LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER DUTIES FULL
Eventually they refused to supply weather observations and, as a final protest, threatened to turn the lights out.Ī Commission of Enquiry eventually recommended that nine of the lighthouses should remain manned and their full automation be considered only when the current resident keepers had retired. The Baring Head lighthouse keeper and Public Service Association representative, Steve O’Neill, says keepers “objected, fought, placated, pleaded”. Various technological advances made the job less labour intensive two or three families were no longer required to operate a station, and a staffing policy of natural attrition slowly whittled away the number of keepers.īy the end of the 1970s “demanning” had become a buzz word within the offices of the keepers’ employers, the Ministry of Transport. Eventually, nearly all lighthouses were connected to the national mains supply, and now the only stations using diesel-electric generating plants are those on remote islands.Įlsewhere the generators became silent backups for emergencies. These were the days of night watches, and every few hours keepers wound up a clockwork mechanism to ensure the lenses continued to revolve.īy 1957 all the main lights had been electrified and the paramount importance of keepers slowly eroded. Inside the glass lenses the actual light looked like a large Tilley lantern.
Later vaporised kerosine did the same job. The lights were originally powered by colza oil, a derivative of rape. Technology has subverted this long and honourable tradition. By 1881 another 20 lighthouses had been shipped from England and erected, and in 1911 78 keepers were tending some 42 lights around the coast from Cape Maria Van Diemen in the north to Centre Island in the south.Īs late as 1974 25 manned “lights” remained, yet at the time this article was researched just six stations had fulltime residential staff. The first lighthouse began operating at Pencarrow Head (near the entrance to Wellington harbour) in 1859. During our early history shipwrecks became common on the unlit coast and by 1845 more than 100 vessels had been totally lost. After all, even 2000 years ago beacon fires were being lit on high cliffs to guide mariners, and over the last five centuries in Britain the Elder Brethren of Trinity House had developed the most reputable and valued manned lighthouse service in the world. When Alan Martin began his career it seemed a totally secure occupation.
LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER DUTIES PROFESSIONAL
However, the Martins admit that earlier they had felt confused and exhausted by a very long public row concerning their professional future. It seems to epitomise their image of themselves and other couples in the lighthouse service - people who help rather than need help, maintain solidarity of spirit against the odds and hugely enjoy life because they are uncrushable survivors. Mr and Mrs Martin of Nugget Point lighthouse delight in telling this story. Jobless, middle-aged and happy they would go back to civilisation for one final adventure. But after Alan’s admission that night the Martins felt completely released from anxiety about the future. By June 20, 1990, the last of our manned lighthouses will be automated.
They stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.Īlan Martin is New Zealand’s longest-serving lighthouse keeper and now, like all the others, he is about to lose his way of life. She looked back at him sleepily, grinned and said calmly, “Then it has been a joke for 27 years of our lives and now it looks like the joke is on you!” But you took the whole thing so seriously that I had no choice but to follow through.” “Remember at the beginning when I asked if you would like to live in a lighthouse and you became so enthusiastic? Well, I just meant it as a joke, Shirley. He sat up in bed, tapped his wife on the shoulder, looked her in the eye and admitted his secret. Written by Tony Reid Photographed by Arno GasteigerĪlan Martin suddenly decided it was not too late for the truth.
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