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On first hearing that I had to go to Orford in February 1958, I was a little apprehensive, remembers Harold Taylor. It was a station on the verge of closing down, the main reason being because of the Atomic Energy Commission, on whose land the tower now stood.
Harold was born in 1926 in Arundel and from there went on to spend most of his young life in Chichester. First he became a plumber's mate, before joining the Merchant Navy, then becoming a policeman, subsequently joining Trinity House to become a lighthouse keeper. He continues...
The Instructor from Harwich was the PK (principal keeper), but rarely visited the station. It was therefore controlled by an AK (acting keeper), the KIC (keeper-in-charge) or any PK hanging around between stations. It was in this way that I met a very pleasant chap called Freddy Roberts, while in training at Harwich. He had filled in between a posting to Plymouth Breakwater.
On arrival at the Harwich depot, I again found no one about. I had travelled overnight to save on lodgings. The relief seemed a very lax affair. The station stores were loaded into the wharf launch and we were transported across the harbour to Felixstowe. Here we unloaded all the stores to await a taxi for travel to Orford village. Passing through the village, we stopped at a pub called the Barge, where the relief was effected.
I forgot to mention that at Harwich I had met up with Tec Williams who was the other keeper involved and was transferred from the Holyhead Depot in Angelsey. This he was not very pleased about.
Other than Bill Mortimer going ashore, I cannot remember any other keeper present, though there should have been. For although Orford was a two handed station, in the winter months it was supplied an extra hand. That period had just come to an end. The time of year was February.
The lighthouse was a difficult place to get to, not only because of the terrain, but also because of the Ministry of Works. The area was one vast shingle bank. This bank was separated from the land by a wide ditch or river. Both the landings on the land and bank side were controlled by the Ministry Police; special passes had to be shown to gain access to this secretive area which had an experimental Atomic Energy Plant down on the coast about half a mile from the lighthouse.
Transport across the water was made in a small type of invasion barge, which was large enough to carry petrol and water tankers. Once on the other side, again one had to report for credentials to be checked, then you would probably be transported by Police or Fire vehicle to your destination, which was about three miles away. There were tarmac roads most of the way, but to divert off to the lighthouse one drove over the shingle.
What a dilapidated building and bleak outlook! The nearest building was a disused coastguard lookout. Some R.A.F officers who operated a Telemeter Station for a bombing range that crossed the shingle and ended at the lighthouse used it. Nothing was dropped, only runs made over it, until a very interesting event later.
Tec was to be KIC, but as we were both new to the station, one of the keepers going ashore had been instructed to stay on for a couple of days to make us familiar with the station. He was Martin Biddle, who I had previously met at Hartland. We sent him home the next morning as there was nothing to learn about the place. It was an IOB (incandescent oil burner) station and there was no other equipment, not even a telephone.
The tower was quite a tall one and hollow. There were two lighting apparatus, one halfway up which had a fixed beam and a red shade. The main light was the usual rotating lens in a mercury bath. I think I am right in saying they were known as stone chance lenses. The paraffin burner was known as a hood burner. Both lights had a 75mm burner, and if my memory serves me well, the rotating lens had three faces.
There were two cottages attached to the tower. We lived in the cottage on the left of the tower and access to the sleeping quarters could only be made by entering the tower. A staircase swept round the curve of the tower each side to first floor height where a door led into our sleeping quarters. The door to the second cottage only led into an empty chamber, for the floors had been stripped out and there were only the four walls and the roof.
There were three bedrooms in our part of the house. Downstairs consisted of two dwelling rooms and a scullery added on like a lean to. There was a small back yard where the water tanks were. At the bottom of the garden was the oil store, which led out into a sort of courtyard. On the other side of this was the carriage shed and the building extended into the other garden.
Apparently, because the lighthouse was so far from the village, the keepers had been provided this carriage and a pony or horse. From the stories I heard, about the only use this was put to, was to cart sea coal around the villages for sale. I do not know how they crossed the river in those days.
We found that the station was virtually out of water. Having reported the matter we cleaned out the tank as we were promised a delivery, but were very surprised when the Ministry Fire Brigade delivered it in one of their fire vehicles.
There was a strange situation at the station, because officially we had no telephone. The telephone was at the Telemeter Station about 50 yards away, and that was only manned during the day. They did however, have a temporary field phone that they connected up for us when they were off duty. I suppose the Depot knew about it because a situation had arisen whereby Bill Mortimer had gone ashore on punishment transfer to Flamborough Head Lighthouse.
The circumstances were, that on ones 'day off' the keepers would go to the home of one of the telemeter officers to watch television. They lived in the old coastguard cottages in the village. During the day the superintendent had been telephoning to contact Bill, but without success. The last call of the day was to the effect that Bill had to telephone him as soon as he got back. Around midnight the superintendent again called, but Bill was still not there.
