Neil Hargreaves
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Neil Hargreaves was a light keeper for Trinity House in England from 1974-1988, and he is the founder and chairman of the Association of Lighthouse Keepers. Neil, who was originally from Lancashire, spent the first two years of his light keeping career on light vessels, mostly the Newarp lightship off the Norfolk coast in southwest England. Neil’s first appointment as an assistant lighthouse keeper was at the Smalls Lighthouse, a wave-swept granite tower on a rock about 20 miles off the coast of Pembrokeshire. After two years at the Smalls station, he spent seven years on the Inner Dowsing tower – a converted coal rig – in the North Sea off England’s east coast.
Neil Hargreaves in the radio room at Longships Lighthouse, 1987. (Courtesy of Neil Hargreaves)
The Smalls Lighthouse, Wales. U.S. Lighthouse Society photo.
Neil’s final three years working for Trinity House were spent traveling around to various light stations in England, Wales, and the Channel Islands. He spent time at Longships, Souter, Wolf Rock, and several other stations. His last station as a keeper was Portland Bill on the Dorset coast. Neil founded the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, or ALK, in 1988, and he serves as its chairman. The ALK manages a lighthouse museum on the south coast of England. The group also runs lighthouse tours and produces a quarterly journal called Lamp.
Lighthouses are seen around the world as a symbol of hope, guidance, and strength along with lots of other positive qualities. The playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They are built only to serve.” In recognition of that, Light Hearted will be doing occasional segments called “Be a Lighthouse,” discussing people and organizations who are being lighthouses, or beacons of hope, in our communities.
The first “Be a Lighthouse” segment focuses on a nonprofit organization on the New Hampshire Seacoast. Gather serves those in the community experiencing hunger by providing nutritious food through innovative distribution programs. The organization also collaborates with community partners to address the root causes of hunger throughout the Seacoast in New Hampshire and Maine. Seneca Adam Bernard is the associate executive director of Gather.
Following is the transcript of the interview with Neil Hargreaves.
I’m speaking today with Neil Hargreaves, who is a former
lighthouse keeper in England and also the founder of the Association of Lighthouse
Keepers. You know, I was reading some interviews with you lately. And in one of
the interviews, you talked about how you worked on fishing trawlers before you
became a lighthouse keeper. I’m sure that was an interesting job that could
probably be pretty scary at times.
Yeah. It was a dangerous job. I sailed out of Fleetwood
and then I ended up on deep sea in the Faroes in Iceland. That was a beautiful sight
to see when I first saw Iceland, and these white mountains rising sheer out of
the sea with pink tints on the top. Absolutely magical. But, unfortunately, we
weren’t allowed to land at the time, because it was during the time of the Cod
Wars with Iceland. We had the Icelandic gunboats trying to cut our nets away.
But there must have been some heavy seas you encountered
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean there was one trip, we ended up
sailing right around Iceland. The skipper kept sailing north and right to the
top to escape the weather. The weather was that bad. There was one sea, the
vessel actually keeled over and half the boat deck was underwater. But it was
pretty close, I think, that one. I only did it two years before I transferred
You worked on the lightships at first, but what, what
exactly led you to work for Trinity House? Was being a lighthouse keeper or being
a lightship sailor — were those things you aspired to before that?
I can’t say it was, to be honest, Jeremy. Some guys I knew,
I was having a drink with them in the bar and they worked for Trinity House. And
they got talking and they told me they were looking for guys on the lightships.
That’s how it came about.
After being on the trawlers like that, I imagine being on
the lightships was a fairly calm way of life, but it must have had its
interesting moments. What, what was life like on the lightships?
It was less dangerous, a bit. But having said that, the
lightships in the U.K, they can’t move under their own steam. The ship’s out
there for three years, for a month on and a month off, but they take them in
every three years for drydock and repair. The North Sea’s only a shallow sea. So
when the wind’s whipped up, it could be quite choppy. If you got wind and tide
in a certain way, the lightship could behave like in a corkscrew motion. So luckily
I was never seasick either on the trawlers or on the lightships. But it was a
different experience to lighthouses because on a lightship, during fog, you
watch out on deck because you had to listen out for the fog signal when it
blasted. If a vessel was close by, on the rebound, it would come back to you. And
you could sort of find out show far away that vessel was. And if it was too
close, you’d have to call everybody out in case it was going to hit you. Small
coasters used to come along. The vessels I was on, the Newarp, it did end up
getting hit twice. Luckily that was after I’d left.
