0:00:04 > 0:00:06The ragged coastline of Scotland.
0:00:07 > 0:00:12With nearly 800 islands, it's 11,000 miles long.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16You don't venture there without detailed charts,
0:00:16 > 0:00:20radar, and satellite navigation.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29Hebrides, Baily, Fair Isle, Faroes and South East Iceland.
0:00:31 > 0:00:36For centuries, death and the sea went hand in hand
0:00:36 > 0:00:38for Scotland's fatalistic sailors and fishing folk
0:00:40 > 0:00:45until one family dedicated itself to taming the dangerous waters.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48The Lighthouse Stevensons.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51I think the Stevensons' lighthouses saved
0:00:51 > 0:00:53thousands and thousands of lives.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57If it's Stevenson-built, it's built to last.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03Robert Louis Stevenson refused to join the family business,
0:01:03 > 0:01:05but wrote with pride:
0:01:05 > 0:01:08"Whenever I smell salt water,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12"I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors."
0:01:23 > 0:01:29Before the Lighthouse Stevensons the beacons on Scotland's coast
0:01:29 > 0:01:30were few and primitive.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Scotland had two lighthouses in the 18th century.
0:01:38 > 0:01:44One on the Isle of May, which was a tower with a fire on the top of it
0:01:44 > 0:01:48which had to be kept burning all through the night.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50Somebody would row out from
0:01:50 > 0:01:53the Firth of Forth, dump a load of coal in the water.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56He would go down with a sack on his back,
0:01:56 > 0:01:58fish the coal out of the water,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01winch it all the way up to the light
0:02:01 > 0:02:05and then watch the whole thing go out as another rainstorm came over.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07It was not a very satisfactory arrangement.
0:02:07 > 0:02:12In the 1780s, a series of violent storms battered Scotland.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19At sea, there was enormous loss of ships and lives.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22It's always money that speaks loudest.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25The fact that there was and always
0:02:25 > 0:02:28had been huge loss of life was irrelevant.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31What the ship owners were really bothered about was the fact that 20%
0:02:31 > 0:02:35of total shipping got wrecked
0:02:35 > 0:02:38and they wanted something done about it.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43The British Government was pressed into setting up
0:02:43 > 0:02:45the Northern Lighthouse Board.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53It was formed in 1786 after a statute in the Houses of Parliament
0:02:53 > 0:02:55decided that four lighthouses
0:02:55 > 0:02:57would be "conducive", lovely word,
0:02:57 > 0:02:59to the safety of mariners around the coast of Scotland.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02A lot of people have got the conception
0:03:02 > 0:03:06that the lighthouses were built to warn boats off the rocks.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11To a certain extent that's true, but actually what lighthouses are,
0:03:11 > 0:03:13they're signposts of the sea.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16So each lighthouse that was built was a clearer signpost
0:03:16 > 0:03:18for ships to go round the coast.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22But who was to build the NLB's lights?
0:03:24 > 0:03:27Marine engineering was in its infancy,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30so the job went to a self made tinsmith who'd built
0:03:30 > 0:03:34a successful business making street lights for Edinburgh.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37He was the founder of the Stevenson dynasty,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41but his name was Thomas Smith.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45He applied to the NLB when
0:03:45 > 0:03:51they were first established saying, I think I can help you, basically.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56Virginia Maes-Wright is keeper of the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04What you're looking at is the initial creation
0:04:04 > 0:04:06of the Northern Lights.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08This simple receptacle,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10this simple oil burner, with its wicks here
0:04:10 > 0:04:12and the reservoir just at the back
0:04:12 > 0:04:16would fit in, right into the small slot you can see at the back
0:04:16 > 0:04:19of this, Thomas Smith's original reflector.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21The reflector comprises of tiny facets of mirrors
0:04:21 > 0:04:26stuck onto the back of a dish which points the light forwards.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30This was Thomas Smith's design for the new street lighting in Edinburgh
0:04:30 > 0:04:34and it what the Northern Lighthouse Board saw as the way forward.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38Smith got off to a flying start - installing his first light
0:04:38 > 0:04:42on the top of Kinnaird Castle in Fraserburgh.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46This is where the NLB began.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49And the first light was chosen for this headland.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52This headland more or less being the stepping off point
0:04:52 > 0:04:55for the Baltic trade.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59Thomas Smith established the roof on top of the old castle here, and it's
0:04:59 > 0:05:01been a light here ever since.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08In just three years,
0:05:08 > 0:05:13Smith also built a lighthouse on Scalpay in the Hebrides,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16on North Ronaldsay in the Orkney Isles,
0:05:16 > 0:05:18and on the Mull of Kintyre.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22He learned and re-invented the science of lighthouse engineering
0:05:22 > 0:05:25as he went along.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30This is the Cloch lighthouse on the lower Clyde.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34Thomas, a busy man, entrusted the installation of the lamp here to his
0:05:34 > 0:05:39gifted young apprentice and stepson, Robert Stevenson.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42This is where the start of the dynasty came.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46It was with his third marriage he acquired a stepson,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49called Robert Stevenson,
0:05:49 > 0:05:53who was to go on to marry one of his daughters.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57So the stepson was also to be his son-in-law as well.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03Robert Stevenson in turn became Smith's stepson,
0:06:03 > 0:06:09apprentice, son-in-law, and in 1800, business partner.
0:06:11 > 0:06:18Over two decades Thomas Smith built or improved 13 lighthouses.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21This is his work on Inchkeith in the Fort Estuary.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23Because it was close to Edinburgh,
0:06:23 > 0:06:27Inchkeith became a sort of lighthouse laboratory
0:06:27 > 0:06:29where Smith and generations of the Stevensons
0:06:29 > 0:06:32tested new lamps and lenses.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41Many of Thomas's new lighthouses were in difficult, remote places.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48Here on the Mull of Kintyre, every stone, every pane of glass,
0:06:48 > 0:06:50and piece of machinery
0:06:50 > 0:06:52had to be carried on horseback over a rough track
0:06:52 > 0:06:55from the nearest landing place six miles away.
0:06:56 > 0:07:01Looking away back, it was a very remote station
0:07:01 > 0:07:03and nobody wanted to be here.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07It was a right remote station in my granny and grandfather's days.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13Lighthouses saved lives,
0:07:13 > 0:07:14but they weren't always popular.
