The Last Lighthouse Keeper Read online

  Alan Titchmarsh

  United Kingdom

  The Last Lighthouse Keeper

  1999, EN

  Will Elliott is out of a job. The lighthouse he’s been manning on Prince Albert Rock, off the wild Cornish coast, is about to become automated. So Will decides to fulfil his lifelong ambition – to sail round the coastline of Britain. Determined to continue his solitary existence, Will begins his preparations for his epic voyage. But before he has time to so much as paint his hull, he meets Amy Finn – a beautiful artist and fellow loner. And as if that isn’t distraction enough, suddenly his sleepy Cornish village is rocked by the biggest scandal to hit Cornwall since Guenevere ran off with Launcelot. It seems as if Will will never get away, and even if he does will his journey be solo or is there hope that he and Amy could be embarking on a two-man voyage of discovery?

  Table of contents (29)

  Prologue

  1: Start Point

  2: Longships

  3: Needles

  4: Portland Bill

  5: Coquet

  6: Smalls

  7: Lizard

  8: Mumbles

  9: Inner Dowsing

  10: Anvil Point

  11: St Anthony

  12: Casquets

  13: Varne

  14: Hartland Point

  15: Strumble Head

  16: Breaksea

  17: Blacktail

  18: Sunk

  19: Blacknore

  20: Skerries

  21: Round Island

  22: Trinitas In Unitate

  23: Beachy Head

  24: Royal Sovereign

  25: Nab

  26: Nash

  27: Crow Point

  28: Bishop Rock

  Prologue

  “Viking, North Utsira, South Utsira.” The varnished oars slipped silently out of the sea. “Dogger, Fisher, German Bight.” Salt water dribbled off them, disturbing the glassy ripples. “Sole, Lundy, Fastnet.” The oars dipped in again, propelling the little wooden boat towards the shore with practised ease. “Channel Light Vessel Automatic.” One oar tumbled clumsily from its metal rowlock, a seagull shrieked in mockery and the oarsman cursed.

  The litany of sea areas he recited to himself as he rowed was more familiar to him than the multiplication tables he had learnt at school, but Channel Light Vessel Automatic? It was the thin end of the wedge. A wedge that had now been driven home.

  Still, it was too late to grumble about all that. Too late to cherish comfortable dreams of the distant future. The future was here. He suspected that what really rattled him was the prospect of his failure to make those long-held dreams come true.

  The bows of the clinker-built skiff met the pebbles of the shore with a sliding crunch. The rower shipped the oars and heaved the boat a yard or two further up the shingle bank. He looked up at the sky – as blue as a heron’s egg, with just the occasional wisp of cloud. A perfect April day. A perfect day to begin a different life.

  One

  Start Point

  Will Elliott pulled off the thick, grey, hand-knitted fisherman’s sweater that had kept out the chill April air on his half-hour passage across an unusually calm Pencurnow Cove. He tied its sleeves around his waist, checked that the skiff was well clear of the tide line and began the climb up the shingle bank.

  It was a strange feeling. For the first time in his life there was no grid to his day, no timetable that would tell him where to be and when, just a clear sky and a clean slate. He felt half elated, half terrified at the prospect, glancing back at the lighthouse on the other side of the bay to make sure it was still there, even though it need no longer concern him.

  As he crunched up the shore, his welly-booted feet sinking deep into the shingle and slowing his progress, he made a mental checklist of the positive aspects of his future. First, he would stay in Cornwall – for the time being at least: coping with a new set of people and a new place all at once held no appeal. And, anyway, he loved this outpost at the toe of Britain, where the sea and the rugged coastline appealed to his solitary nature. He might have spent just a sixth of his life here, but he felt Cornish now, not Oxonian.

  He had to find a boat. If the dream was to become reality he’d better get it soon. Put that sort of thing off and you might just slide into indolence. That scared him more than anything. And he didn’t want to live in a house – certainly not one without a view of the sea, and those with sea views in this part of the world were beyond his means.