So after a couple of years on the lightships, and then
after your training course, you became a supernumerary keeper. That’s not a
term we use here. From what I gather, it was kind of like being an apprentice
keeper. So can you explain a little bit about that? What did you do as a supernumerary
Yeah, that that’s correct. It was going around various
lighthouses, to begin with, before you got specific a posting — still learning
different engines, because they had different engines at different stations,
different lights at different stations. I even got to, to go on an old IOV
light at St. Mary’s, the old incandescent oil burner. That was something in
itself. You know, it was like being back in time. The very first lighthouse I
was sent to was Souter Point on the northeast coast and the second one was St.
Mary’s Island. That was a great little island. It was connected by a causeway that
was covered at high water. One of the keepers on there had canoes so we used to
go out sea canoeing. That was great. After there I went to St. Ann’s
Lighthouse, and then Cromer. But it wasn’t long that I actually got forced into
Smalls because of the time spent on the lightships previous.
After your time as a supernumerary keeper, you were an
assistant at the Smalls Lighthouse, which is extremely remote. It’s the most
remote station operated by Trinity House, I believe.
It’s about twenty miles off the coast of Wales. Life there
must have been really interesting.
You were certainly felt like you were at one with nature,
that sort of thing, being out there, you know. You just had the sound of the
sea and the seagulls. It’s quite something.
I did. I did to begin with, I did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the most part, the guys were a great
set of blokes. Great camaraderie on the job, you know. But there was just one
particular chap on this station. He wasn’t there when I first went there, he
came later. And he was just a complete racist, a bigot, homophobic. You name it,
he was it, you know? Yeah. Couldn’t even watch TV without some derogatory
comment coming in. So I just had enough and I wrote to Trinity House saying you
need to get me off there. They did. They gave me a transfer to the Inner
Dowsing. But there’s an end story to this, Jeremy. After seven years on the
Inner Dowsing, the last three years they put me on the pool, which meant I got
sent around relieving people were off sick or on holiday. A month here, a month
there. So I got to see a lot more lighthouses than I would have done normally.
And one of the superintendents said, would you like to go to Souter again? He
said that there’s just one thing. He said the principal keeper that’s there now
was this particular chap. He said you don’t have to go, but would you be okay
with going? I said, yeah. And sure enough, we ended up going for a drink
That was the end to that one.
Yeah, that’s good story. I guess people can change for the
better. That’s good to hear. Yeah. But it’s a shame you had to transfer there
because, as you said, most of the guys were great at the Smalls. Going back to
that, how many keepers were typically assigned to the Smalls? What kind of
rotation did you have there?
It was only three in the crew. We had the principal keeper
and two assistant keepers. The reason they made it three on the crew, it was
actually on the Smalls Lighthouse way back in the 1800s when there were only
two keepers, one of the keepers died. The other one fearing that he’d be blamed
for killing him, kept his body there. First inside then he had to put it
outside. The weather was bad. They didn’t have radio communication back then
either. So he had to wait until the relief boat came to get him off. By the
time the relief boat came, it been delayed due to bad weather. This guy had
gone insane. After that, they decided to put three keepers on the station.
There’s been several plays about this particular story. I remember watching one
on TV. It was quite good.
It inspired a couple of movies as well. Including the
recent movie, The Lighthouse — the plot was very different. But I read
that the writer/director was inspired by that incident. And I was going to ask
you about that. When you were there at the Smalls, was that something you and
the other keepers knew about? Did that enter your thinking at all when you were
No, it didn’t really enter our thoughts. As I say, we had
such a good rapport with each other. There was no worries. As I say, it was
great camaraderie amongst the majority, you know. You had oddball as you do
Sure. Yeah. So it’s obviously a very isolated place. Do
you recall any specific times in storms or especially high seas at the Smalls?
Yes. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I’ve experienced a wave
actually coming right over the top of the tower.
It’s 120 feet. The tower would actually shake when that would
hit. But it had to have that give, that’s how it was designed. Because if it
didn’t, it would snap. It was built into it. Amazing feats of engineering,
absolutely. The water would wash down on the light and would come back through
the windows. It was quite an experience. And that happened at the Longships as
What were the living quarters like in those towers?
