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Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper
When Peter Hill, a student at Dundee College of Art, answered an advert in The Scotsman seeking lighthouse keepers, little did he imagine that within a month he would be living with three men he didn't know in a lighthouse on Pladda, a small remote island off the west coast of Scotland.
Hill was nineteen, it was 1973 and, with his head fed by Vietnam, Zappa, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Watergate and Coronation Street, he spent six months on various lighthouses, "keeping" with all manner of unusual and fascinating people. Within thirty years this way of life was to have disappeared entirely.
The resulting book is a charming and beautifully written memoir that is not only a heartfelt lament for Hill's own youth and innocence but also for a simpler and more honest age.
Hill was nineteen, it was 1973 and, with his head fed by Vietnam, Zappa, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Watergate and Coronation Street, he spent six months on various lighthouses, "keeping" with all manner of unusual and fascinating people. Within thirty years this way of life was to have disappeared entirely.
The resulting book is a charming and beautifully written memoir that is not only a heartfelt lament for Hill's own youth and innocence but also for a simpler and more honest age.
324 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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June 17, 2013
"It's getting nicely weird again, I thought to myself"
This really is all you need to know about this book. The nicely is that much over used but in this case perfectly appropriate cliché of it being love poem to a vanished age. Peter Hill drops out of his University course to take advantage of a summer's lighthouse keeping. He is at the tail end of the manned lighthouse tradition and you sense his deep love and admiration for these brave and adventurous men.
The weird part is his descriptions not only of the lifestyle and space these men had to adopt, living cheek by jowl in sometimes very cramped and always restrictive conditions, but also the great panoply of nutty as fruitcake characters that these men, and they were always men, were.
There was the one who worked out the menus for the three meals a day not a couple of weeks in advance as would be fairly sensible on an isolated rock where food needed to be planned for and ordered in monthly but three or four or six months ahead and there was to be no swerving from his plan.
Or the one who was addicted to relating to Peter, in painfully awkward detail, the women through whom he had worked his passage whilst working in Australia and the surround.
But then there was my personal favourite for eccentric par excellence and indeed who would possibly dare get close enough to rip that title from his VERY naked hands. The renowned Lachlan Fairbairn who, on arriving on the lighthouse for his tour of duty immediately removed all his clothes and spent the next three or four weeks living in joyous nudity but not, it must be realized, joyous isolation. Two other unfortunates had to share the very limited space with this man's hairy bum and ....well I will leave it to your imagination.
The accounts of these men were written with evident affection and admiration and with a great humour and turn of phrase. There is a simple tone to Hill's descriptive imagery which is clever without being forced. His description of the day break across the huge sea from one of the lighthouse towers is immediately recognizable:
"It was like watching a Mark Rothko painting take form before our eyes. A slash of pink followed by a band of gold above the horizon and an inky blue below". As I said, simple and clear.
He only worked on three lighthouses during his sojourn with this band of men but that is where the again bit comes in. The structure remained unchanged and unchanging. The actual siting of the lighthouses might differ and be new and challenging but the pulse of the work remained the same. He captures, for the reader, the complex but swiftly familiar routine, the struggle against sleep in the 'Rembrandt duty'....the nightwatchman's hours of 2 until 6am, the weirdly affectionate camaraderie which more often than not appears to have been a given for these men even though on occasions, all three would have been total strangers to each other prior to touching down on the island.
This book is not going to change your life but in it you experience the effect it did have to change the life of the author. He left his last post a different man and, 30 years on, the romance and power of the work inspires him still. A work and life-style that is lost and gone but, if you read this book, it will certainly not be forgotten.
This really is all you need to know about this book. The nicely is that much over used but in this case perfectly appropriate cliché of it being love poem to a vanished age. Peter Hill drops out of his University course to take advantage of a summer's lighthouse keeping. He is at the tail end of the manned lighthouse tradition and you sense his deep love and admiration for these brave and adventurous men.
The weird part is his descriptions not only of the lifestyle and space these men had to adopt, living cheek by jowl in sometimes very cramped and always restrictive conditions, but also the great panoply of nutty as fruitcake characters that these men, and they were always men, were.
There was the one who worked out the menus for the three meals a day not a couple of weeks in advance as would be fairly sensible on an isolated rock where food needed to be planned for and ordered in monthly but three or four or six months ahead and there was to be no swerving from his plan.
Or the one who was addicted to relating to Peter, in painfully awkward detail, the women through whom he had worked his passage whilst working in Australia and the surround.
But then there was my personal favourite for eccentric par excellence and indeed who would possibly dare get close enough to rip that title from his VERY naked hands. The renowned Lachlan Fairbairn who, on arriving on the lighthouse for his tour of duty immediately removed all his clothes and spent the next three or four weeks living in joyous nudity but not, it must be realized, joyous isolation. Two other unfortunates had to share the very limited space with this man's hairy bum and ....well I will leave it to your imagination.