0:07:14 > 0:07:19In a lot of the more remote island communities
0:07:19 > 0:07:22they relied on a regular harvest
0:07:22 > 0:07:26of wreck, and dead and dying shipping,
0:07:26 > 0:07:31in order to collect raw materials for life.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34For building boats, for building houses, for putting up fencing,
0:07:34 > 0:07:36for pretty much all the essentials.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41When Robert was working on Thomas's last lighthouse, Start Point,
0:07:41 > 0:07:45on the Orkney isle of Sanday, he wrote to Thomas:
0:07:45 > 0:07:47"You would hardly believe with what an evil eye
0:07:47 > 0:07:53"the Wreck Brokers of Sanday view any improvement upon the coast,
0:07:53 > 0:07:56"and how openly they regret it."
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Thomas Smith was a brilliant inventor.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03Start Point had the first revolving light in Scotland,
0:08:03 > 0:08:08but he knew that lighthouses could only be as good as their keepers.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10His sense of duty was drummed into them.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13There was a strict rule,
0:08:13 > 0:08:20and run quite a lot on naval or sea-based principles.
0:08:20 > 0:08:25The strict regime imposed by Smith was passed down through generations
0:08:25 > 0:08:29of keepers until modern times.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33You were issued with a book of rules and regulations when you joined
0:08:33 > 0:08:36and you religiously, well I religiously read it the first
0:08:36 > 0:08:38station I was at, St Abbs, and then
0:08:38 > 0:08:41everything was sort of regimented anyway. Each watch was
0:08:41 > 0:08:44called at exactly the right time, so it wasn't too difficult to follow
0:08:44 > 0:08:48the rules because they'd been set there for years and years and years.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: 'Once the keeper is in the light room
0:08:50 > 0:08:52'for his four hour shift
0:08:52 > 0:08:53'he mustn't leave it.
0:08:53 > 0:08:54'He mustn't read.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57'He mustn't listen to the radio.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01'That lens must never stop.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03'If it's ever allowed to stop
0:09:03 > 0:09:06'the keeper is liable to instant dismissal.'
0:09:09 > 0:09:14In 1871, at Sumburgh Head on Shetland,
0:09:14 > 0:09:16two keepers agreed not to report that their colleague
0:09:16 > 0:09:18had fallen asleep while on watch.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21All three men were sacked.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25One was the Principal Keeper and had 23 years service.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31In 1799, 70 ships foundered
0:09:31 > 0:09:35in a three-day gale that battered the Scottish coast.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38The most fatal hazard was the Bell Rock,
0:09:38 > 0:09:4111 miles south-east of Arbroath.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Robert, now Chief Engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board,
0:09:47 > 0:09:50wanted to build a lighthouse on the reef.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53But many though it impossible,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56and Parliament refused to sanction it.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59I think the powers that be felt that although he was
0:09:59 > 0:10:05a good assistant to Thomas Smith, he just didn't have the experience to
0:10:05 > 0:10:08do a major civil engineering structure
0:10:08 > 0:10:1211 miles out to sea on a submerged rock.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14But this was the era
0:10:14 > 0:10:18of great Scottish engineers like Thomas Telford,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21who was building the Ellesmere canal in Wales,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25and John Rennie who had just completed a major bridge at Kelso.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29They had the reputations that young Robert Stevenson lacked.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31I think Robert felt that if the board
0:10:31 > 0:10:35got Rennie involved then they could get their Act of Parliament.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38The act was passed.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42The deal was that Rennie, busy with many projects all over Britain,
0:10:42 > 0:10:48would supervise and visit the Bell about once a year.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Robert, his ambitious assistant, was put in day-to-day command.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59In 1807, Robert established this shore base in Arbroath.
0:10:59 > 0:11:05From here, dressed stone was shipped out to the reef 11 miles away.
0:11:05 > 0:11:06This splendid model
0:11:06 > 0:11:11was presented to the museum in 1867 by the Northern Lighthouse Board.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14It shows the Bell Rock Lighthouse
0:11:14 > 0:11:18in the middle of being built,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21and the model itself was apparently constructed
0:11:21 > 0:11:23under the supervision of Robert Stevenson
0:11:23 > 0:11:27and he made sure that the detail was correct on it.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30They had to live on the boat to start with and, of course,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33being landsmen they were all horribly sea sick
0:11:33 > 0:11:36and so Robert decided that the thing to do
0:11:36 > 0:11:40was to build this temporary barracks which in itself was
0:11:40 > 0:11:43a bit of an epic performance because it had to be attached
0:11:43 > 0:11:46to the rock, and then built up,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49and you could only do this between tides.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53The technology here is really...
0:11:53 > 0:11:55I would say almost Medieval.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58We have no steam machinery.
0:11:58 > 0:12:03We have really muscle power and graft and determination.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12For four summers Robert drove his men up to 16 hours a day,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14seven days a week.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17Stones of up to a ton were precisely carved
0:12:17 > 0:12:20with dovetail joints to interlock.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25The design and craftsmanship has withstood two centuries of storms.
0:12:28 > 0:12:33115 feet high, 42 feet in diameter at the base,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36tapering to 15 feet at the top.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39The wonder of the age.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45Bella Bathurst has written
0:12:45 > 0:12:47a best-selling book about the Lighthouse Stevensons,
0:12:47 > 0:12:51but this is her first visit to the Bell.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55It's kind of like I imagined it was going to be,
0:12:55 > 0:12:59but, um...inevitably
0:12:59 > 0:13:04that much, I suppose what it conveys is how big the reef is
0:13:04 > 0:13:10and how widely it extends.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12You've got this enormous great lump of rock
0:13:12 > 0:13:20in the middle of a hugely busy passage for navigation.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22It's also interesting looking out at the...
0:13:24 > 0:13:26..faces of the seals,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29just beyond the rocks, and remembering that old thing
0:13:29 > 0:13:34about seals always being considered
0:13:34 > 0:13:38to be the souls of shipwrecked sailors.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41So I don't know. It's kind of eerie, but kind of amazing.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Robert definitely feared for the men
0:13:50 > 0:13:55and for the state of the works, but he really relished being out,
0:13:55 > 0:13:58with the men,
0:13:58 > 0:14:03working and contributing to this extraordinary endeavour.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06He felt an enormous sense of responsibility, but I think he also
0:14:06 > 0:14:09felt a great sense of exhilaration.
0:14:22 > 0:14:28Well, we're up in the lantern room of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,
0:14:28 > 0:14:33which is a pretty amazing place to be
0:14:33 > 0:14:37given that this was what the whole palaver was about -
0:14:37 > 0:14:40one solitary light bulb.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43The Bell Rock Lighthouse
0:14:43 > 0:14:47was praised as one of the wonders of the age.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50The ambitious Robert revelled in the fame.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54He hired Turner, the greatest landscape artist of the age,
0:14:54 > 0:14:56to paint it,
0:14:56 > 0:15:00and published this lavish book about its construction.
