As a child, I used to travel to and from east Africa via the Bay of Biscay and Capes Finisterre (Spain) and Finistère (Brittany). I know the sea often gets rough around that part of the world.
Like Cornwall, Brittany used to be the scene of many shipwrecks, so lighthouses were constructed to warn mariners when they were approaching dangerous coasts. Constructing these challenged the best civil engineers of their day, and manning them to ensure that the light was there when most needed attracted a special breed. (Once, on an evening walk around a southern English dormitory town, I got chatting with a night watchman. When he told me that the best part of his job was the number of people he got to meet and talk to, I asked him what he used to do – he replied that he used to be the keeper of the Eddystone Light).
Nowadays, lighthouses are automatic. They don’t need resident keepers – just tough seamen to go out and maintain or repair them as necessary. But while you are watching the video below, of a storm in December 2007, just think back to what it would have been like to be the keeper.
[mappress mapid="5"]