The accounts of these men were written with evident affection and admiration and with a great humour and turn of phrase. There is a simple tone to Hill's descriptive imagery which is clever without being forced. His description of the day break across the huge sea from one of the lighthouse towers is immediately recognizable:
"It was like watching a Mark Rothko painting take form before our eyes. A slash of pink followed by a band of gold above the horizon and an inky blue below". As I said, simple and clear.
He only worked on three lighthouses during his sojourn with this band of men but that is where the again bit comes in. The structure remained unchanged and unchanging. The actual siting of the lighthouses might differ and be new and challenging but the pulse of the work remained the same. He captures, for the reader, the complex but swiftly familiar routine, the struggle against sleep in the 'Rembrandt duty'....the nightwatchman's hours of 2 until 6am, the weirdly affectionate camaraderie which more often than not appears to have been a given for these men even though on occasions, all three would have been total strangers to each other prior to touching down on the island.
This book is not going to change your life but in it you experience the effect it did have to change the life of the author. He left his last post a different man and, 30 years on, the romance and power of the work inspires him still. A work and life-style that is lost and gone but, if you read this book, it will certainly not be forgotten.
April 17, 2014
Hill has written a delightful memoir of the summer that he spent working on three lighthouses in 1973 on the coast of Scotland. After a conversation in a pub saying that this is something that he always wanted to do, he is encouraged to write and see if they offer summer jobs. He does and they offer him an interview. One small white lie about his cooking ability, and he is successful. Shortly after a letter drops on his mat with instruction on how to get to the first lighthouse.
These are the days when lighthouses are manned with three men, who cover all the tasks required over each 24 hour period. He sets off to Pladda where he is welcomed a trainee by the guys there and starts to learn the routines. He immerses himself into the job, loving the remoteness and solitude from the mass of humanity. The guys he works with are all characters, with their own traits and foibles. The lighthouse must be wound every 30 minutes, and these were the day before electricity on them, so he needed to light the paraffin lanterns each night. He is taught the records that must be kept, how to read the weather, checking that the other lighthouses are alight, but most of all he learns how to cook. The food is delivered regularly and they grow their own vegetables and catch their fish, crabs ad lobster, and they always eat well.
Next onto Ailsa Craig. There he meets one of he legends of he lighthouse crews, Stretch, and spends eight weeks on this tiny but beautiful island. His final post was Hyskeir, a tiny rock of the Western isles and only accessible but boat or helicopter. It is utterly remote, and exquisitely beautiful. They have the company of three goats, and right at the end, like a scene from a Hitchcock film, are visited by thousands of migrating birds. There is a delay leaving because of the weather, but as he steps away from his final lighthouse he knows that it has made him who he now is.
This is such a lovely book to read. It is of a time that is now lost to us with the advent of automation and electricity in lighthouses, but Hill brings it vividly to life with his expressive and fluent writing. There is humour in here too, his first dinner in Pladda is very funny, and his descriptions of those his works and lives with is written with wit and sensitivity. Very good, can highly recommend for those that want to read something different.
These are the days when lighthouses are manned with three men, who cover all the tasks required over each 24 hour period. He sets off to Pladda where he is welcomed a trainee by the guys there and starts to learn the routines. He immerses himself into the job, loving the remoteness and solitude from the mass of humanity. The guys he works with are all characters, with their own traits and foibles. The lighthouse must be wound every 30 minutes, and these were the day before electricity on them, so he needed to light the paraffin lanterns each night. He is taught the records that must be kept, how to read the weather, checking that the other lighthouses are alight, but most of all he learns how to cook. The food is delivered regularly and they grow their own vegetables and catch their fish, crabs ad lobster, and they always eat well.
Next onto Ailsa Craig. There he meets one of he legends of he lighthouse crews, Stretch, and spends eight weeks on this tiny but beautiful island. His final post was Hyskeir, a tiny rock of the Western isles and only accessible but boat or helicopter. It is utterly remote, and exquisitely beautiful. They have the company of three goats, and right at the end, like a scene from a Hitchcock film, are visited by thousands of migrating birds. There is a delay leaving because of the weather, but as he steps away from his final lighthouse he knows that it has made him who he now is.
This is such a lovely book to read. It is of a time that is now lost to us with the advent of automation and electricity in lighthouses, but Hill brings it vividly to life with his expressive and fluent writing. There is humour in here too, his first dinner in Pladda is very funny, and his descriptions of those his works and lives with is written with wit and sensitivity. Very good, can highly recommend for those that want to read something different.
July 19, 2018
Stargazing tells the true story of a young student who went to work in various lighthouses in remote parts of Scotland.
When Peter Hill was a 19 year old student in the early 1970s he decided, despite having no experience, to be a lighthouse keeper. His story takes us briefly through his student life, his job interview, & on to the lighthouse work itself where he met a wonderful array of people.
Hill's writing is light & chatty, yet incredible informative. This is not only a snapshot of the 1970s, it is the story of the men he meets while learning how to be part of a lighthouse crew. Every character tells wonderful stories, as Peter Hill listens & consumes huge amounts of food as seems to be a lighthouse keeper's custom.
Hill's love of poetry & music comes across during his travels and, as a reader, you cannot stop yourself wishing you could have been with him on his extraordinary adventures.