0:15:00 > 0:15:05The fact that he had managed to light an impossible rock
0:15:05 > 0:15:13and thereby to save countless lives was extraordinary.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18It was proof that man could tame nature,
0:15:18 > 0:15:20which was a very fashionable idea at the time.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24It was proof that the Scots were better than the English.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28It was proof that
0:15:28 > 0:15:31Scotland led the world in marine engineering,
0:15:31 > 0:15:36and it was proof that hubris actually could carry stuff off.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39I mean if you said, "I want to build a lighthouse
0:15:39 > 0:15:42"in the middle of the North Sea
0:15:42 > 0:15:46"on an impossible reef which is covered at high tide",
0:15:46 > 0:15:50it was possible to do it, which was an extraordinary achievement.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57But what of the project's chief engineer, John Rennie?
0:15:57 > 0:16:00Professor Roland Paxton feels that Rennie's role
0:16:00 > 0:16:02was deliberately underplayed by Robert.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06It was John Rennie that insisted
0:16:06 > 0:16:10that the tower should be broadly based
0:16:10 > 0:16:13and that the bottom should have a curvature, a very pronounced
0:16:13 > 0:16:18curvature, and he also insisted on the dovetailing.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21So it's due to Rennie that the actual structure
0:16:21 > 0:16:24was structurally successful.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27Professor Paxton discovered that Robert's book
0:16:27 > 0:16:32about the Bell Rock Lighthouse omitted an important document.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36At the back in this appendix there's a list of the reports
0:16:36 > 0:16:39given by Rennie,
0:16:39 > 0:16:48except that I noticed that there was no report for the year 1809.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52And so I went into the National Library of Scotland where they
0:16:52 > 0:16:56have the Rennie papers and the Stevenson papers side by side
0:16:56 > 0:17:01and I transcribed this missing report of 1809,
0:17:01 > 0:17:08which shows Rennie at the rock acting as a chief engineer.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10But having said all this, there's little doubt
0:17:10 > 0:17:14in my mind that most of the credit really is due to Robert Stevenson
0:17:14 > 0:17:21and his direction of a very, very difficult civil engineering task.
0:17:21 > 0:17:27I think he felt very strongly that this was going to be the thing
0:17:27 > 0:17:32that would absolutely put his stamp on engineering and in order
0:17:32 > 0:17:38for him to be able to put that stamp on the rock, he needed to,
0:17:38 > 0:17:45if not get rid of Rennie then make himself indispensable.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49And in doing so, managed to
0:17:49 > 0:17:53kind of either gently or not gently elbow out Rennie.
0:17:53 > 0:17:59The fact that Robert ended up
0:17:59 > 0:18:02de facto chief engineer
0:18:02 > 0:18:08has a lot to say about Robert's character and the way he worked.
0:18:10 > 0:18:16A driven man, Robert was responsible for building 23 new lighthouses.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20The technology that Robert brought to these beacons and the duties of
0:18:20 > 0:18:25the men who tended them hardly changed in 150 years.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31Now that's me just finished opening the curtains.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33That's the first thing a lightkeeper does
0:18:33 > 0:18:35when he comes up here to go on watch.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38The curtains, of course are very important.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41They are there to prevent fire.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43The lens magnifies light going out,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46also magnifies the sun rays coming in.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48That can cause fire.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Now this lens is actually made up of a central, focal plane
0:18:52 > 0:18:58surrounded by prisms, and those prisms refract light
0:18:58 > 0:19:00in parallel to the centre lens.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03This produces a beam of light
0:19:03 > 0:19:11two metres in diameter, which is a light that is visible at 28 miles.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15The hyper radio was the largest lens used in lighthouses.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28This lens weighs approximately 3½ tons
0:19:28 > 0:19:32and it revolves, driven by a clockwork machine.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36The clockwork machine keeps this revolving for half an hour.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38Now, the flash effect
0:19:39 > 0:19:44is when this lens passes between you and the source of light.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48That is when this lighthouse appears to flash.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52It flashes one flash every 15 seconds.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56Again, that is controlled by the clockwork machine.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02Now, this is the clockwork machine that drives the lighthouse.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06It's powered by a big weight descending the tower.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Now, that weight on its descent from the top to the
0:20:09 > 0:20:11bottom keeps it going for 30 minutes.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15So every half hour this has to be wound up.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21Now, like every good grandfather clock, wound up with a big handle...
0:20:25 > 0:20:26and it takes about 93 turns
0:20:26 > 0:20:29of this handle to bring the weight back up again.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32That gives you another half hour's run.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42We're right at the top of the lighthouse here,
0:20:42 > 0:20:44up in the lens gallery.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48When the lightkeeper came up here to put in the light, he had to fill
0:20:48 > 0:20:52this little heater with methylated spirits.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56That was then lit and that was put under
0:20:56 > 0:21:01the vaporiser, and that was left to heat the vaporiser.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Now, this took about ten minutes, to get this thing warmed up.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07So once that was warmed up
0:21:07 > 0:21:12you could then turn your pressure onto your lamp, paraffin would
0:21:12 > 0:21:16come up through here, be vaporised, and then you could take a light from
0:21:16 > 0:21:21there and pass it up onto the mantle, and this would light the lamp.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25You had the machinery down there every half hour to wind.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28You had this thing to pump up every 20 minutes or so
0:21:28 > 0:21:29to keep the pressure up.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33You had weather reporting to go down and do every three hours,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36a quick dash down and collect the information,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40and then send that away to Bracknell.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Keeping an eye on the weather, on shipping,
0:21:43 > 0:21:45so the four hours really pass quite quickly.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48Yes, you could be up and down quite a lot.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52There wasn't many lightkeepers went to step aerobics.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54We had plenty exercise.
0:21:56 > 0:21:58Robert Stevenson not only demanded
0:21:58 > 0:22:03efficiency from his keepers, he wanted their souls too.
0:22:03 > 0:22:04Deeply religious,
0:22:04 > 0:22:09he demanded that principal keepers conduct Sunday services.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12This is Robert Stevenson's Bible.
0:22:12 > 0:22:17It is the most beautiful book, and in the front he's written
0:22:17 > 0:22:22a memoranda, which includes items with a cross
0:22:22 > 0:22:24being specifically designed for lighthouse use,
0:22:24 > 0:22:26and he did conduct services
0:22:26 > 0:22:30in lighthouses and for the lighthouse builders, using this Bible.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33This is the prayer for those employed
0:22:33 > 0:22:35at the Lighthouse Service of Scotland.