  The logistics of his plans swam around in his head, as did his concerns as to whether or not he had thought this thing through properly. The boat he would buy would probably need attention before he set off: with the amount of money he had to spend he was unlikely to find a vessel in the first flush of youth. While he repaired it in readiness for the Grand Voyage he would have to find some way of earning a living. With any luck he’d be able to sell his little boats – but for how much? He’d started making his scale models of local boats – the clinker-built rowing boats they called Cornish cobles – during his first winter at the lighthouse. Ernie had told him he’d need something to occupy himself on dull, uneventful shifts and Will had found that his steady hand, keen eye and irritating perfectionism had suited him well to a hobby he had previously regarded as the province of sad old men whose idea of excitement would be watching the bacon slicer in the Penzance Co-op.

  He would never make a fortune with his models. But, then, he only wanted enough for food and drink, and a book or two. The days of high ambition were long gone, with another life in another place with another person. Now he had to be positive. There were a few thousand pounds in the building society, and the small legacy left to him by his Aunt Alice the previous November should see him all right for the big boat at least. Lucky, and unusually well timed. Thirty thousand would hopefully get him something without too many holes in it. But it was all so iffy.

  He reached the top of the bank and struck out for the lane that led to the village. He stopped abruptly. There was no need to rush. His mouth twitched. He turned round, squeezed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looked back across the bay once more, at the squat white finger pointing upwards into the blue. Prince Albert Rock Lighthouse had been his home, and his refuge, for the last six years. Now he needed to find another. Sadness and irritation, anger, fear, excitement and anticipation vied within him for the upper hand.

  He’d had enough warning about the demise of manned lighthouses. He’d come to terms with the fact that his chosen way of life – or the life that had been chosen for him – would come to an end. He was resigned to it, even if he still resented its inevitability. How could a machine replace a man? How could electronics and automation be a substitute for observation and intuition? But there was no point in being obsessed by it. The lighthouse had served him well. If he was honest, it was time he struck out on his own now.

  Trinity House had been pleasant enough about his redundancy. The principal lighthouse keeper, Ernie Hallybone, had officially retired a month earlier but would stay on as custodian of the newly automated light, showing visitors around in summer. Will and the other assistant lighthouse keeper, Ted Whistler, could stay in the blockhouse until they found alternative accommodation.

  Ted had left already. Couldn’t wait to get out, he said. He’d packed his stuff the previous morning, muttering under his breath as he thrust the few possessions he had accrued over the years into an ill-assorted collection of cardboard boxes and carrier-bags. He moved straight into rooms in the Salutation, the rough-and-ready hostelry on the quayside. Ernie remarked that at least he’d be nearer to his daily pint (or three) that way. Ted grunted.

  Will cast his keen, practised eye over the short st
retch of coastline he now knew so well. Prince Albert Rock Lighthouse sat on its rugged granite promontory a mile to the west of where he stood, and beyond it the hazy blue-grey hump-backed whale that was Bill’s Island surfaced from the glinting Atlantic – which today was the colour of blue-black ink, though he’d seen it in every shade from deepest purple to evil brown and menacing battleship grey.

  In front of him Pencurnow Cove arched gracefully round to the right, its pepper-coloured sand fresh washed by the retreating spring tide, and beyond it, over the cliffs and crags, the spire of the church at St Petroc came and went in the morning haze. Herring gulls shrieked and wheeled over the bay and the beach, which at this time in the morning and so early in the year, was mercifully quiet and free of tourists. Only the matchstick figure of a local woman in a headscarf was visible in the middle distance, throwing a stick into the waves for a yellow Labrador that clearly had the courage of Hercules and the brain of a pea.

  He listened, as the waves lapped on the sand, which curved round towards the short headland nearest the village. This small knob of tussocky ground sheltered the shingle bank on to which he’d pulled The Gull, the clinker-built, copper-riveted skiff it had taken him two years to complete. He looked at it and smiled, pleased with his handiwork. The varnish on the pitch-pine timbers glowed in the sun. But it wasn’t big enough for what he had in mind.