Quite cramped. You only had one bedroom for all three of
you. Of course, there was always one on watch, you know? So there was only was only
two that turned it at maximum. The middle watch was midnight to four in the
morning. So that’s when you did your ablutions. You didn’t have a shower or
anything. It was just a wash at the sink in the kitchen. You didn’t realize at
the time when you were there, but it wasn’t until you got ashore that you could
smell it on your clothes. It was a great job, Jeremy. It was the best job I
Your water supply at those places was a cistern in the bottom
of the tower, right? And was that delivered to you? Or how did that work?
Yeah, that, that was delivered by the tenders, one of our
ships. We had tanks down on the rock, oil tanks. They supplied water as well.
Those oil tanks must have been pretty heavy duty to
withstand those seas there.
Well, the helicopter used to land on top of the oil tank because
it was the only the only flat bit. At the Smalls you always had to keep an eye
open for a rogue wave coming and the ones. Once when he had to take off in the
hurry, he said I’ll have to go. He took off. A wave came over. It washed one of
the guys’ suitcases into the — in between our rock and the next rock, sort of
thing. He jumped in and got after it. So then I had to fish him out along with
I was going to say, it’s a good thing that the suitcase
was all that swept away. And it sounds like he was pretty lucky to survive
I know a, a lot of keepers, other people I’ve interviewed
like Richard Cummins, who was a lighthouse keeper in Ireland for quite a while,
talked about the wildlife. Ian Duff in Scotland, also. What kind of wildlife
did you have? Was there anything of significance around someplace like the Smalls?
Well, we had a colony of seals there and they used to come
swimming into the gut and pop their heads up and be taking the lot on what was
going on, what we were doing, you know. So they were quite comical and it was
always interesting to watch those. Yeah. And the different seabirds as well,
seeing the gannets dive and that sort of thing. A lot of keepers actually
became birdwatchers. Just to hear the sound of the gulls and the waves washing
on the rock out there, it was just —
Probably go to sleep with those sounds, right? I remember
spending a night at Boston Light in Boston Harbor. I got to sleep on the couch in
the keeper’s house. And I was so aware of the gulls all night. They were so
loud just outside the house, but I guess you get used to that, probably fairly
Well, yeah. When you consider, you have to get used to the
louder — much louder — fog signal going.
Right. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the fog signal
at the Smalls. What type of signal was that?
It was diaphone, same as on the lightships. Really loud,
with a grunt at the end, sort of thing. You just got used to it. You got to
sleep. No problem. You know, it’s funny because sometimes it suddenly stops and
it was just silent. You might wake up with the silence.
I’ve heard that before. It’s the silence that, that woke
you up. I heard a diaphone horn at Souter that they still operate on occasion. And
it’s pretty impressive. And I can’t imagine living inside a tower where you had
one of those. Was it difficult to operate? Of course it was compressed air.
Right? And probably not all that hard to start up. Is that right?
You had a much bigger engine you had to start up and then let
it build up to a certain pressure, then wind it in and away you’d go. Some of
them were crank start – you had to turn the handle. They ended up putting push
So after the Smalls, as you mentioned before, you moved to
the Inner Dowsing Light, for reasons you mentioned before. And you actually
spent seven years there. It’s an unusual place. I don’t know if you could
exactly call it a lighthouse, certainly a light station. Certainly not anybody’s
idea of a traditional lighthouse. But, first of all, for people who don’t know,
can you explain where the Inner Dowsing is? Geographically?
Yeah, geographically it’s just off The Wash off the east
coast of England. It’s off the Lincolnshire coast. And it was actually an ex-coal
rig. They actually used a light vessel lantern on the top of it. The helipad was
on top as well on the other corner. Being an ex-rig, of course, it was a much
bigger than the granite tower that I’d just been on the previous two years. We
actually had flushing toilets. We had showers. There was a TV room, as well as a
kitchen. It was a dining area as well, a separate radio room, and other rooms.
The engine room was in the center. You also had a crane on there to operate
when the boat came along, the tenders. Although all the reliefs were done by
helicopter. On their annual inspection we’d have to winch them from the little
motor launch that they’d come across in onto the deck, which was about 120 foot
In this country. We had a bunch of towers that were
sometimes referred to as Texas towers, kind of like oil rigs. And they seemed
very similar. As you said, it was a former coal rig and I guess they would
explore for undersea coal.