0:22:35 > 0:22:37This is the Northern Lighthouse Board's prayer.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41It was Robert Stevenson who really put his stamp on the service,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and since he was effectively designing both
0:22:44 > 0:22:50an engineering discipline and the service itself from scratch,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53he could model it in whichever way he chose.
0:22:53 > 0:22:58And the way he chose to go was to be very
0:22:58 > 0:23:01militaristic about it -
0:23:01 > 0:23:05lots of ritual, lots of badges, lots of medals, lots of singing,
0:23:05 > 0:23:12lots of hyms, lots of bells and whistles.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16And that tradition carried
0:23:16 > 0:23:21right the way through the service, down pretty much almost until today.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25To maintain discipline, Robert established annual
0:23:25 > 0:23:29voyages of inspections of lighthouses, and surprises visits.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34A dusty lamp or even dirty dishes meant trouble for the keepers.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40Although Robert was a hard taskmaster,
0:23:40 > 0:23:45lighthouse keeping developed a reputation as a respectable,
0:23:45 > 0:23:49desirable profession, with jobs being handed down the generations.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55Hector Lamont, his father, maternal grandfather and two of his brothers
0:23:55 > 0:23:58were all keepers.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02My family's connection with the lighthouse board started and ended
0:24:02 > 0:24:04here at the Mull of Kintyre.
0:24:06 > 0:24:08Started with grandfather, Murdoch Sutherland,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12a stonemason from Rosemarkie.
0:24:12 > 0:24:20He was appointed here in 1904 and he did his service right up to 1934.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23And my own connection ended here
0:24:23 > 0:24:26in 2006.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29So between all the family
0:24:29 > 0:24:34we did 171 years service for the lighthouse board.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39Like his keepers, Robert Stevenson too had sons who followed him
0:24:39 > 0:24:41into the lighthouse business.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46As well as fathering sons, he fathered a dynasty.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51I was the granddaughter of Charles Stevenson
0:24:51 > 0:24:54and I was the great-great granddaughter of Robert.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57There's never been anybody quite like Robert.
0:24:57 > 0:24:58He used to get up at five o'clock
0:24:58 > 0:25:02in the morning and start shaving, and when he still had all the soap on his
0:25:02 > 0:25:06face, he would go round to each boy and tug him awake and poor chap had
0:25:06 > 0:25:11to get up at five o'clock in the morning, and ask him,
0:25:11 > 0:25:15Robert asked what the lad he thought he was to do, time to get out of bed,
0:25:15 > 0:25:17and he kicks him out of bed
0:25:17 > 0:25:20and asked him to go out, get his breakfast
0:25:20 > 0:25:22and get started on a day's work.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24He was...
0:25:24 > 0:25:30not an easy father to like, I guess.
0:25:30 > 0:25:31Or that's the way he comes across.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34I think he
0:25:34 > 0:25:37was, as an engineer,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41he was a great visionary and a great pioneer.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45In family life he was much much more of a traditionalist.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48He came from poverty and he was
0:25:48 > 0:25:51frightened of that for the rest of his days.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56So behind all of his exaltations to his children and his insistence that
0:25:56 > 0:26:00they become engineers
0:26:00 > 0:26:04was the sense that if his children didn't get themselves
0:26:04 > 0:26:09a sensible profession, by which he meant engineering or engineering,
0:26:10 > 0:26:18then they would be condemned to the same sort of future
0:26:18 > 0:26:20that he had come from originally.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Alan Stevenson, oldest son of the man who'd braved the elements
0:26:25 > 0:26:30to build the Bell Rock light, was frail and artistic,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34but became an engineer to please his father.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38It's fairly clear, I think, that Robert
0:26:38 > 0:26:41put such pressure on him
0:26:41 > 0:26:46that only a very, very strong character who was prepared
0:26:46 > 0:26:52to break away from the whole family would have been able to resist it.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56And Alan didn't want to do that, couldn't do that.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59From the ages of 12 or 13,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03the Stevenson boys began their apprenticeships, sailing with
0:27:03 > 0:27:07their father every summer on his annual inspection of lighthouses.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12The name of the ship is the Pharos,
0:27:12 > 0:27:14and this is the tenth ship
0:27:14 > 0:27:18the Northern Lighthouse Board have had with the name Pharos.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21Today we've got a couple of jobs to do.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24The first job we're doing this morning is servicing
0:27:24 > 0:27:27one of the navigation buoys in the Sound of Mull -
0:27:27 > 0:27:28Avon Rock buoy.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31What we do every year is we bring them on,
0:27:31 > 0:27:34bring the buoys on board and check the chain for wear and tear,
0:27:34 > 0:27:37and normally it varies from a mil to two mil,
0:27:37 > 0:27:39they'll wear down each year.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43If need be we'll actually change the chain or put a piece in
0:27:43 > 0:27:48and basically, like I said, once a year we'll just service them.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54By the age of 17, Alan was getting practical experience.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58He may have become an engineer under pressure,
0:27:58 > 0:28:00but he became a brilliant one.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10Alan Stevenson built what is probably the most beautiful
0:28:10 > 0:28:12and iconic lighthouse in the world.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Ian Duff served as a keeper here.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19It's described as the noblest of all deep sea lights
0:28:19 > 0:28:23by Robert Louis Stevenson himself, so I was delighted that I'd been able
0:28:23 > 0:28:25to say lighthouses is my hobby
0:28:25 > 0:28:28and I've been at one of the most famous Scottish lighthouses there is.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31Alan's masterpiece was
0:28:31 > 0:28:36Skerryvore, 14 miles off Tiree.
0:28:36 > 0:28:42Skerryvore, like the Bell Rock reef, was notorious.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44I think in total the reef stretches
0:28:44 > 0:28:48for about ten miles, most of it underwater.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53Very difficult to work, a very tough environment,
0:28:53 > 0:28:55and exposed to the full fetch of the Atlantic,
0:28:55 > 0:28:57so you've got these storms
0:28:57 > 0:29:00rolling over from Newfoundland,
0:29:00 > 0:29:02really gathering some strength.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06The treacherous reef of Skerryvore.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10To the west, a storm-scoured ocean.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14To the north, the island of Tiree.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18When Alan came here in the 1830s, he found that crofts on one side
0:29:18 > 0:29:23of the island paid higher rents because they benefited
0:29:23 > 0:29:25from timber and goods washed on the shore.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30"This reef has long been the terror of the mariner, but the erection
0:29:30 > 0:29:34"of a lighthouse upon Skerryvore would at once change its character."