  Above him crouched the village of Pencurnow, and at the end of the promontory to his left, an arc of granite sheltered the three fishing boats that still endeavoured to bring home lobsters, bass and whatever else they could catch.

  It was, admittedly, a small world. But it suited him. Correction, had suited him. He squinted as the keen rays of the morning sun bounced off the sea, then turned and walked up the lane towards the Post Office.

  ♦

  The bell pinged brightly as he pushed open the battered bottle-green door of Pencurnow Post Office and General Stores. He walked towards the unmanned counter, but before he reached it a strangulated voice from the back room instructed, “Hang on, I’m on my way. I’m just getting these damn papers out.” A series of grunts and the popping of plastic webbing came to Will from the rear of the tiny shop, which was piled high with a thousand things that might be useful to somebody, if not to him.

  On either side of the metal-grilled post-office cubicle, festooned with exhortations to buy Premium Bonds and Post Early for Christmas (and April, indeed, was early) stood perilously lopsided pyramids of tinned peas and butter beans. A tower of red plastic trays containing the day’s supply of fresh bread leaned Pisa-like towards him, backed by shelves stuffed with cigarettes and corn plasters, matches and Mintoes, and an array of cleaning substances that would have impressed the most zealous daily help. The stone floor presented itself as a maze of cartons, pop bottles, garden tools and galvanized buckets. Gold-painted fire guards enveloped coppery companion sets, and the smell that reached his nostrils was compounded of cardboard and paraffin, soap powder and mothballs.

  Tucked here and there Will noticed such irresistible temptations as pink shampoo in a poodle-shaped bottle, an implement for taking dents out of car doors (handy in Cornish villages with narrow lanes), and bottles of Mrs Pengelly’s Home-made Piccalilli – a villainous-looking yellow decoction that would probably take the skin off the roof of your mouth before you had a chance to swallow it.

  Above the bare Formica counter, magazines hung from a washing line, Practical Boat Owner alongside The People’s Friend, The Lady sandwiched uncomfortably between Farmer’s Weekly and Cosmopolitan. Loaded and FHM were under the counter for a local youth who aspired to the fleshpots of Newquay.

  Beneath this literary fringe, appeared the Amazonic figure of Primrose Hankey, her face only half visible above the pile of daily papers, which hit the counter with a thud. She greeted her customer with a warm, toothy grin and boomed, “Morning, Mr Elliott. Come to look at your picture?”

  Will looked suitably embarrassed and asked, “What have they said?”

  Primrose took a copy of The Cornishman from the top of the papers and read out the headline: “‘Farewell To Britain’s Last Lighthouse Keeper.’ Nice photo of you – and Mr Hallybone. Ted Whistler don’t look too pleased. But, then, when do he?” She tutted disapprovingly and handed Will the paper.

  He took in the front page and its banner headline, the black-and-white picture of the six keepers in their uniforms – his shift of three and the other shift – and of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House who had come down to Cornwall for the momentous occasion. Evan Williams and his team stood to the left of the picture, Ernie Hallybone, Will and Ted Whistler to the right. They made an uneven trio, Ernie short and stocky with white hair and a face seemingly carved from English oak, Ted tall and gaunt with hooded eyes, and Will at the end of the row, not quite six feet, square jaw, high cheekbones and black curly hair under the peaked cap. He looked good in uniform. He felt better out of it.

  The sextet of lighthouse keepers stood in a semicircle, hands clasped neatly in front of them, surrounding the Master of Trinity House – the Duke of Edinburgh.

  “What was he like?” enquired Primrose, anxious for gossip to recount for the rest of the week to her avid customers. Not for nothing was Primrose known as ‘the human telescope’. Her shop had a panoramic view of the village and none of her windows boasted net curtains. Little passed her by, and there was even less on which she was unable to offer information, thanks to a multitude of sources.

