with the establishment when he had been a lighthouse keeper. She was very fond of him and created several difficult situations. I have a feeling that he may have been married and only stayed there during the week.
Tex Ritter was the instructor. He was in fact the principal keeper of Orfordness Lighthouse, for in theory there was no provision in the establishment for an instructor. This meant, that if there were not any trainees to instruct, he would return to the lighthouse, but in the meantime the keeper-in-charge took full time responsibility. Although on some occasions they did send a spare PK down. In fact whilst we were in training this was the situation, and a Fred Roberts was there.
His period of duty expired whilst we were in training and I met him, as I did Frank Harris, who was the keeper-in-charge (KIC). Fred was on his way to take over Plymouth Breakwater, and Frank, I was later to bump into at my first training station.
Tex suffered with very crippled hands due to arthritis. This resulted in me taking over a lot of the training duties. This in particular took the form of signalling and learning the Morse code, which I was familiar with. I had not done a lot of flag wagging, but Tex had discovered that I had more idea than the others did. So we worked together when he was there and I became quite expert at it, although I did not carry on the practice after I left the school.
When it came to operating the incandescent oil burners (IOB) which was the system used on most stations, I also had something to offer. I had been used to oil burning appliances as a plumber, also the packing of glands and valves. The only thing that I had left to master was the casting of mantles.
These consisted of a small pocket of silk with an asbestos string thread around the open end. These pockets varied in size from that which would hold a pocket watch to that which would fit a baby's head. The method to cast these was to tie the open end onto a former, and then suspend the closed end from a small hook set in the former. This was then set over a lit burner. The pressure of the burner was then increased so that as the silk pocket burnt, the pressure ballooned out the forming ash to an onion shaped ash, which retained its shape and burned white.
These mantles were very delicate and had to be removed from the lamp each day for the lamp to be cleaned. Each mantle lasted about 8 days, depending upon the treatment it received by the handlers. After that, although they may still be intact, the material had burned so thin that it failed to burn as a white light.
Tex spent a lot of time visiting hospital for wax treatment to his hands. Therefore, other duties were left to me such as teaching the lads to solder, although rarely did I find one needed the experience once doing the job. They were 'hand-me-down' skills that had been taught at the previous training school, which had been housed at Trinity House Depot, Blackwall.
Here, older keepers will tell of spending four weeks. One week in the burner shop, one in the carpenter's shop, (where they were supposed to build a box to keep their gear, but which in fact was made for them by a carpenter in the shop). Another week in the tinsmith's shop, where again they were supposed to make a metal box for their own use, and again only watched whilst it was made for them. The final week they spent in the canteen kitchen learning how to cook.
This system had been replaced by the removal of the school to Harwich, the instruction having been placed in the hands of an experienced keeper rather than from a member of the workshop staff.
After we had been there a fortnight the circumstances arose that they wanted a keeper in a hurry to go to Orfordness. Frank Harris the senior hand and therefore KIC, was being transferred to Hartland Point. Tex wanted me to go, it was his station. However, others decided that the rejoined keeper, Ron Stockdale, would go because he already had his radio certificate. This was a bit of a pointless argument as there was no radio there. In fact they did not even have a telephone for communication.
This bit of unreasonable reasoning later had a detrimental effect upon my service seniority. He was appointed to his first permanent station after 8 months service, whereas I went 20 months.
Promotion is based on dead man's shoes, and not on ability, but on length of service. As one man leaves the service, so his place is taken by the next in line. What makes the situation more annoying is the fact that this fellow packed the job in again after about two years. This loss of seniority hit me hard, as I had already lost income of about 50% to take this job at a time of recession.
Another very annoying thing happened, which may have affected the choice of Ron, for the posting. Almost the last act before we left Harwich for our posting was to take our radio certificate. For this they had to arrange for an examiner to come up from London to test us on the equipment aboard one of the Trinity tenders. This happened to be T.H.V. Triton.
I had my W/T Certificate with me and asked why I needed to take this test, as I already had a more senior ticket. The examiner checked my credentials and admitted that I need not take the test, but from the details that had been forwarded to them, they had been unable to trace any reference to it. This reference to a radio ticket was really nonsense, as I was to find that more than half the keepers in the service had not got one, and rarely anyone senior to me. Even at the time I left the service 30 years later there were still some that did not have one.
Harold completed his training at Harwich and from there went to Hartland Point, this time for engine training.
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