0:29:38 > 0:29:42Alan established a base camp at Hynish on Tiree.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44A harbour had to be built there.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47Like his father had done at the Bell Rock,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50Alan built a temporary barracks so that his men could live
0:29:50 > 0:29:52and work on the reef.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Then work was abandoned for the winter.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59In November, Alan got a letter from Tiree.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04Dear Sir, I am extremely sorry to inform you that the barrack
0:30:04 > 0:30:09erected on Skerryvore Rock has totally disappeared.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12They spent an entire season building this thing,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16only to see the whole thing completely swept away by one storm.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Some of the building blocks shipped out to the reef
0:30:20 > 0:30:22weighed two and a half tons.
0:30:23 > 0:30:28The risks for men in boats getting on to places like Skerryvore,
0:30:28 > 0:30:33where you had changes with the weather, sea and getting tools
0:30:33 > 0:30:38safely secured and getting them off - it was a marvel that there wasn't
0:30:38 > 0:30:42more men lost in the building of these places.
0:30:42 > 0:30:484,300 tons of granite was eventually landed on the reef.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53The tower Alan and his men built with it is 156 feet high.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57The walls at the base are nine and a half feet thick.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01It's not quite the same design as the Bell Rock.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05It's much more graceful at the bottom, and there's not so much
0:31:05 > 0:31:09dove-tailing and mortising used on Skerryvore because Alan Stevenson
0:31:09 > 0:31:13argued the sheer weight of his structure would keep it together,
0:31:13 > 0:31:17and I think he's been proved right because one of the keepers I was
0:31:17 > 0:31:19with at Skerryvore who'd also been at the Bell Rock,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22said that the Bell Rock juddered when the sea hit it,
0:31:22 > 0:31:24but Skerryvore didn't judder.
0:31:28 > 0:31:34When Alan died in 1865, he was buried in Edinburgh.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37But his true monument lies 11 miles south-west of Tiree.
0:31:45 > 0:31:461853.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48The Crimean War.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53Britain was locked in conflict with the Russian Empire.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56The Royal Navy blockaded Archangel and Murmansk
0:31:56 > 0:31:59and demanded that a beacon be built on Muckle Flugga
0:31:59 > 0:32:04to help their warships navigate beyond the Shetland Isles.
0:32:04 > 0:32:08The storm-lashed rock is Britain's most northerly isle.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11Next stop, the Arctic Circle.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16It's a triangle. It's like a kind of minature Matterhorn, really,
0:32:16 > 0:32:23so you're dealing with something which has very glassy sides,
0:32:23 > 0:32:30and what the workmen had to do was to haul every scrap of equipment,
0:32:30 > 0:32:35materials and tools up on their backs, up ropes.
0:32:36 > 0:32:42The job fell to David, the second of Robert Stevenson's engineering sons.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45Steps were carved in the steep flank of Muckle Flugga.
0:32:45 > 0:32:51Foundations for the tower were sunk ten feet into the living rock.
0:32:51 > 0:32:56The lighthouse David built was made of brick.
0:32:56 > 0:32:58It was, he admitted...
0:32:58 > 0:33:03An untried experiment in marine engineering.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07Muckle Flugga was David's Skerryvore.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10In my mind it looked like the end of the world,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13like Tierra del Fuego at the end of South America or something like that.
0:33:13 > 0:33:15It remains in my mind to this day,
0:33:15 > 0:33:18turning that corner and seeing Muckle Flugga at the top of the rock.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20Incredible place.
0:33:20 > 0:33:25We had the sea coming right over the top of the station,
0:33:25 > 0:33:27and we're sitting on the top of a cliff,
0:33:27 > 0:33:31200 feet up with this big northerly swells coming in,
0:33:31 > 0:33:35on spring tides with the sea pounding onto the station.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37It was a weird sensation.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42The year after David Stevenson and his men left Muckle Flugga,
0:33:42 > 0:33:46a Royal Commission into the state of Britain's lighthouses noted that
0:33:46 > 0:33:49those of England and Ireland were...
0:33:49 > 0:33:53Much inferior to those of Scotland, which were under the supervision
0:33:53 > 0:33:54of the Stevensons.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12This is the remote Dhu Heartach lighthouse, west of Mull.
0:34:15 > 0:34:20It's one of 29 lighthouses built by David and his brother Thomas,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23the youngest of Robert Stevenson's sons.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26Among them, Butt of Lewis.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30Monach.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33Ruvaal.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37Lochindaal.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39Bressay.
0:34:41 > 0:34:42Turnberry.
0:34:44 > 0:34:45And Fidra.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Thomas was the least likely lighthouse engineer.
0:34:51 > 0:34:55He fancied being a writer or a publisher or a bookseller.
0:34:58 > 0:35:04He was found with bits of card in his pockets containing
0:35:04 > 0:35:08what Robert was appalled to discover
0:35:08 > 0:35:14were scribblings, were bits of writing, and he was genuinely...
0:35:14 > 0:35:18If he had discovered pieces of wreck, or laundered money
0:35:18 > 0:35:23or pornography, it probably wouldn't have been as bad as literature.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25But as it was,
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Tom was absolutely in disgrace
0:35:29 > 0:35:34and sent straight to become an engineer.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37Robert warned his son...
0:35:37 > 0:35:40If you want to live as a gentleman you must work as a man,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43for there is no dining without a purse.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49But like his brothers, Thomas was smart
0:35:49 > 0:35:52and had a capacity for hard work.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55He had a deep understanding of optics and oversaw
0:35:55 > 0:35:59the installation of the lamp on Alan's masterpiece, Skerryvore.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06While on Tiree, he developed a fascination with the sea.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11Today he's best remembered as the father of Robert Louis Stevenson,
0:36:11 > 0:36:13who wrote of Thomas...
0:36:13 > 0:36:16He would pass hours on the beach,
0:36:16 > 0:36:21brooding over the waves, counting them, noting their least deflection,
0:36:21 > 0:36:23noting when they broke.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29Thomas' greatest achievement was Dhu Heartach,
0:36:29 > 0:36:34built on the Torran Reef, 12 miles west of the Ross of Mull.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Lying in an important shipping channel, it had claimed 30 ships
0:36:38 > 0:36:40in just over half a century.
0:36:43 > 0:36:48On the island of Earraid, off Mull, Thomas established a quarry
0:36:48 > 0:36:53and workshops with a virtual village to support them.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56Robert Louis visited in 1870.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58There was now a pier of stone,
0:36:58 > 0:37:03there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling cranes,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07a street of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer,
0:37:07 > 0:37:11wooden bothies for the men, a stage where the courses of the tower
0:37:11 > 0:37:14were put together experimentally, and, behind the settlement,
0:37:14 > 0:37:19a great gash in the hillside where the granite was quarried.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23The men actually working out on the reef
0:37:23 > 0:37:28lived in a metal barracks bolted to the rock in case of storms.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32Robert Louis described such a storm.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35The men sat prisoned high up in their iron drum,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38that then resounded with the lashing of the sprays.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42Fear sat with them in their sea-beleaguered dwelling.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55Robert Louis didn't follow his father into the business.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58Thomas was heartbroken.