The following day when he eventually reached Bill, he said that he had had to visit the dentist in Ipswich for painful toothache. This was checked and found to be a lie, so Bill was moved. As Flamborough was considered one of the best stations for tips, many thought it was hardly punishment. He was eventually moved to Bull Point, where he saw out his service.
The station was extremely dirty and unkempt. Tequin had come down from North Wales and was not happy. He did not like leaving that country, and his wife was expecting, the birth due in about two weeks and it was their first child. He worked off his frustration by trying to clean the place up. I did a lot of scrubbing of walls again, removing years of smoke and grime, whilst he painted everything in sight. I concentrated on the kitchen and scullery, as I did not agree in putting on paint on uncleaned surfaces.
We finally made ourselves quite comfortable, and our best chairs were a couple of deck chairs. I suppose these had been salvaged from the sea at sometime. The only thing we had to do all day was amuse ourselves. There was no fog signal, if high winds were forecast we would get a telephone call via the Met boys to hoist the north or south cone, whichever was appropriate.
We therefore spent hours walking the beach looking for amber, or sea coal, but as the Police and Fire Brigade were on an equally boring job, by the time we got out, they had already made a thorough search of about 4 miles of beach. Both the items come from the same source - underwater seams washed out by the sea. The coal I did not find very useful, although it was good for keeping a fire in at night, being very slow burning. During the war time I believe the keepers had a good trade in the stuff.
The amber was a little different; it showed up quite nicely among the pebbles when wet, glowing orange. I understand that it could be sold for 2/- an ounce, but I never tried to get into the trade, being content to keep one or two pieces that I found. I still have a couple of pieces that fit together as though they were one.
For doing all this beach walking, which was heavy on footwear, the keepers of old had fashioned a kind of sabot. This was a short plank of wood with a rope strap that caught on the instep of ones shoe. It made it into a kind of snowshoe, sliding over the shingle.
One day during one of our conversations with the Met men, the question of fishing came up, as this area was supposed to be good for cod, and the water off the beach was very deep. They had plenty of suitable canes that had been recovered from the sea, but could see little point in doing much about it, as they could not get bait. I gave them confidence that if they produced the rods, I would produce the bait.
So we set about in earnest, selecting the best cane, and instructions went off to the Ministry workshops up the road to make the ferrules to fit the rods, and the following day we were in business. I do not remember what we used for reel, but we had the line as it was part of Trinity stores that could be ordered and there was some on the station. All that remained was for me to provide the bait. When I turned up with some stewing steak they were all very sceptical, but I cut it into thin slivers and told them to put it on as they would a worm.
We were quite successful and caught a number of flounders. Everyone had an enjoyable, if surprising time. I never understood why we never repeated the exercise.
One task that came upon us was storing up from the depot tender. T.H.V. Triton arrived off station one day and signalled that they were going to land stores. This consisted of paraffin, paint and dry goods. The launch came into the beach and unloaded several crew and dozens of 5-gallon cans, which we all had to trudge up the steep beach with and deposit into our storage tanks. It looked like the pirate days of old with the casks of brandy for the vicar, all over again.
After we had been on station about 10 days Tec received notice that his wife had gone into labour and he could proceed home as soon as his relief arrived. This was to be Tommy Ellis, senior hand at Cromer. He was not very pleased, as he had only just returned home from having done another spell of 'off station' posting. He arrived on a Saturday, without stores. By the time I got to the village that day, the shops had sold out of bread. I therefore knocked up a batch of dough and made a beautiful loaf of bread, the best I ever made.
Tequin resigned whilst ashore, obviously not wishing to leave Wales again, nor his wife and child.
The chief superintendent was responsible for the Harwich District, and I suppose if he could cut corners he was able to pocket some of the money, or on the other hand he may have submitted contracts for acceptance. He turned up on station one day trying to persuade us to paint the tower and the dwellings. The tower was white with a red lantern and a red band around the middle of the tower, about dwelling roof height.
His idea was that we should have 12-foot poles with paint brushes tied to the end. We were to lean down from the gallery and reach up from the roof of the cottages. He was not too pleased at our refusal, nor my suggestion that by the time we had finished it would look more like a barber's pole.
One very odd incident occurred soon after we arrived on station. I suppose we were only following usual practices. However, I had relieved Tec at midnight. (Because there was only the two of us, one went on watch till midnight, and the other went on watch until daylight, then went to bed again. The one who had finished watch at midnight got up when he woke, had breakfast and went into the village. The other fellow when he woke got on with preparing the dinner ready for the shopper's return.)