When Peter Hill was a 19 year old student in the early 1970s he decided, despite having no experience, to be a lighthouse keeper. His story takes us briefly through his student life, his job interview, & on to the lighthouse work itself where he met a wonderful array of people.
Hill's writing is light & chatty, yet incredible informative. This is not only a snapshot of the 1970s, it is the story of the men he meets while learning how to be part of a lighthouse crew. Every character tells wonderful stories, as Peter Hill listens & consumes huge amounts of food as seems to be a lighthouse keeper's custom.
Hill's love of poetry & music comes across during his travels and, as a reader, you cannot stop yourself wishing you could have been with him on his extraordinary adventures.
October 11, 2018
“You don’t have to be mad to work in a lighthouse – but it helps.” Hill’s memoir tells of dropping out of art school to become a Scottish lighthouse keeper in the summer of 1973. He started on Pladda, a tiny island off of Arran, and also had postings on Ailsa Craig and Hyskeir. What’s remarkable is that he was able to turn just 12 weeks of experiences he had 30 years before into a whole book that never feels thin on material. “I realise it doesn’t sound long,” he admits at one point, “but we’re talking life-changing experiences here.”
Hill must have been a faithful journaler at the time; it sounds like he also kept lots of useful documents like letters and schedules that would remind him of what everyday life was like in the course of this most peculiar three-man job. He and his comrades alternated cooking duties and shifts manning the light, with the night watch generally referred to as a “Rembrandt.” To stay awake at 2 a.m. they would swap stories, read poems, or play Nautical Scrabble (proper nouns allowed, but all words must relate to the sea).
The characters and conversations are convincing, but I found the insertion of period detail – albums that came out around that time, contemporary TV shows, debates about the Vietnam War, breaking news of Watergate – a little forced, and Hill writes in a laddish style I didn’t always appreciate, e.g. “I flicked through grainy black and white images of a myriad of lighthouses, each of a type yet each as individual as erect penises in a porn magazine.” (The book is also shockingly poorly edited in terms of typos and punctuation; luckily, Canongate releases have gotten much better over the last 15 years!)
Still, this was an easy read and I valued it as an account of a time that is lost forever: lighthouses have all been automated now. “Ours was the first profession ever to be made totally redundant,” Hill laments. He thinks sending every young man and woman off to do at least two weeks’ service on a lighthouse might just fix all of society’s ills. I’d like to find out what Hill has done in the years since (a zoom out to the present is always nice to have in a memoir), and whether he’s written any other books. A quick glance suggests no.
My signed copy came from one of the main shops in Hay-on-Wye on one of our earliest visits.
Hill must have been a faithful journaler at the time; it sounds like he also kept lots of useful documents like letters and schedules that would remind him of what everyday life was like in the course of this most peculiar three-man job. He and his comrades alternated cooking duties and shifts manning the light, with the night watch generally referred to as a “Rembrandt.” To stay awake at 2 a.m. they would swap stories, read poems, or play Nautical Scrabble (proper nouns allowed, but all words must relate to the sea).
The characters and conversations are convincing, but I found the insertion of period detail – albums that came out around that time, contemporary TV shows, debates about the Vietnam War, breaking news of Watergate – a little forced, and Hill writes in a laddish style I didn’t always appreciate, e.g. “I flicked through grainy black and white images of a myriad of lighthouses, each of a type yet each as individual as erect penises in a porn magazine.” (The book is also shockingly poorly edited in terms of typos and punctuation; luckily, Canongate releases have gotten much better over the last 15 years!)
Still, this was an easy read and I valued it as an account of a time that is lost forever: lighthouses have all been automated now. “Ours was the first profession ever to be made totally redundant,” Hill laments. He thinks sending every young man and woman off to do at least two weeks’ service on a lighthouse might just fix all of society’s ills. I’d like to find out what Hill has done in the years since (a zoom out to the present is always nice to have in a memoir), and whether he’s written any other books. A quick glance suggests no.
My signed copy came from one of the main shops in Hay-on-Wye on one of our earliest visits.
September 11, 2016
Thoroughly enjoyed Peter Hill's account of spending a year (1973) working 'on the lights' off the coast of Scotland.
It might 'only' be 1973 but it is like hearing about another world - and one that will shortly be gone forever due to the automation of the lighthouses. The lighthouse keepers know their time is up and this gives an added poignancy to the characters we meet.
Hill gives us a wonderful insight into daily life on a lighthouse and I loved hearing about their meals, hobbies etc. And what a fabulous time for music too (the best ever in my opinion!) with a soundtrack of Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Grace Slick, Leonard Cohen and of course the wonderful Jimi Hendrix.
I was too young to realise the impact of the war in Vietnam and Watergate - both issues managing to intrude into the remotest corners of the UK thanks to constant TV coverage.
Hill does make some howlers - he mentions watching Curly Watts on Corrie but he didn't actually appear until 1983!
It might 'only' be 1973 but it is like hearing about another world - and one that will shortly be gone forever due to the automation of the lighthouses. The lighthouse keepers know their time is up and this gives an added poignancy to the characters we meet.