0:37:58 > 0:37:59Robert wrote...
0:37:59 > 0:38:03What a damned curse I am to my parents!
0:38:03 > 0:38:08As my father said, "You have rendered my whole life a failure!"
0:38:08 > 0:38:11It took him a hell of a long time to realise that he had a boy
0:38:11 > 0:38:14of such enormous talent.
0:38:14 > 0:38:20Thomas waited for ages to discover what his son really wanted,
0:38:20 > 0:38:24and in the end, of course, that is what he did, thank goodness for us.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28There's a few thousand people in the world who know who Robert Stevenson is,
0:38:28 > 0:38:32but there's millions who know who Robert Louis Stevenson is.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36He was much the brightest member of the family.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41Although he never became a lighthouse engineer, Robert Louis
0:38:41 > 0:38:45got something out of the journeys he made with his father.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47Erraid, from where Thomas built Dhu Heartach,
0:38:47 > 0:38:52is the tidal island on which David Balfour is shipwrecked in Kidnapped.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00but it was dry land.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05Towards the end of his life, Robert Louis wrote to a friend...
0:39:05 > 0:39:07I ought to have been able to build lighthouses
0:39:07 > 0:39:09and write David Balfours too.
0:39:11 > 0:39:17If you feel that you've gone off to a nice, relatively comfortable life
0:39:17 > 0:39:22as a children's writer, or a writer of children's stories,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26while the rest of your family are lifesavers,
0:39:26 > 0:39:33the equivalent of firemen or paramedics today, then you probably
0:39:33 > 0:39:35would feel a bit ambivalent.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39Under the Stevensons, Scotland was surrounding itself
0:39:39 > 0:39:43with a necklace of lights that were to save countless lives.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48But each light had to be manned by keepers who were trained,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50precise and vigilant.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56The men recruited as keepers were expected to be...
0:39:56 > 0:39:58Sober and industrious,
0:39:58 > 0:40:03cleanly in their persons and linens and orderly in their families.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07Robert Louis Stevenson reported that the keepers...
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Usually pass their time by the pleasant human expedient of
0:40:11 > 0:40:13quarrelling and sometimes,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17I'm assured, not one of the three is on speaking terms with the other.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22You had to get on with your fellow man.
0:40:22 > 0:40:26Now, I'm not saying there wasn't long silences.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29We had one lad there who smoked about 60 cigarettes a day
0:40:29 > 0:40:35and for a non-smoker that was, you know, erm....
0:40:35 > 0:40:37not very pleasant.
0:40:37 > 0:40:38One instance...
0:40:38 > 0:40:41just comes to mind,
0:40:41 > 0:40:45the chap, he hated mashed potatoes
0:40:45 > 0:40:50and when you were cook, of course, you had to separate the potatoes out
0:40:50 > 0:40:54specially for him and mash the rest and then the first thing he did
0:40:54 > 0:40:56when he got his plate was pick up his fork
0:40:56 > 0:41:00and mash his potatoes and you thought, "Now, ooh, wait a minute".
0:41:02 > 0:41:03Different lighthouses
0:41:03 > 0:41:08posed different challenges for wives and families, as well as keepers.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12My first experience of a rock lighthouse was the island of Fidra
0:41:12 > 0:41:17in the Firth of Forth and I wasn't a very happy bunny this day
0:41:17 > 0:41:20because I was going out for Christmas and New Year.
0:41:20 > 0:41:27I had a two and a half year old son and this was going to be me away
0:41:27 > 0:41:29for Christmas and New Year for the first time.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32In my case, it was a month on and a month off.
0:41:32 > 0:41:34In my father's day,
0:41:34 > 0:41:38it was two months on and one month off,
0:41:38 > 0:41:39so...
0:41:39 > 0:41:43the women had a job bringing up the children, right enough.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46When Hector was on rock stations, I didn't enjoy it.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50He was away from home for a month at a time.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53I was left to cope with the children
0:41:53 > 0:41:55and it was quite hard-going if they were ill,
0:41:55 > 0:41:59or if I was feeling off-colour, I had no-one to turn to.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03It was a bit of a wrench for them, you know, moving, more so for them,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06I would say, than for us.
0:42:06 > 0:42:10You know, they had to make friends at school
0:42:10 > 0:42:13and then they had to go away and leave their friends.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16A lot of keepers
0:42:16 > 0:42:21would be quite happy in the job, but then when they got a transfer,
0:42:21 > 0:42:25the wife would have one look at the place and say "well, not for me".
0:42:25 > 0:42:30Now, he had a choice there, he'd have to go or leave the wife,
0:42:30 > 0:42:33so normally the keeper followed the wife and left the service.
0:42:33 > 0:42:36My wife said, if I was away at the rock and I came back after a month,
0:42:36 > 0:42:40that was like a new honeymoon, you know, and then I think
0:42:40 > 0:42:43when you lived together, you were living in a remote place
0:42:43 > 0:42:47and you were constantly with one another, so you didn't constantly
0:42:47 > 0:42:52succumb to what other people in the town might have called "temptations".
0:42:52 > 0:42:55A fella marrying a city girl
0:42:55 > 0:42:58and then having this separation,
0:42:58 > 0:43:00I've seen it often,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04fairly testing sometimes, even a break-up, you know.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07Most of my life in the lighthouse service, it was a happy time,
0:43:07 > 0:43:13until things went wrong with my marriage and we split up.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17It happened to some. I think maybe the long periods of being away,
0:43:17 > 0:43:20you know, on a regular basis, maybe created windows
0:43:20 > 0:43:25of opportunity where, you know, there wouldn't have been otherwise.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30Robert Louis's cousins, David Alan and Charles,
0:43:30 > 0:43:33sons of David Stevenson, who'd built Muckle Flugga,
0:43:33 > 0:43:35were the fourth generation
0:43:35 > 0:43:40of this remarkable dynasty and the third to bear the name, Stevenson.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43It is a name that was now world renowned.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47One of the great things about this lighthouse technology,
0:43:47 > 0:43:50this package if you like, is that it did export quite well.