While I was watching the rays of the beams, I thought that they were slowing. When I got to the light, the lens had almost stopped, so I tried to wind up the clock, but could not. I then noticed that the packet of tapers normally left on top of the clock cabinet was jammed in the worm gear that transferred the power from the clock to the shaft that drove the lens.
At this point I pushed the lens round to keep it revolving, whilst I tried to extract the tapers. This was not as easy as it might seem as they were very badly chewed up by the gearing. I can only presume that the vibration of the clock caused them to work toward the edge and it was most unfortunate in the position it chose to fall.
This however was not the end of the matter, because a letter came to the effect that the Cork Light Vessel reported that our light had not been visible. The wording of the letter was rather peculiar. Of course Tom was now on station, whereas Tec had been acquainted with the situation, but it was not logged. Tommy must have sent in a satisfactory reply as we never heard any more of the matter.
One of the most interesting things I saw whilst at Orford was a practice bombing run, of which I expect the knowledge of is still a military secret. As I stated before, there was a bombing range along this shingle peninsular, which ended at the lighthouse and for the purpose of which the RAF officers manned the Telemeter Station in the old coastguard watch house. This was the opposite side of the end of the run to the lighthouse. The planes that mainly used this run were Canberras.
One day one of these officers told me that if I wanted to see something interesting, to hang about tomorrow afternoon. That day being my day off, I got him to specify a time. The time came and went, and if I was going to get to the village in time to do some shopping, I had to leave. As I walked the three miles to the ferry, I kept looking back to see if anything was happening.
I had got across the ferry and was walking into the village when I was attracted by the sound of an aircraft's engines, so I stopped and looked back. I saw a Canberra coming in at a steep dive, and just after it passed the lighthouse and was about over the shoreline, the plane pulled up sharply and went into a vertical climb.
At about 1,000 feet, suddenly an orange ball, about the size and shape of the modern metal beer barrels, emerged from the plane and carried on in the same direction that the plane was climbing. Almost simultaneously the plane turned on its back and commenced flying back the way it had come in an inverted position, before righting itself and continuing on its way. In the meantime, the ball continued upwards until its momentum had been exhausted, whence it began to fall, until it was out of my view.
I subsequently learned the purpose of the exercise; Britain had not got a bomber capable of flying to Moscow, dropping an Atomic Bomb and flying on to a safe destination. Therefore, someone had come up with this idea of dropping the bomb, which would not land till the plane was well on its way back to base. Thereby avoiding flying through its own holocaust which would have been the case if the bomb was dropped as it flew over the area, and then had to turn round to come back.
I understand that the practice landed the bomb within 200 hundred yards of the target, which was an orange buoy moored in the sea about a quarter of a mile from the beach.
I came ashore from Orford after having done my month there and was relieved by Martin Biddle who was not to remain at the station much longer himself. He was posted to Portland Bill, from where he eventually resigned.
One interesting exercise I witnessed at the lighthouse, was the lowering of the mercury bath, which is the principle of the floating frictionless lens. This came about because the station was eventually to be unmanned and a new mechanism had to be produced to drive the lens instead of the wind up clockwork. There was also to be a new light source. The trough is about a foot deep and the same in width, made of cast iron. Inside the trough is about 7 gallons of mercury. Hence the whole structure is very heavy.
The station is equipped with jacks for the purpose of lowering this arrangement, and can be bolted in position in the base plate of the whole construction. A mechanic by the name of Bill Wright had come out to do the job, accompanied by the engineer, Lewis, whom I had met on Lundy. It is said that the cleaning of the mercury in the bath should be done every 7 years. For this purpose, lighthouses in their store kept seven enamel rimless buckets, plus an enamel jug.
The mercury would attack the lining of any metal bucket, and the reason for rimless buckets is that the weight of the liquid metal in a bucket with a rim, would cause the bucket to sink on the rim and perhaps puncture the bucket. I understand that only about a gallon of the metal was put in each bucket.
About this time there was a great enquiry going on. The new Dungeness Lighthouse had not long been completed, and when Trinity went to remove the mercury from the lens of the Old Light, there it was, gone. It was considered a remarkable mystery, as there was absolutely no trace of how it had been removed. Anyone who has ever broken a thermometer will know how difficult it is to pick up every drop of this liquid metal that forms itself into small balls that roll about all over the place. Whoever stole the metal did a very skilful job.
A value of £800 was suggested as the loss, but I cannot vouch for its accuracy as I do no know how much a gallon of the stuff weighs. It must be something colossal, but it was said that the stuff was worth 5/- per ounce.
One suggestion was that it had been conveyed down to a waiting vehicle with a hose, but it is all conjecture. Stations did carry a certain amount of spare mercury, which was stored in cast iron bottles, they were very heavy to shift and I gather only contained about a pint.
I wonder if anyone out there knows what really happened to the mercury?
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