Hill gives us a wonderful insight into daily life on a lighthouse and I loved hearing about their meals, hobbies etc. And what a fabulous time for music too (the best ever in my opinion!) with a soundtrack of Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Grace Slick, Leonard Cohen and of course the wonderful Jimi Hendrix.
I was too young to realise the impact of the war in Vietnam and Watergate - both issues managing to intrude into the remotest corners of the UK thanks to constant TV coverage.
Hill does make some howlers - he mentions watching Curly Watts on Corrie but he didn't actually appear until 1983!
June 9, 2022
I finished reading this brilliant book and submitted my review to a popular op-ed (it’s also the best of its kind) in Taiwan. I am happy that its post on Facebook received over 150 likes and is shared 20 times on Day 1. It’s really excited when you finally realize there are still someone who shares common interest with you. Reading and writing could be so lonely at times. I am always confused why few people nowadays read anymore. Reading is my favorite escape after a long day at the office. Business world is so profit-oriented. Everything has to deal with profit and money, which could kill one man’s soul. Fortunately, reading heals.
The link (in Chinese) is below, please have a look if you are interested:)
Wish to have more time to write more in English though:
https://opinion.cw.com.tw/blog/profil...
The link (in Chinese) is below, please have a look if you are interested:)
Wish to have more time to write more in English though:
https://opinion.cw.com.tw/blog/profil...
October 23, 2019
Loved this.. Ive read a few books about lighthouses in the past (Tony Parker’s Lighthouse springs to mind), as there is something about the life of a lighthouse keeper that intruiges me. This book is great. It tells the story of a Scottish art student who works on 3 lighthouses during the summer of 1973. We hear all about the daily routines, the characters he works with and their stories. If you are interested in how people tick, you’ll enjoy this very much.
December 30, 2014
A wonderful book; if only the author had spent longer lighthouse-keeping so there could be sequels. Lovely content, some beautiful turns of phrase, yet always real and companionable.
Much of the book is about time spent on the lighthouses on islands off the west coast of Scotland: with other keepers, who recall their motley life-experiences and have eccentric past-times to fill the hours not on duty - and with the beautiful and isolated landscapes which are a source of artistic inspiration, food and anecdotes about strange local animals.
This is also 1973, when Hill was between art-college courses. Before and between the several-week lighthouse shifts we hear the effects of events like Vietnam and Watergate on his and his friends attitude to the world and their life decisions. You can go on holiday to Amsterdam or see several plays at the Edinburgh festival for next to no money - it's a time when student life sounded cheap and easy.
He's a very engaging writer and the book has a sense of youth, freshness and recency, rather than always feeling like the reminscences of a man in late middle age.
The names of his student friends and contemporaries, such as Keith and Arthur, are one of the few details that give a sense that these Deadheads and dropouts are, in the present, an older generation who settled down long ago.
It's intriguing to see that 40 years ago, plenty of younger people were also concluding that the world was in a mess and that this for the more pessimistic ones (unlike the author) "erased long-term plans for any kind of future".
Most of all this is a friendly book about interesting times with great characters, in a beautiful and simple environment. Reminiscent of the likes of James Herriot - but better. If only this were a series.
Much of the book is about time spent on the lighthouses on islands off the west coast of Scotland: with other keepers, who recall their motley life-experiences and have eccentric past-times to fill the hours not on duty - and with the beautiful and isolated landscapes which are a source of artistic inspiration, food and anecdotes about strange local animals.
This is also 1973, when Hill was between art-college courses. Before and between the several-week lighthouse shifts we hear the effects of events like Vietnam and Watergate on his and his friends attitude to the world and their life decisions. You can go on holiday to Amsterdam or see several plays at the Edinburgh festival for next to no money - it's a time when student life sounded cheap and easy.
He's a very engaging writer and the book has a sense of youth, freshness and recency, rather than always feeling like the reminscences of a man in late middle age.
The names of his student friends and contemporaries, such as Keith and Arthur, are one of the few details that give a sense that these Deadheads and dropouts are, in the present, an older generation who settled down long ago.
It's intriguing to see that 40 years ago, plenty of younger people were also concluding that the world was in a mess and that this for the more pessimistic ones (unlike the author) "erased long-term plans for any kind of future".
Most of all this is a friendly book about interesting times with great characters, in a beautiful and simple environment. Reminiscent of the likes of James Herriot - but better. If only this were a series.
May 13, 2020
I really wanted to love this book but in the end....I didnae...it was all a wee bit tae Scottish!
I wanted more about the wild life..and not just the poor migrating birds smashing into the light just as they made land after thousands of miles of flying!
If I was stuck on a lighthouse rock with just Captain Birdseye for company I would have probably loved it...anything to not have to hear the repetitive tales of lighthouse frolics from him...but in my lovely bed during lockdown?Nay...or Noo..whatever.
I wanted more about the wild life..and not just the poor migrating birds smashing into the light just as they made land after thousands of miles of flying!