0:43:50 > 0:43:55A number of people were recruited by advertisements and went out
0:43:55 > 0:43:59to set up a lighthouse service in Japan.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02The Northern Lighthouse Board was also involved in various points of
0:44:02 > 0:44:06the empire like Aden, like India,
0:44:06 > 0:44:11Burma, I think to some extent, but also, perhaps more unexpectedly,
0:44:11 > 0:44:13Chile.
0:44:13 > 0:44:18The Bass Rock, one of 24 Scottish lighthouses
0:44:18 > 0:44:21built by David Alan and Charles Stevenson.
0:44:21 > 0:44:23The boom years of lighthouse engineering
0:44:23 > 0:44:25may have been in the past,
0:44:25 > 0:44:29but the pair still built classics like Sule Skerry,
0:44:29 > 0:44:34Britain's most remote lighthouse, 45 miles from the mainland.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40They built the notorious Flannan Isle light,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45where three keepers mysteriously disappeared in December 1900.
0:44:48 > 0:44:55Three men alive on Flannan Isle, who thought of three men dead.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58They designed and built fog horns
0:44:58 > 0:45:01and vastly improved the power of lights.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07In 1929, Charles and his son, D Alan Stevenson,
0:45:07 > 0:45:11invented the Talking Beacon,
0:45:11 > 0:45:13which allowed ships to take bearings
0:45:13 > 0:45:17in thick fog from radio signals transmitted from lighthouses.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22Charles was grandfather to Jean Leslie.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25Because my father had been killed at the Battle of Jutland,
0:45:25 > 0:45:29I had no father and as a grandfather,
0:45:29 > 0:45:32he really did a great deal for my sister and myself,
0:45:32 > 0:45:35he was always in our lives.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Charles was a very kindly man and he was a great inventor.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41I don't remember a time when he wasn't inventing
0:45:41 > 0:45:43and I was often with him when he was.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46He quite often turned to me and asked me what I thought,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49even though I was a child of only about 12.
0:45:49 > 0:45:51He was very inventive.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54He was the most inventive member of the family by a long way.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01World War II was a severe test for the Stevenson lighthouses
0:46:01 > 0:46:05and the profession of lighthouse keeping that the family had created.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10The Northern Lighthouse Board had reasoned...
0:46:10 > 0:46:14The risk of lighthouses being attacked is slight.
0:46:14 > 0:46:15Keepers agreed.
0:46:15 > 0:46:19The principal at Fair Isle South light wrote to his superiors...
0:46:19 > 0:46:23I do not consider it necessary to take special precautions here,
0:46:23 > 0:46:28owing to our position, not being near a town, naval base or aerodrome.
0:46:30 > 0:46:37But these documents record 30 Nazi air attacks on Scottish lights.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41This is a Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance photograph of Fair Isle.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46In March 1941, the island's northern light was attacked twice.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50In December, it was the turn of the island's southern light.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56My mother was looking out the window with me in her arms
0:46:56 > 0:46:59and she was killed by machine gun fire.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03And I was supposedly injured and so was the dog according to my father,
0:47:03 > 0:47:08but the lighthouse itself wasn't hurt that day.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12When I look at my mum and I think, well she was only 22,
0:47:12 > 0:47:15which is hardly... She'd hardly lived, had she?
0:47:15 > 0:47:19And there was a time I can remember I used to think
0:47:19 > 0:47:22that it should have been me who died and my mother lived,
0:47:22 > 0:47:25because I think my father would've liked a big family,
0:47:25 > 0:47:31so I did go through a feeling of "it should have been me, not her".
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Just a month after June's mother's death,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38the south light was bombed again, killing a soldier
0:47:38 > 0:47:42and the wife and ten year old daughter of the principal keeper.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50Another victim of the war was the Monach light, west of North Uist.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52Thought to be vulnerable to attack,
0:47:52 > 0:47:57it was abandoned in 1942 and not re-lit after the war.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04But in 1993, following the wreck of oil tanker, The Braer, off Shetland,
0:48:04 > 0:48:09the NLB set up a new light on the Monach Isles.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13Our new light wasn't sufficient for the job it was required to do
0:48:13 > 0:48:16and we had two alternatives, one was to build up that light
0:48:16 > 0:48:21to make it stronger, the other was to move back into the Stevenson Tower.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24It was dry as a bone.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27It was so beautifully built that I could actually touch
0:48:27 > 0:48:29the dust on the window sills.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32No damp at all in that building.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35So we removed the old light equipment from the top of the tower,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38put in brand new modern equipment and
0:48:38 > 0:48:43we now have a functioning tower some 60 years after it was first deserted.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47And I think it just goes to prove that the Stevensons knew it
0:48:47 > 0:48:48right all along.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56For all their genius, the Stevensons had no control over the elements.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59Right, boys, lower away together now.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04This film of 40 years ago shows fourth-generation keeper,
0:49:04 > 0:49:08Angus Hutchison, reporting for duty on Sule Skerry.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19Sule Skerry in winter time could be a bit of a trial.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25You would be thinking that you were going home in the morrow
0:49:25 > 0:49:29and the next day duly turned up
0:49:29 > 0:49:32and you had a screaming gale from the west,
0:49:32 > 0:49:35which meant that for that day,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38and probably for a week afterwards, there was no relief.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41That's fine. Hold on, Matthew.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48You'll have to play her today, boys.
0:49:51 > 0:49:57There was a situation existed in those days that you extended,
0:49:57 > 0:50:01or tried to make a relief for the next five days
0:50:01 > 0:50:05and if you couldn't make the relief within that time, it was abandoned
0:50:05 > 0:50:10and you continued and finished the next three weeks on there
0:50:10 > 0:50:13before they would try again for the relief,
0:50:13 > 0:50:17so that meant that you were going to be a minimum of nine weeks
0:50:17 > 0:50:24on the rock without getting ashore, so you used to try
0:50:24 > 0:50:28and put up a prayer for a bonnie day.
0:50:30 > 0:50:34But you had to be a very good living fellow before that was answered.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38It was never really answered in my case, you know.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40There was one year on Copinsay.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43We were overdue by...
0:50:43 > 0:50:46about four or five days at Christmas time,
0:50:46 > 0:50:50so here we were, looking at tins of corned beef for Christmas dinner.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54We had an old shotgun on the station
0:50:54 > 0:50:57we went off looking for
0:50:57 > 0:51:01something for our Christmas lunch and we managed to get a goose,
0:51:01 > 0:51:05but it was rather greasy, but we made the best of it.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08It was better than corned beef.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13This is the Bass Rock, built by David Alan Stevenson,
0:51:13 > 0:51:16grandson of the Bell Rock Lighthouse builder, Robert.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19David A, as he was known,
0:51:19 > 0:51:24retired as the Northern Lighthouse Board's chief engineer in 1938.