That is correct. That was up off the northeast coast where
this rig was being used. There used to be some miners’ cottages next to the
I’ve certainly heard about a lot of keepers who had
hobbies of one kind or another to pass the off hours when there wasn’t work
they had to do. Or when they’re keeping watch certainly — hobbies probably
helped you stay awake when you were keeping watch. But did you have any hobbies
you used to pass the time?
I did. Yeah. One of the old masters of a light vessel
taught me how to put ships in bottles. So I got quite adept at doing those. I
only did them on the light vessels, for some reason. I didn’t carry it on when
I transferred onto lighthouses. I used to do a lot of reading. I did bit of
photography as well, of course.I quite a lot out there, to be honest.
I bet! Those are good places to read, I would say. I don’t
know if you know Richard Cummins, the former Irish keeper who makes amazing
ships in bottles and other models and posts a lot of the pictures on his
Facebook page. I don’t know if that’s something you’re aware of.
I saw the interview you did with him. Most keepers had
hobbies. Some were artists, who were quite good some of them. And some had
various hobbies like rug making, some even knitted.
I’ve heard that. Yeah. Your last three years after the Inner
Dowsing and the Smalls and your lightship time, you spent three years with
Trinity house — I think you alluded to this earlier — but you traveled around
to a bunch of different lighthouses. And I believe you mentioned a couple
earlier, but during that period, were there kind of favorite places you had?
I think Alderney was my favorite, in the Channel Islands,
I did a couple of the other Channel Islands lights as well — Casquets and Hanois.
But Alderney was on the island itself of Alderney, of course. So you to meet
all the local people, which was great. You were immediately, being a lighthouse
keeper, wherever you went to in the country, you were immediately made welcome
by the local community as one of them. Because you were there to protect their
fishermen, their yachtsman. You know, was another great part of the job. And at
Alderney, the lighthouse was also the 999 call center for the island. We were
the only place manned 24/7. So we used to turn out the fire, police, or
ambulance. The local bobby – copper – used to call in on his rounds – call in for
a chat at the lighthouse, have a cup of tea. So it was great.
What exactly led you the end of your career with Trinity
The automation program, sadly. We could see the writing on
the wall as soon as the computer chip came along, you know.
How do you feel about lighthouse automation?
Well, being a keeper, I’d have to say, you know — I mean, we can see progress, you know, we
know why it’s going to GPS and all that, but it’s like one skipper said to us,
he said, “GPS is all really well.” He said, “But it tells me where I think I am.”
He said, “When I see a lighthouse, I know where I am.” things are changing all
the time, aren’t they? You know.
Sure are. I guess it’s progress, but you often lose things
along the way with so-called progress.
The thing was, I mean, the other service keepers give, of
course, is you were on hand in real emergencies. You know, whether it be yacht
in distress, or in couple cases where climbers were stuck on the rocks where there
was a lighthouse. One of our keepers actually ended up getting a medal for
bravery. He ended up doing two rescues on the cliffs at South Stack Lighthouse.
He actually went down and kept the bloke’s head up out of the water while help
Well, that’s why in Canada they still have more than 50
staffed lighthouses. Even though the lights are automated, they like having the
people there to keep an eye on things. Although the government keeps
threatening to take the keepers off, but there’s enough outcry to keep them
Yeah. That’s good to hear. Another thing that’s been done
over here, of course, is they’ve got rid of all the Coast Guards. Most of our
Coast Guard stations are gone. So there’s no eyes there either.
So you have volunteer lifesavers.
The Coast Watch. A volunteer group sprang up. It’s not as
heavy on the ground as what the old Coast Guards were, you know. They’re fewer
and far between. So, I mean, at least it’s something, you know, but they’re
Yeah. So I wanna talk a bit about the Association of Lighthouse
Keepers, but I’m also wondering since you left Trinity house in 1988 and
started the ALK around that time, what else have you been doing in the years since
I ended up moving down to London. I was living in Suffolk
at the time. Shortly after I did leave, before I moved down to London, [?]
contacted me and asked me if I’d consider being attendant for Southwold (?)
Lighthouse. So that’s just a part-time job. You just have to go along every so
often, keep it tidy and clean, and show anybody around when it was requested.