  “He was very nice,” offered Will.

  “But what did he say?” Her beady eyes were bright.

  “Oh, he thanked us all and told us we’d done a valuable job very well and that he hoped we’d all remember our days at Trinity House with pleasure.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, just about, yes.” Will felt a bit of a failure. Nothing there with which Primrose could impress her customers. “Mr Elliott said the Duke of Edinburgh was very nice.” Hardly spicy. “I did notice a bit of shaving foam behind his ear, though.”

  “Really?” Primrose’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward on to her counter. “So he wet-shaves, then?”

  “Must do.” Will tried to conceal a grin, and held up the paper in front of his face as camouflage, knowing that Primrose would now be a happy woman and could speculate for weeks on whether the Queen’s husband used Gillette or Old Spice shaving foam.

  “Well I never.” Will lifted his eyes over the top of the Corrushman and noticed that Primrose’s had already glazed over, and that she was playing with the single grey-brown plait that hung over her right shoulder. She chuckled to herself and made chomping noises with her mouth. She tossed the plait behind her with a jerk as Will said, “Hey-ho,” and fished out some change.

  “I see Spike made it, then!” remarked Primrose.

  “Sorry?”

  “Into the photo.”

  Will unfolded the paper again and looked at the picture. There, at the feet of the Master of Trinity House and curling his tail around the highly polished brogues, was Spike, the lighthouse cat, in his own black uniform with a white bib, clearly aware of the gravity of the occasion.

  “Cheeky blighter,” laughed Will. “Now I know why he was looking so pleased with himself this morning.” Spike had turned up on Prince Albert Rock two years ago and had latched himself firmly on to Will. “I only hope he takes to his new home just as well.”

  Primrose scented another potential snippet of gossip. “Oh? You’ve found somewhere, then?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Not much for sale in the village at the moment Or will you be moving away?” The tentacles were out.

  “No. I plan to stay – hopefully – but I don’t want a house.”

  Will was momentarily undecided as to whether or not he should reveal his plans to the human telescope, but decided there was little harm in telling her. It might even result in him finding a boat, although like as not he’d have to move into grotty rooms until something suitable turned up.


  “You don’t want a house?” Primrose broke in on his thoughts.

  “No.”

  “Well, what, then?” She looked at him quizzically, wondering if he planned to become a cave-dwelling hermit.

  “I want a boat.”

  “A boat?”

  “Yes.”

  Without looking upwards, Primrose reached above her head and yanked at one of the magazines that formed the proscenium arch around her ample frame. She slapped it on the counter in front of him. “There you are. Two pounds sixty.”

  Will looked down at the glossy cover of Boats and Planes For Sale.

  He looked at Primrose, and she looked right back, smiling. He fished into his pocket and found three one-pound coins. “Suppose I’ll have to start somewhere.”

  Primrose punched at the buttons on her cash register. It made a few grinding noises then spat out a drawer from which she extracted his change. She pressed the coins into his hand and asked her next question. “What sort of boat do you want?”

  “Oh, an old sailing boat.”

  “Just to live on?”

  Will was trapped. Either he became evasive, or he would have to admit to Primrose that the real reason he wanted a boat was to sail around Britain single-handed. Every time he thought about it he felt self-conscious and a bit embarrassed. If he told the postmistress this, the entire village would soon know, and he’d never escape the repeated enquiries: ‘How’s the boat doing?’ – ‘When are you going?’ and ‘Haven’t you got it sorted out yet?’

  He tried not to be rude and fudged his answer. “Oh, I just want to be near the sea, and I can’t afford a house with a sea view.” Which was quite true.

  “You could try the Crooked Angel.”

  Will looked at her incredulously. “What?”

  The small boatyard, adjacent to the cobbled hard where the fishing fleet was pulled up during its off-duty hours, was not an obvious place to start looking. Its proprietor, Len Gryler, was not highly regarded within the community: he had a shady past and a shadier collection of boats at his disposal – the Arthur Daley of the waves.