If I was stuck on a lighthouse rock with just Captain Birdseye for company I would have probably loved it...anything to not have to hear the repetitive tales of lighthouse frolics from him...but in my lovely bed during lockdown?Nay...or Noo..whatever.
October 2, 2018
Evocative account of a world gone forever and a time capsule of the early 70s as well, but not best served by pedestrian prose.
July 23, 2015
A warm bath of a book. A memoir about the author's induction into the adult world of work of a wet behind the ears twenty year old student in what was, even in 1973, very much the twilight of the era of the manned lighthouse.
I have memories of lighthouse keepers - eccentric old men who lived alone with dogs called Sprocket and had their sandwiches stolen by pesky seagulls - as characters in books I read as a young child. Until I picked up this book, I don't really think I'd given their existence a second thought in about thirty or so years, though if I had, it would probably have dawned on me that they would have been an early casualty of the tide of automation that is slowly doing away with supermarket cashiers and has professional drivers in its sights...
In 1973, they were still operated by teams of three men (it wasn't quite the loner's job that childhood fiction suggested, and it was always men) working shifts through the night to keep the lighthouse illuminated and the ships from the rocks, often in a state of considerable sleep deprivation.
The heart of the book is his account of the time he spent on the lighthouses, and the cast of characters he meets while he is out there. On some level, it's a story familiar to anyone who has ever taken a job as a teenager and found themselves, perhaps for the first time, among adults much older than yourself, who are neither your parents, teachers, nor family friends, and who come from backgrounds quite unlike your own. It's familiar enough to me, though I expect the world is not crying out to read 'Tales from the Sausage Factory' or 'It beats gutting fish'. And I never met characters quite as offbeat as Duncan, the Wee Free from the Western Isles with a bible quote for every occasion; Stretch, the Glasgow hard-man who is initially suspicious of the young long-haired hippie author, but who bonds with him over a shared love of early blues music; A character called 'The Professor' with a love of cross words and a fiendishly difficult sounding version of Scrabble where one can only score for nautical terms; Jim, who had spent his youth travelling around Australia and who breaks the unspoken rule that the subjects of sex and women are off-limits on the lighthouse by spending night after night giving elaborate detail of his positively imagined sexual conquests around the world. It's an environment that positively encourages the development of eccentricity, and in a time before the internet, they had to find their own ways to while away the hours. Whether it was the aforementioned Scrabble games, chess played with other lighthouse keepers over the phone or the making of model boats or just obsessively practising one's golf swing in preparation for shore leave.
Reading the book, and in particular the 'Shore Leave' sections describing his life back on the mainland, I sometimes thought I was reading about a character from an unpublished Iain Banks novel. And given that Hill and Banks were born at about the same time in lowland Scotland that's perhaps not surprising. Although in another light, what struck me is how his generation's fears weren't that different from those of his parents or his children - they just had their own focus. While his parents spent their youth with, in their case, quite legitimate worries about Hitler and the possibility of global war, for Hill it was the coming nuclear escalation of the Vietnam War (he makes a passing remark about not worrying about being unable to give up smoking, not because he was unaware of the health risks, but because he assumed he wouldn't live long enough to contract lung cancer anyway) and for his children's generation, environmental collapse. It does rather show up the claim on the dust jacket that this is a story from a more innocent age. I'm not at all sure that it actually was, save in the sense that the popular culture and music that he references was less knowing, less cynical. And I'm not sure that's down to anything more than the lack of ageing rock stars littering the cultural landscape.
A running undercurrent in the book, and something I've encountered elsewhere in books from Jonathan Meades' memoir of growing up in the 1950s to my Dad's book about golf, has been that it's easy for people of my age to forget just how strong the lingering effects of the Second World War were in the following thirty years. The darker and more damaged characters who appear working in the lighthouses in this book were all of age to have fought in the war.
I have memories of lighthouse keepers - eccentric old men who lived alone with dogs called Sprocket and had their sandwiches stolen by pesky seagulls - as characters in books I read as a young child. Until I picked up this book, I don't really think I'd given their existence a second thought in about thirty or so years, though if I had, it would probably have dawned on me that they would have been an early casualty of the tide of automation that is slowly doing away with supermarket cashiers and has professional drivers in its sights...
In 1973, they were still operated by teams of three men (it wasn't quite the loner's job that childhood fiction suggested, and it was always men) working shifts through the night to keep the lighthouse illuminated and the ships from the rocks, often in a state of considerable sleep deprivation.
The heart of the book is his account of the time he spent on the lighthouses, and the cast of characters he meets while he is out there. On some level, it's a story familiar to anyone who has ever taken a job as a teenager and found themselves, perhaps for the first time, among adults much older than yourself, who are neither your parents, teachers, nor family friends, and who come from backgrounds quite unlike your own. It's familiar enough to me, though I expect the world is not crying out to read 'Tales from the Sausage Factory' or 'It beats gutting fish'. And I never met characters quite as offbeat as Duncan, the Wee Free from the Western Isles with a bible quote for every occasion; Stretch, the Glasgow hard-man who is initially suspicious of the young long-haired hippie author, but who bonds with him over a shared love of early blues music; A character called 'The Professor' with a love of cross words and a fiendishly difficult sounding version of Scrabble where one can only score for nautical terms; Jim, who had spent his youth travelling around Australia and who breaks the unspoken rule that the subjects of sex and women are off-limits on the lighthouse by spending night after night giving elaborate detail of his positively imagined sexual conquests around the world. It's an environment that positively encourages the development of eccentricity, and in a time before the internet, they had to find their own ways to while away the hours. Whether it was the aforementioned Scrabble games, chess played with other lighthouse keepers over the phone or the making of model boats or just obsessively practising one's golf swing in preparation for shore leave.
