Peter J Hill's Blog spot

2009-09-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

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A simple Introduction

2009-09-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

Seldom does one have the chance to live in a place that fills your mind with such wonderful memories. The Mull of Galloway is just such a place. For five and a half memorable years my family and I had the priviledge of being stationed there. I was second assistant lightkeeper Peter Hill and this was my second posting in my service with the Northern Lighthouse Board.
The light still shines as bright as the in the days when there were keepers there to attend it but alas there are no keepers to attend any of the lights round the coast of Britain, well not in the traditional sense that is. But then again tradition is only a matter of history and and those left alive to relate it. Sometime in the future even the light itself will become obsolete and some future developer may demolish or change it's character for beyond the purpose for which it was built.
This blog is dedicated to all the lighthouses round Britain and the keepers who tended them, especially those under the control of the Commisioners of Northern Lighthouses.
Our brothers who served with Trinity House and The Commisioners of Irish Lights are worthy of mention as we are bonded by the same trials and tribulatons and will have similar stories to tell, such was the nature of our service.

Here is a poem that I composed for the recent opening of the museum, it briefly puts into prose the essence and purpose of the Lighthouse and the way some of us Keepers feel about her.

Star of the Four Kingdoms

Like a beckoning finger come hither, meet thy doom, ye mariners of old
My rocks await your careless gait or stormy tempest seas unfold
No kindly welcome to Scotia's soil, or gently rolling surf
But surging tides and jagged cliffs a topped by heather grass and turf
They built me tall they built me well,
my whiteness stands as sentinel
In daylight hours my shapely form now welcomes all to Scotia

And in the darkness of the night
my purpose truly comes to light
Benevolent flash to guide them passed and safely on wherever
Like a Nelson's patch I'm blinded by my neighbours fretful plea
that was done of purpose so I should see them not or they see nought of me
My sweep takes me round the Bay of Luce and Wigtown's kinder shores
then gently ont to Solway Firth till she passes out of view

On clearest days the Lakeland Fells and peaks
my eye can see, at night my brother lights flash dimly
if Brethren lights they be
My sister at the Point of Ayre has bands of red and white;
she shows the same in flashes in the middle of the night
but all that distance reveals to me is a single flash of light
My beam sweeps on in gentle scan to Peel the marks the end of Man

I linger just a little while, on the fertile lands of the Emerald Isle
till blindness comes again once more as silvery sea gives way
to land on Scotia's rugged shore
Four ascore years I stood alone, yet flawed by this ommision
My light and form were concealed by fog till they came to this admission
A trumpeter or Heralds Host could not announce us better
Even if it sounds forlorn or fromn your slumber wakes and dreams all scatter

There was no better sounding Horn,
but alas once more I stand alone
Three graceful Queens have passed me by
and two who's Majesty has gazed on me
Sadly Belfast's Pride I've seen make passage to her destiny
To all my charges great or small and to those sons of earth who tended me
I am simply known as...Star...The Light of the Mull of Galloway

Star of the four kingdoms

Peter J Hill's Blog spot

A simple Introduction