Readings

Ladies of the lamps

The lives of female lightkeepers

01

AUTHOR SHONA RIDDELL has a long-held fascination with lighthouses and family connections to two lightkeepers. Her engaging book offers a very useful history of both the social and technical evolution of lighthouses and lightkeeping, ranging from ancient times right up to 2020. It focuses on (mainly white) women’s roles as lightkeepers and their relations, but also covers rare instances of Aboriginal, Native American, African–American and Hispanic keepers of both sexes. The book’s eight chapters deal with the origins and evolution of lighthouses; the role of a keeper; lighthouse heroines Grace Darling and Ida Lewis; the lives of female keepers; the impact of isolation; ghosts, legends and mysteries; lighthouse women in the 20th century; and today’s keepers and caretakers. Riddell relates the stories of a wide variety of women who lived with, loved and hated their lights. Emily Fish, the ‘socialite keeper’, filled her quarters with antiques and art, hosted soirées for artists and writers and kept thoroughbred horses and French poodles. Kate Walker spent 33 years at Robbins Head Lighthouse, New York, first as assistant and later as head keeper, at the same time raising two children and, weather permitting, rowing them to school. (By 1966, four men were performing the job that tiny Kate – 1.4 metres tall and weighing just 45 kilograms – had undertaken for more than three decades.) Attending a lighthouse’s lamp was described in 1870 as a task ‘so easy that it can be discharged by a woman’, but female lightkeepers were largely expected to do the same duties as their male counterparts on top of their traditional tasks of child rearing and caring for a household. Many women inherited the job from fathers, brothers or husbands who died or became ill, but others were appointed on their own merits. Some served for decades.

A few of these ‘women’ were mere girls, like Ida Lewis, who by 15 was helping her mother with lighthouse duties, and by 16 had rescued the first of many (mostly drunk and ungrateful) men from peril. Ida became the most famous – and highest paid – lightkeeper of her time. She spent 54 of her 69 years at Lime Rock, off the coast of Rhode Island, and is the only American lightkeeper to have a lighthouse named after her. The book examines both the romantic place that lightkeeping holds in art, literature and the popular imagination and the very real lack of romance that such a life entails. Many of the dangers are obvious: gales, storms, high seas, hard work, loneliness and isolation. Other, more obscure perils include death by swallowing molten lead, being hit by an iceberg or a Zeppelin, or suffering terrifying and destructive mass bird strikes.

Guiding lights: The extraordinary lives of lighthouse women

By Shona Riddell, published by Exisle Publishing, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2020. Hardcover, 244 pages, illustrations, bibliography, notes, appendix, index. ISBN 978-1-925820-62-1 RRP $40.00

And, if the loneliness didn’t drive you mad, the howl of the wind or the sound of foghorns might. The bleak lighthouse life sometimes drove animals crazy, too; Riddell mentions a cat and a cow who both suicided.

The particular difficulties of such a life are diverse and often hair-raising: having to throw babies up cliffs in the absence of safer options, or haul buckets of lard oil up towers when the lamp needed refilling, or arrange an elopement by semaphore, or sew your own son’s ear back on after a failed experiment with dynamite. Riddell does not exaggerate these stories or attempt to pluck at the heart strings, leaving the drama and tedium of these women’s lives to speak for themselves. Most of the stories are from North America – where women have been lightkeepers since at least the late 1700s – the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Others are from Europe, Japan and South America. The book is an easy read, but not at all lightweight; it is painstakingly researched, attractively illustrated and thoroughly referenced, with bibliography, endnotes, an appendix listing the lighthouses mentioned in the book, and an index. The very recent history of lighthouses is covered through stories of those who still staff them, even in this age of automation, or tend them, such as Wildcare volunteers.

This fascinating and approachable book is highly recommended and should appeal to a wide range of readers.

02

01 Hannah Sutton and her partner Grant spent six months alone in 2019 as volunteer caretakers on Maatsuyker Island, south of Tasmania.

02 Fannie Salter polishing the lens at Turkey Point Light, Maryland, USA, in 1945.

When the Ship Hits the Fan: Rip roaring tales from a life at sea

By Captain Rob Anderson, published by Affirm Press, South Melbourne, 2020. Softcover, 288 pages. ISBN 978-1-925972-99-3. RRP $30.00

Accidents, incidents and alcohol

Tales from a seafaring half-century

YOUNG ROB ANDERSON had never been more than 20 miles from his Melbourne home when he escaped trouble both there and at school by going to sea. Aged 15, he began as ‘the lowest form of marine growth’, a deck boy – and from the start, things were wild. On his first trip, he faced a bullying fellow deck boy and a madman running amok with a meat cleaver. After a rocky start, he soon found his niche, gained skills and learnt – and earnt – respect. By the very young age of 28, he had become Master of his first ship. His career took him around the world, on and off all manner of vessels and into many dangerous and unpleasant corners of the maritime world. He transported livestock, worked in marine salvage and on passenger–cargo vessels, drove highly specialised ships for the offshore oil and gas industry and installed mooring systems for the Royal Australian Navy’s Collins class submarines. Along the way he encountered all the things that can and do go wrong at sea. Occasionally he also ran into his mariner father, reunions that were happy for neither party. Anderson comes across as a tough but decent man and a hard, but not harsh, taskmaster. This collection of loosely chronological anecdotes is succinctly told in a blunt and unexaggerated style; there are no tall tales or longwinded yarns here. The pages turn easily, and although the book is steeped in the sea, landlubbers won’t be totally baffled – mariners’ ways and processes are explained throughout, and a handy list of terminology appears right up the front. The language tends towards the robust, as do the recurring themes – accidents to the male anatomy, sexual shenanigans, impromptu surgery, unhygienic practices in the galley and plenty of drunken rage and idiocy. Among the shocking, irreverent, violent and vulgar stories, there are also interesting factual digressions, such as a behind-the-scenes description of burial at sea and an explanation of the ‘man overboard’ procedure. This book might not suit people who are squeamish or easily offended, but those who can cope with the topics and tone will find it fast-paced and highly readable – perhaps best consumed on a boat, with a drink in hand.

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