0:51:24 > 0:51:29He was 83 and had served for over half a century.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31This was the end of the Stevenson family's
0:51:31 > 0:51:35130 year connection with the Northern Lighthouse Board,
0:51:35 > 0:51:38although his nephew, D Alan, continued the family
0:51:38 > 0:51:43tradition as engineer to the Clyde Lighthouse Trust until 1952.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49Including Robert Stevenson's stepfather, Thomas Smith,
0:51:49 > 0:51:53the family had served Scotland's lighthouses
0:51:53 > 0:51:56for five generations and 166 years.
0:51:59 > 0:52:04I think they were absolutely marvellous.
0:52:04 > 0:52:10Those days, and mind you, it was sailing ships they were working with.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13And all these rock lighthouses, they're built with
0:52:13 > 0:52:17massive, big interlocking granite stones.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20I mean, you could hardly see the joins
0:52:20 > 0:52:22and there was no cement or anything.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24They were absolutely marvellous.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29At the beginning of the 1960s,
0:52:29 > 0:52:32the Northern Lighthouse Board began to automate its lighthouses.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Technicians in Edinburgh's George Street,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42not solitary keepers on storm-washed towers, now tend the lights.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47There's now over 100 lighthouses monitored from here,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51this is the monitor centre in our headquarters in Edinburgh.
0:52:51 > 0:52:5524 hours manned a day, 365 days of the year,
0:52:55 > 0:53:00keeping close control on the operation of our lights out there.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04System battery one volts, 28.1.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07Battery two, 27.3...
0:53:07 > 0:53:10If one goes wrong then the first thing to do is the monitor centre
0:53:10 > 0:53:14officer based here will try and restart the light or fix the error
0:53:14 > 0:53:16from here in the monitor centre.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19If that fails, he'll send out a message straight away
0:53:19 > 0:53:22to the hydrographic office, and to the coastguard
0:53:22 > 0:53:26so they can alert mariners in the area and we'll get technicians out
0:53:26 > 0:53:27as soon as we can to fix the light.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35What would the Stevensons have made of all this?
0:53:35 > 0:53:38I think they would've been sad to see the stations empty,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41but they would've approved of the move in automation
0:53:41 > 0:53:45because they were very, very skilled, advanced engineers at their time
0:53:45 > 0:53:49and they would've been skilled, advanced engineers today, as well.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51I think what would've pleased them
0:53:51 > 0:53:53would be that the structure they built
0:53:53 > 0:53:56are still there, the structures are still there doing the job
0:53:56 > 0:54:00they built them to do, but with modern equipment inside them.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03Former principal keeper, Angus Hutchison,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06is on a sentimental journey to Fair Isle.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17Do you want to see me doing a nose-dive, boys?
0:54:20 > 0:54:22I'm stiff.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25- How many years is it since you were here last?- Eleven.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29- Eleven?- That's a while indeed, yep.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34Here, at Fair Isle South,
0:54:34 > 0:54:38the 200 year-old tradition of men living in a remote place
0:54:38 > 0:54:42and dedicating their lives to looking after a glorified light bulb
0:54:42 > 0:54:45came to an end.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49I personally believe that the human presence is
0:54:49 > 0:54:55far superior to any of the new technology.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58I just happened to be the last principal light keeper,
0:54:58 > 0:55:03it just happened to be my watch when this happened.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06It was a good day, but a sad day.
0:55:06 > 0:55:13The last day with Princess Anne there,
0:55:13 > 0:55:17when we folded up the flag, there was such a big lump in my throat.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21Emotionally, it was quite draining and it took me a wee while to,
0:55:21 > 0:55:26what would you say, re-adjust to a different way of life
0:55:26 > 0:55:29and I wouldn't say I've probably re-adjusted yet.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33I still look back with so many fond memories.
0:55:33 > 0:55:38This is part of my hobby collection,
0:55:38 > 0:55:44large collection of lighthouse books from around the world.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47There's more in another bookcase down the stair.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50All the lighthouse models.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54That's just a small selection, there's other boxes up in the loft.
0:55:54 > 0:55:59The most valuable thing here is this collection of
0:55:59 > 0:56:02Scottish lighthouse postcards.
0:56:04 > 0:56:10All pre-1960, when all these lighthouses were manned.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14I wanted to complete the full collection before I'm finished.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18I've got about five to go.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21Probably the most valuable one I've got in here at the moment is Pladda,
0:56:21 > 0:56:23I paid £68 for that.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25I really wanted it badly.
0:56:25 > 0:56:27I have bidded more than that,
0:56:27 > 0:56:29but I've been unsuccessful at the moment.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31But I'll get them.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35A couple of years ago, I was in a ferry off Orkney, up on the bridge,
0:56:35 > 0:56:38talking to the master as he was heading back towards Kirkwall
0:56:38 > 0:56:42and I asked him whether he actually used the lights and the buoys
0:56:42 > 0:56:47that we provide and he took a look at me and he said, "Good heavens, yes.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51"This GPS", pointing at it, "tells me where it thinks I am,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54"looking at that lighthouse over there or that buoy over there
0:56:54 > 0:56:56- "tells me where I- know- I am and I'm much happier
0:56:56 > 0:57:01"in those circumstances when the weather's bad, when visibility's bad,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05"then I have that confidence of knowing where I am from traditional aids."
0:57:05 > 0:57:08They represent humanity, generosity of spirit,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12um, a disinterested...
0:57:12 > 0:57:15desire to save life
0:57:15 > 0:57:17and...
0:57:17 > 0:57:20the capacity to endure.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24They represent the best of us.
0:57:24 > 0:57:29We'll never know the countless lives that sailed past
0:57:29 > 0:57:33and might not have sailed past if they had, you know, on Skerryvore,
0:57:33 > 0:57:37because that light was there and because guys like me were prepared
0:57:37 > 0:57:39to take on the task of being there.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42I feel extremely proud to have...
0:57:43 > 0:57:47Been a member of such an elite band of brothers
0:57:47 > 0:57:52and that's what they were to me throughout my time
0:57:52 > 0:57:56in the lighthouse service...
0:57:56 > 0:58:00and I just regard it as a life well-spent.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05The Stevensons have vanished into history.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09The profession of lighthouse keeper is now following them.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13But the extraordinary structures they built and tended
0:58:13 > 0:58:16still stand guard on Scotland's coast.
0:58:18 > 0:58:24If it ever comes to be that they want to reintroduce the keepers,
0:58:24 > 0:58:27I'll be first rattling at the door.
0:58:27 > 0:58:29Great life.
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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