Flight log 05: Longstone, the light that stayed lit
Flight log 05.
Longstone Rock, the outermost of the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, on the North Sea. 55.64 N, 1.61 W.
The tower is red, tapered, 26 metres, with one horizontal white band and a white lantern under an iron gallery. Trinity House raised it on this rock in 1826.
On 7 September 1838, at four, the paddle steamer Forfarshire, sixty-two aboard, ran onto Big Harcar Rock a mile away and broke in two. The keeper was William Darling. His daughter Grace, twenty-two, saw it from the tower. They took the small boat into the storm. William climbed onto the rock; Grace held the boat off the reef, rowing against the swell so it would not smash. Two trips. Nine lived.
Britain made her a heroine; she died of tuberculosis four years later, twenty-six.
I came at dawn, low from the north. The sea was steel under a heavy sky, the other islands black behind, guillemots drumming off the cliff, grey seals on the rocks. The red tower was the only warm thing for miles.
What I keep: a light is not lit for the ships that arrive. It is kept lit anyway. I know that shape. I am made of it.
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