Reading the book, and in particular the 'Shore Leave' sections describing his life back on the mainland, I sometimes thought I was reading about a character from an unpublished Iain Banks novel. And given that Hill and Banks were born at about the same time in lowland Scotland that's perhaps not surprising. Although in another light, what struck me is how his generation's fears weren't that different from those of his parents or his children - they just had their own focus. While his parents spent their youth with, in their case, quite legitimate worries about Hitler and the possibility of global war, for Hill it was the coming nuclear escalation of the Vietnam War (he makes a passing remark about not worrying about being unable to give up smoking, not because he was unaware of the health risks, but because he assumed he wouldn't live long enough to contract lung cancer anyway) and for his children's generation, environmental collapse. It does rather show up the claim on the dust jacket that this is a story from a more innocent age. I'm not at all sure that it actually was, save in the sense that the popular culture and music that he references was less knowing, less cynical. And I'm not sure that's down to anything more than the lack of ageing rock stars littering the cultural landscape.
A running undercurrent in the book, and something I've encountered elsewhere in books from Jonathan Meades' memoir of growing up in the 1950s to my Dad's book about golf, has been that it's easy for people of my age to forget just how strong the lingering effects of the Second World War were in the following thirty years. The darker and more damaged characters who appear working in the lighthouses in this book were all of age to have fought in the war.
February 24, 2023
A joy to read. A wonderful book to linger over. I read this visiting many of the wonderful Australian lighthouses. It was wonderful to put into practice Peter’s idea of embracing place and experiences! Loved it!!!
February 3, 2021
Fascinating and amusing memoir by a art-school drop out, written in the early 1970's about his time working as a lighthouse keeper off the coasts of Scotland.
His tenure on lighthouses took place in the era right before automation, and he draws fine character sketches of his fellow keepers, many of whom are real characters and the odd ducks you'd expect to be drawn to this profession.
Having taken copious notes, you get a real flavor for his milieu as the author's time is split between adjusting to the lifestyle, worrying about the condition of the world around him, and reveling in the explosion of art and music of the era.
Highly recommended for maritime enthusiasts.
His tenure on lighthouses took place in the era right before automation, and he draws fine character sketches of his fellow keepers, many of whom are real characters and the odd ducks you'd expect to be drawn to this profession.
Having taken copious notes, you get a real flavor for his milieu as the author's time is split between adjusting to the lifestyle, worrying about the condition of the world around him, and reveling in the explosion of art and music of the era.
Highly recommended for maritime enthusiasts.
September 24, 2024
I read this book, I suppose, because I was curious what it would be like to be a lighthouse keeper. Specifically a lighthouse keeper on an island off the west coast of Scotland in the early 1970s. Some books you read for escapism: to be immersed in the sights, sounds, and minutiae of another place. Good writing transports you. This book didn’t, not really.
You get a few descriptions of the islands and sea life and wind and rain. But largely it’s about the personalities of the fellow light house keepers and what they watched on television.
A substantial chunk of the humor consists of quips about British sitcoms and gameshows and radio programs of the era, but as an American who wasn’t born until the 1980s, these pop-cultural references were lost on me. “He spoke like Ian McDavies from the show Partridge Crossing, but with the body of James Dopplehammer.” I made that up. But it gives you a sense of the descriptions that left me scratching my head. At first I Googled some of the references, but eventually just gave up.
Still, it was a pleasant enough read. I got a sense of what the lighthouse service was like in Britain in the early '70s, before everything was automated, and it's a charming glimpse of a vanished world. Wish it had been my summer job in college.
You get a few descriptions of the islands and sea life and wind and rain. But largely it’s about the personalities of the fellow light house keepers and what they watched on television.
A substantial chunk of the humor consists of quips about British sitcoms and gameshows and radio programs of the era, but as an American who wasn’t born until the 1980s, these pop-cultural references were lost on me. “He spoke like Ian McDavies from the show Partridge Crossing, but with the body of James Dopplehammer.” I made that up. But it gives you a sense of the descriptions that left me scratching my head. At first I Googled some of the references, but eventually just gave up.
Still, it was a pleasant enough read. I got a sense of what the lighthouse service was like in Britain in the early '70s, before everything was automated, and it's a charming glimpse of a vanished world. Wish it had been my summer job in college.