So I did that for two years after I came out of the service. But then I had to
move down to London for full time work and actually went into security at the press
association on Fleet Street in London. From there I was transferred to
Powergen’s registered office in the city of London, where I did security. And
while I was there, I ended up getting a job in facilities at PowerGen at that
registered office. So I ended up looking after all the staff there and kept them
all supplied with their office requirements. But it was a really good little
friendly crowd there. I was there nine years in total, but then redundancy came
along again. They said we’ll retrain you to do whatever job you fancy doing. I
took them up on it. So I retrained as a housing officer. I did the course got
the certificate and I ended up getting the job as a housing officer. So that
was quite interesting. It was only for two years, because redundancy came along
again. And after that I ended up running a dry cleaners. And then from that ended
up being manager of a coffee shop and gift shop. And then the big recession
came along and for the last six years of my working life I was actually a
Say that again? You were –
A carer — looking after old people.
Oh, right. Okay. I thought that’s what you said at first.
But it was a quite interesting, challenging job, you know?
I bet. Yeah. So what led you to start the Association of Lighthouse
Like I said, the, the camaraderie in the job had been
great. It wasn’t a job I wanted to just walk away from and forget about. I
mean, right from the start we collected our own archives as well. Schools come
to us, colleges for information, we had one girl doing a dissertation on fog
signals. At first, of course, it was just from people within the service. But
when I left, there were only 174 keepers left at the time when I left. But there
were also people in the Trinity House depots that joined — we had our own
mechanics and electricians back then as well. Some of them joined. Even people
at headquarters joined. But then we had such an interest from general members
of the public that we decided to open membership up to anyone interested in
lighthouses. And to be honest, Jeremy, I think it’s just as well we did because
there’s not many of us keepers left now at all. The bulk of the trustees now on
the board is made up of enthusiasts. They do a great job, sterling job. And the
good thing about it is, over the years, when we’ve grown our lighthouse tours,
you get the regular tour goers going on these tours and to see the smiles on
their faces when they meet up with their friends again — that’s been a huge
bonus of it as well, you know?
Yeah. Well, you mentioned the tours and the archives. I know
that the ALK also does a magazine, Lamp, which is fantastic. A lot of history
in there. How often does that magazine come out?
Quarterly. Yeah. So if you get a membership in the ALK,
you, you get the magazine, right?
You get the magazine, and a lapel badge, and a patch.
Back to the archives you mentioned, is that just for UK
lighthouses or is it kind of worldwide?
It’s mostly UK ones, as you can imagine, because a lot of
stuff has been sent in by UK members, but we do have odd bits from other places,
yeah, around the world. Books as well from around the world.
The ALK also runs a museum right. In Hampshire. Is that
That’s correct. Yeah. It’s inside Hurst Castle. Hurst
Castle itself is run by English Heritage.
That’s H U R S T as opposed to — we have a property known
as the Hearst Castle in California. William Randolph Hearst, H E A R S T.
And what is there again at the museum there?
We’ve got various lamps on display, various lighting
equipment. We’ve got a mockup of The Needle’s kitchen in the museum as well.
And we also show maps of all the lights around the UK. And it also shows people
the refraction, the lens we’ve got there, from the prisms. The small team we
have there now, they’re really dedicated. And they like to refresh things, you
know, every so often. And they also look after to the Trinity House room that’s
So I’ve got a couple of final questions for you, and these
are for bonus points. Okay. What was the best thing about being a lighthouse
The fact that you knew, the job you was there to do, you
knew that you was there to save lives, irrespective of where those sailors come
from, whether they came from America, India, China, wherever. You were there to
save people’s lives. And that was, you know, the real benefit of doing that
job. And like I mentioned earlier, when you got sent to anywhere in the country,
you might have been new when you got there, you were soon welcomed into the
local community as one of them. It was great experience. It really was.
Well, I think I know the answer to this last question. But
looking back, would you do it again?
Well, Neil, Hargreaves, it’s really fun talking to you.
And I know we just have scratched the surface today and maybe we need to do a
part two, part three, or whatever in the future, but I’m sure there’s a lot
more stories we haven’t covered today. And I’d like to talk more about the ALK
at some point, too. But I do really appreciate you spending this time with me
today. It’s really, really great talking with you. Thank you, Neil.
You’re welcome. And thank you for inviting me along,
