A day in the life of a... lighthouse keeper

David Fleetwood looks at another of Scotland's tradtional occupations.

Lighthouses around the Scottish coast have been battered for generations by high seas, standing sentinel over the most spectacular and rugged parts of the shore. From low-lying headlands to tiny skerries miles off the coast of the Hebrides, the paraffin oilers have maintained the vital navigational beacons for many generations.

The beginnings of the lighthouse service are in the late 18th century. An act of Parliament dated 1786 founded the lighthouse service and authorised the construction of four lighthouses around the coast of Scotland ‘for the security of navigation and fishermen in the northern parts of Great Britain.' The board of commissioners was established in Edinburgh to implement the act, and the great tradition of building lighthouses around the coast of Scotland was established.

The first lighthouse established by the board was in 1787 at Kinnaird Head near Fraserburgh. The number of lighthouses built expanded very rapidly, and at its peak in 1958 there were some 84 manned lighthouses around Scotland. The lighthouses were split into the shore stations, located around the coast, the island stations which were strung across the islands offshore, and the rock stations which were the most remote and located on small skerries and offshore reefs.

The shore and island stations were traditionally manned by a lighthouse keeper and his family, but it was felt that the remote rock lighthouses were too remote and inhospitable for a keeper's family to live there, so the...

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• By : David Fleetwood
• In : Interview
• Issue : 41
• Page : 64
• Words : 1,141