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Retired Lighthouse keeper Harold Taylor was on duty at the Inner Dowsing Light Tower from 1st August 1983 to 1st June 1984, and here recounts those times.
My first turn off was not actually till 14th September. To get to this lighthouse I first had to get to the Depot at Great Yarmouth. The difficulty of this operation made it quite sensible to travel by car. When I got there I found that it was not a really well organised affair.
I got there on the 13th Sept, the afternoon before relief and only more or less found the office staff. The fellow who was District Clerk, by name of Bottomley was a bit officious and not very helpful, but I did get my travelling expenses sorted out and got some idea where I could stay. This was an eye opener.
It was on first sight a small boarding house, but it had been developed for the expanding holiday trade. It seemed to have countless corridors barely wide enough to walk down and the place was full of Yorkshire folk on holiday. When it came to night time one realised that the walls were little more than thin partitions, because you could hear every squeak, grunt and groan from all four sides not just the next room.
I made sure I never stayed there again. In the morning too I had problems because my car was hemmed in. Fortunately A police patrol car came along and they managed to undo one of the cars and move it so that I arrived at the depot only a little late.
We all piled into a vehicle that would take us to Cromer Lighthouse where the reliefs would take flight from. There was my other hand and the crews for three light ships still operating. I am not sure if Graham Fearn was on holiday, for I seem to think that Ted Whaley was on duty. I recall there was some mix up with the oil tanks and filling the pillow bags.
However the flights got under way and it was about a 20 minute trip down to the ID tower. My companion was a pleasant bloke Dave Lomozick a descendant of a Polish serviceman, and had worked in the mines.
He became my right hand man, as one of the others I would share part of a turn with was a very disruptive element. I think John Mobbs had a chip on his shoulder, because he imagined that he should have a better job than he had.
It transpired that he had been stores assistant at Yarmouth, but decided that it was a better life or pay on the Lighthouse and had changed over. Then the transformation of the service took place and in the re-organisation Bottomley, who was now D.C. had been junior to John at the time he moved over and therefore thought that he should be DC.
He was not unknown to go tittle tattling back to the depot about things, so it was best not to tell him anything. Having been in the stores, was always discouraging when one attempted to order stores that had not been ordered before, and could make the job easier.
He was even more sarcastic when one was successful in managing to persuade that these stores were necessary. Not a pleasant character at all. On the other turn, who we only saw at reliefs was Cyril Jones, who was senior to me and Neil Hargreaves.
The other fellow was Barry Linwood. I can only recall going off with him with aboard once, but I could well be mistaken. I do remember however that we always seemed to have workmen, and changes of keepers.
My first trip was o.k., but when I returned for my second tour of duty I went off with the Safety Officer as there had been a fire aboard. One of his first discoveries was that the anti-fire support immediately over the engine concerned, had fired and not one of the crew seemed to be aware of it.
I never did find out what the incident was all about, what I do know is that the engines that we used had been set up on a wooden staging and the exhaust pipe ran extremely close to this timber. When the engine was running there was a strong smell of very warm wood. Nothing was changed to my recall.
Each turn I went 'off', we seemed to have workmen. On two occasions it was Electricians replacing all the lighting system wiring and the emergency lights. On another it was the DLF who had come to do the painting, especially underneath the platform. We also had people come along to do an underwater survey, and others to remove the Radar equipment.
We also had someone to do a general overhaul. The only names that I remember, were George Wheeler, electrician who spent most of his time on the telephone placing bets and his companion by the name of Clark.
I also recall having to carry out repairs myself.
On one of these occasions was when the heating broke down during the winter, and I eventually traced it to a broken pipe in an unused room. I got this sorted out when I found a section of pipe and manipulated it with something else to get over the problem temporary. Without this we would have had a cold winter.
Mobbs criticised me for doing the job, but then, I suppose if you can't do the job, criticize. The other catastrophe I had was of John's making, whether deliberately or from ignorance. One day nearing the relief he stated that he was going to polish the brass in the lantern.
He must have polished the slip rings on which the contacts for the lamp assembly rolled round on, and afterwards forgotten to grease them. It was my light up, when I pressed the switch I got splashes and sparks and the light assembly went round in fits and starts.
The slip rings were scored to blazes and I could see that there was not a hope in hell of getting them smoothed off. I knew there were two spare sets in the store, but they were slightly different to each other. I got the one that looked nearest and managed to get the change over made with the light only being twenty minutes late on exhibiting.
Other than telling Dave I kept quiet about the incident in case it had been a deliberate action of John to create a situation, having divined his nature from recent acquaintance.
I have made the comment, 'that many changes were taking place', this was because some idiot at Trinity had divined an idea to cut down on travelling expenses. It would therefore be appropriate to move keepers so that they were on stations nearer to their homes. In the process of this, many of us were moved. In particular, me.
It was in fact a stupid stunt. I was moved from the Dowsing to Bardsey. It did in fact make my travelling about 10 miles extra. In my place they brought a man who lived in Newcastle and worked on the Hanois. True it saved him many miles, but if they had sent him to Bardsey and left me alone there would have still been the same saving.
What a pity people in high places have no brains, but then I suppose that is what you get for having a service that relies upon retirement and seniority for promotion.
We also carried out Met. reports here, sending them direct to Honnington airfield. We only had to report every three hours and they did not include some of the climatic returns as did Southampton Met. Office. We were very inconveniently harassed here by aircraft. They would start at first light summer or winter.
Lighthouses in general suffer this nuisance because they can so easily be located for reference. However here we seemed to be used more as a practice bombing target. As I had remarked at the Eddystone, the trouble arose when they flew in through one window and out the other.
Our position was in some way unique, we never knew what nationality planes were causing the anguish for they came from all quarters on the European continent as part of the U.N. forces. These planes could also be a menace in another way.
Whether it was sheer accident or of deliberate design, but they would also use our ferrying helicopter for a target. The first one would know of this was when these powerful machines buzzed you and the turbulence they exuded nearly turned our small craft upside down, I was later to experience this over the north Wales coast as well.
Whilst we were in Withernsea, Edwards made it a convenient stop to justify some of his expenses. He had moved to the town looking towards retirement. Two of his daughters lived there about as he had been P.K. at the station immediately prior to being appointed Welfare Officer.
It was then that he told me about how convenient it had been for him that his brother-in-law had managed to land the Europa Point position and save him a lot of expense when taking his holidays to Spain and Tunisia. I suppose at that point he had forgotten that he had benefitted his relative and himself at my expense. This was also when I learned that he used Trinity travelling and subsistence to fund his holiday arrangements.
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