Recently during a visit to the lighthouse on the Out Skerries in Shetland we found a most interesting memo. The attendant keeper, Bobby Johnson, was showing us an old order book full of interesting letters. Among them was one dated 1956 from the Northern Lighthouse Board to the keepers?

It seems the keepers were using the radio telephone to transmit messages that were not in line with the regulations. If you look closely at the picture I took of the memo, the subject of the disputed communication was television and someone still in their pyjamas.

Northern Lighthouse Board Memo Click on picture to enlarge

This communication may not have been in line with the rules but this particular lighthouse is an hour and half ferry ride from the main island of the Shetland archeoplego. The keeper dwelling is on a small island away from the where most of the Out Skerry people live. This is true isolation.

Living in a remote area I have great empathy for those keepers. I have telephone, television and the Interent, which allows me contact with the outside world but at times I would just like to hear the voice of another human being. It seems to me if any one who was valiant enough to man the Out Skerry lighthouse ought to allowed to use the radio telephony to communicate with other keepers about any thing as long as the business of tending the light was carried out.

Sharma

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You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures/Lighthouse Letters.

I have three books which are directly related to this column. The Last Lighthouse tells how we bought our lighthouse, the day by day journal of a year at Eshaness entitled A Year in the Lighthouse and in Scottish Lighthouses our lighthouse is featured in the 31 lighthouses presented. You can find out more about these books and other I have written at my official author web site.