June 1, 2012
The stories of the lighthouses & lighthouse keepers themselves are good & transport you to another time & unique places with some very interesting characters. However, the interludes are less than spectacular and heavily over-peppered with local & temporal references (to music, books, poetry, tv shows...). I nearly stopped reading after the first chapter because the writing was repetitive and because of this over-mentioning / listing of obscure bands the author liked at the time. His insistence on oh-so-cleverly calling the night watches 'Rembrandts' also grated. I'd have preferred if he actually did gather the stories of more full-time lighthouse keepers (as he hints at at the end of this book, but apparently did not do?) to amass enough material for a more substantial book about the lighthouses & keepers & their stories, rather than attempting to stretch his 12 weeks of lighthouse time into such a volume.
March 9, 2018
Brilliant book about Peter Hill's brief but fascinating life as a student lighthouse keeper in the 1970s. The stories he listens to while training on night watch form the backbone of this history of a redundant way of life. The crazy keepers, the habits of goats, nautical Scrabble and a general aversion to hippies all make this a brilliantly atmospheric and slightly melancholy tale.
April 20, 2019
I enjoyed the stories of the lighthouse keepers and how easily Peter Hill slipped into this life one summer. But like some of the other reviewers I found the constant references to music and the times of his shore leave a little irritating and I'd have liked more on the stories of past lighthouse keepers. There wasn't quite enough here to sustain me.
Read
October 25, 2017I first read this wonderful book a number of years ago when a friend passed on her op-shop copy along with her recommendation. I loved it then and I think I love it even more with this second reading. The title came back into our consciousness while I and my reading friend and our partners had the absolute joy of a working holiday in the cottage of a east coast Queensland lighthouse, and sat alongside the now automated lighthouse each dawn and sunset gazing out at the passing migrating whales.
I did begin this 2nd read via an audio book, narrated by the author and it was lovely to listen to his beautiful accent telling his tale. But this audio book came in "abridged for audio" form and I knew I was missing the detail of some of the incidental descriptions, such as the authors deep craving for colour in his black and white Glasgow life. So for the first time I am disappointed in an audio read.
So back over to the printed page and I am lost in the story again.
I appreciate more deeply the description of silence that comes so rarely in modern life but which I enjoyed briefly during my lighthouse stay. The sentence "to see three lighthouse keepers out for a stroll on Pladda was to see a similar rupturing of the space-time continuum." rings true.
This potentially has the ability to become the longest review ever, so I may stop here at page 67 of my second reading and just say I love it all over again. And I know I will until the last word.
I will have to return this copy to my friend when I finish, but I think I must own this book so it can join one of my other favourite and many many many reread titles, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, to be with me for life.
"And I would smile a secret smile to myself in the absurd knowledge that I was actually being paid to stargaze"
I did begin this 2nd read via an audio book, narrated by the author and it was lovely to listen to his beautiful accent telling his tale. But this audio book came in "abridged for audio" form and I knew I was missing the detail of some of the incidental descriptions, such as the authors deep craving for colour in his black and white Glasgow life. So for the first time I am disappointed in an audio read.
So back over to the printed page and I am lost in the story again.
I appreciate more deeply the description of silence that comes so rarely in modern life but which I enjoyed briefly during my lighthouse stay. The sentence "to see three lighthouse keepers out for a stroll on Pladda was to see a similar rupturing of the space-time continuum." rings true.
This potentially has the ability to become the longest review ever, so I may stop here at page 67 of my second reading and just say I love it all over again. And I know I will until the last word.
I will have to return this copy to my friend when I finish, but I think I must own this book so it can join one of my other favourite and many many many reread titles, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, to be with me for life.
"And I would smile a secret smile to myself in the absurd knowledge that I was actually being paid to stargaze"
April 20, 2025
As someone who’s recently travelled Scottish Islands and had the pleasure to see beautiful lighthouses dotted all over, this book transported me back to the gorgeous, brutal and hard-to-describe scenery. I loved the memoir and the stories within it, and the way the author weaves in the affairs that were dominating the world.
It felt like I’ve gotten up for my watch and a fellow lighthouse keeper is trying to keep me awake.
I’d definitely recommend reading if it ever catches your eye.
It felt like I’ve gotten up for my watch and a fellow lighthouse keeper is trying to keep me awake.
I’d definitely recommend reading if it ever catches your eye.
August 18, 2025
Although a bit too much about poetry and music references from the seventies, I enjoyed reading about the Routine on the lighthouses. I was surprised to read how positively he portrayed being a lighthouse watcher.
I bought the book in the lighthouse of Ardnamuchan lighthouse in Scotland.
I bought the book in the lighthouse of Ardnamuchan lighthouse in Scotland.
January 26, 2023
A pretty nostalgic trip and I loved the details about the routine woven into this story. Took me a while to get into this book and perhaps I was expecting a few more snippets of natural observations during his time but the heart and souls of the story resides in the many characters and other men the author worked with
October 15, 2021
(3,75) I thought I was reading a fiction and was completely sold when I found out it was a memoir. The political background in very strong in the story. It makes sense in a way, but I wasn't in the mood. A lot of music and poetry reference along the way. Very calm and poetic book. He did what light keepers do, he told a story and did it well.
