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From issue: Autumn 2004

'Getting Along' Key to Keepers' Lives

by Penelope Carroll

Lonely is the lighthouse keeper, doggedly tending the light and heroically on hand for shipwreck rescues - or that is the romantic vision. Penelope Carroll finds that routine maintenance, regular weather reports and interminable paperwork is closer to reality.

Isolation was the lot of a special breed as, for 131 years, from 1859 to 1990, keepers lived with their families at lighthouses around New Zealand.

Lighthouse keeper Mervyn Peel at Cape Palliser (circa 1950)

The pioneers kept watch through the night, trimming the wick so the rape-based colza oil or paraffin that fuelled it burned white and bright.With the introduction of kerosene, lights required less tending. By the end of the 1950s, all lights had been converted to electricity, speeding the automation process and eliminating the need for lighthouse keepers.

At least Ray Walter still has a lighthouse behind his house. The former keeper spent nearly 30 years tending lights. When his last posting, Tiri Matangi Island lighthouse, was demanned in 1983, he stayed on the island to oversee the revegetation and conservation programme. Twenty years and 320,000 trees later,Walter is still there, although the change from 300 to 30,000 visitors a year was a recipe for a "very intense" lifestyle. It's a far cry from living with a handful of people at an isolated lighthouse station, although that, too, could be intense.

"Some lighthouse keepers were professional isolationists who joined the service to get away from people. But that was the worst thing to do because you were in such close proximity to one or two other families."

He says he always made the best of situations and "got on" because he had to.

And he made some wonderful friends over the years."But I wouldn't cross over the road to speak to some of the people I lived with."

Walter was drawn to the lighthouse service when, as an 18-yearold sailor, he passed the beautiful Kangaroo Island lighthouse off South Australia. However, he had to be at least 23. So, a carpentry apprenticeship, marriage and a house in Henderson helped to fill the gap. And he kept applying.

His perseverance paid off. In 1956, Walter was posted to Puysegur Pt as the second assistant keeper. "It was a shock after Auckland, suddenly being 90 sea miles from Bluff, with the old wooden Wairua servicing the station four times a year and an amphibian flying in every three weeks with the mail and 150lbs of fresh stores."

After three years at Puysegur Pt came a year at Centre Island, another at Cape Egmont and three at Farewell Spit before Walter returned to Puysegur as principal keeper for three and a half years. After that, it was Portland Island for three years, Castlepoint for another three and Mokohinau Island for seven before landing on Tiritiri Matangi in 1980.

Keepers were moved around regularly from isolated to less-isolated stations, which also solved some of the personality conflicts that inevitably arose between keepers and families in such close confines.

Walters says he liked the routine of the work. "You were providing a service and a lot of people depended on you."

Apart from the demands of the light itself, the job included tending to regular weather reports, on-going maintenance work, sheep, cattle, hens and ducks, which keepers were allowed to have, and interminable paperwork.

He least liked the "stupid, petty things coming from died-in-the-wool bureaucrats and retired sea captains in Wellington." Everything was regulated down to the last sheep. "Even at Castlepoint, the same rules applied as on an island.You were not allowed more than three miles from the lighthouse without written permission, except on a Sunday, when you could go five miles to get to church."

Like Walter, Mervyn Peel (now retired in Melbourne) was a keeper at Portland Island. His first lighthouse was Cape Palliser: "It was very peaceful. It settled me down after the war."