March 5, 2017
I found this to be a bit bland, although there are some quite funny moments mentioned and some descriptive scenes but the cultural references were 1970s related, which is a little before my time (perhaps thats not entirely relevant but im mentioning it none the less). I certainly felt it gave a good idea of what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper at the time and of some of the eccentricities of other people working at the same lighthouses. I was surprised to read how many people are involved in what you may presume to be a very lonely and isolating job.
This is a pretty easy book to read, with little, if any, fancy terminology used, thus you certainly don't have to have a knowledge of the subject area in order to fully understand it. I thought it was quite emotive and while a little bit bland in bits (it is a book on a fairly specific subject, so a certain amount of that is, I suppose, to be expected), its a good read for anyone curious about it. One thing I did wonder, however, was how much of the quoted conversations the author truly remembered? he must have kept very detailed diaries, or summed up what was said, given the book was published decades after the conversations quoted in it. Maybe it doesn't really matter but it was something I wondered in passing.
Overall I'd say this is a pretty decent book - I didn't find it to be a major page-turner but neither did it entirely bore me witless (i.e. not amazing but not awful).
This is a pretty easy book to read, with little, if any, fancy terminology used, thus you certainly don't have to have a knowledge of the subject area in order to fully understand it. I thought it was quite emotive and while a little bit bland in bits (it is a book on a fairly specific subject, so a certain amount of that is, I suppose, to be expected), its a good read for anyone curious about it. One thing I did wonder, however, was how much of the quoted conversations the author truly remembered? he must have kept very detailed diaries, or summed up what was said, given the book was published decades after the conversations quoted in it. Maybe it doesn't really matter but it was something I wondered in passing.
Overall I'd say this is a pretty decent book - I didn't find it to be a major page-turner but neither did it entirely bore me witless (i.e. not amazing but not awful).
August 23, 2010
This memoir is a look at Hill's summer as a lighthouse keeper in 1973. Since Hill was in art school at the time, and then went on to have a career in the art field, and since the story takes place in 1973 and since his hobby was "poetry", I have no real reference point for a good portion of this story. I just get the bare bones of the story, and I really enjoyed that.
This tale informed me on how lighthouses worked during the modern era. Hill introduces the reader to a number of lighthouse keepers, all of them extremely different and with their own tale to tell. During Hill's three months as a keeper, he is initiated into not only how to run the light, but the daily life and constant shift rotation that the three men on duty keep. In particular, I enjoyed the reminiscences of the shift changes, when the man going off duty would stay awake a little longer to help keep the man coming on duty awake. This would take the form of a number of conversations discussing anything and everything, a time for open communication between two men.
This tale informed me on how lighthouses worked during the modern era. Hill introduces the reader to a number of lighthouse keepers, all of them extremely different and with their own tale to tell. During Hill's three months as a keeper, he is initiated into not only how to run the light, but the daily life and constant shift rotation that the three men on duty keep. In particular, I enjoyed the reminiscences of the shift changes, when the man going off duty would stay awake a little longer to help keep the man coming on duty awake. This would take the form of a number of conversations discussing anything and everything, a time for open communication between two men.
November 20, 2017
Scotland automated their lights long after the United States did; before that the men still kept nightly four-hour vigils over the light, making sure that the mechanism was wound and that the air pressure to the paraffin was at the right level to prevent the light from going out. Hill tells of his adventures on three of Scotland’s historic lights: Pladda, Ailsa Craig, and Hyskeir (Craig and Hyskeir were built by the Stevensons) during the summer of 1973 between college semesters. He does a fine job of helping you visualize a day in the life of a keeper, get a feel for the unique personalities that he met along the way, and learn the legends of the last keeper.
April 3, 2012
This was an unexpected delight. An Op-Shop find, it sat in my to-read pile for months. Then my sis-in-law read it and raved about it. I told another friend about it (still not having read it myself) and she borrowed it, lent it to a friend, and brought it back with both of them waxing lyrical about it. It's a simple book, telling in warm, homey language of being a lighthouse keeper off the west coast of Scotland in the 1970s. It's simple, it's reflective, it's beautifully written, it's contemplative, it's warm and witty. Quite simply, it's a delight.
January 4, 2017
This was an unexpected pleasure! The experiences of the author as a young apprentice lighthouse keeper kept me turning the pages. It is set in the early seventies around the coasts of Scotland just before the last lighthouses were automated. At one point, there is a really fascinating description of a rogue wave that could sweep across low-lying islands, taking lighthouse keepers with it. Recommended!
May 30, 2009
While this may not be a piece of classic literature, it was certainly inspiring, fun and truly delightful.
Peter's stories of his summer journeys to three lighthouses around Scotland and the characters he meets there are priceless. Thanks for the great book. I will definitely read this again.
Peter's stories of his summer journeys to three lighthouses around Scotland and the characters he meets there are priceless. Thanks for the great book. I will definitely read this again.
January 12, 2009
Sad to think that all lighthouses are automated now. Sounds like it was a good life for the right sort of person.
December 29, 2015
Excellent tale of living life and respecting nature.
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