The South Rock Lightvessel and me
by Ann Clementson
The Commissioners kindly invited me to join them for the farewell ceremony when the Gannet was taken off station on 25 February 2009. I had asked if I might attend as she had been so much part of my life as a young girl.
In 1930 my grandfather bought one of the South Rock lighthouse keepers' cottages. Alongside the cottage is a small harbour originally built to provide a base for the boats used to build the lighthouse back in 1793, and it was in this harbour that the tender to the Lightship was kept. The old black wooden boat called Paddy, with a bluff bow, a flattish bottom, and roughly tarred topsides took men and supplies out to the ship every ten days, depending, of course, on the weather. She was half decked with a big well for the cargo. I think she had previously been a fishing boat and the smell still lingered.
My family spent most of their summers there and, during the bombing raids on Belfast in World War 2, we stayed for a whole year together with my cousins and grandfather. The cottages were very isolated, had no electricity and no running water-it was one of my daily tasks to pump water up from the well. The excitement therefore was tremendous when the men and supplies arrived for the lightship, mostly by bicycle.
If we were 'very good', and if the weather was fine we were allowed to go out in the 'big boat'. First the shore crew would pump the water from our well down a wooden channel into wooden barrels aboard Paddy, the parcels for the men who were to stay on the lightship were then stowed, the crew boarded and we followed. The shore crew consisted of the Paddy's skipper, John Bailey, old George Drysdale and his son. They were very good to us and entertained us with their wonderful tales.
Although it was only about five miles, it seemed a very long way out to the lightship. The Paddy had an engine, although it was not totally reliable so when we had a fair wind the crew would hoist the sail. The old boat would light up as she gathered speed under the faded red canvas, although she would creak and groan like an old woman. When we reached the lightship the crew of the tender would lift us up on the swell of the wave and hand us over to the lightship crew who would lift us to safety. What would the health and safety people say about that today?
Once aboard, we were allowed to explore the lightship. I remember well the smell of paraffin from the signal lamp mixed up with the smell of tarred rope, damp clothes and bacon.
The great excitement was to see the Captain's cabin. Actually he had two, a day cabin and one for sleeping. The latter had a very cosy looking bunk guarded by shiny mahogany leeboards and sheltered by green curtains on a gleaming brass rail. He really needed the boards as the seas were often rough.
Sometimes we would be given soda bread with jam, a great treat as sugar was still rationed then. Each man brought his own food aboard and they all cooked separately. I could imagine that this arrangement might have caused all sorts of arguments, as the ship's company was, I think, seven including the Captain. I suppose they probably had a watch system of some sort, so they weren't all trying to cook at once.
The men spent their time during the calmer weather making things. I had a lovely ship in a dimpled Haig bottle, a clothes brush with my name in white on the black bristles, and a very fine plaited rope mat. They never would tell us how the boat got into the bottle!
As a child I used to lie in bed in our cottage watching the loom of the light moving across the ceiling, and would think of the vessels it was warning.
We used to play on the rocks at very low tide looking for crabs and mussels, and catching shrimps and tiny fish. We would look out at the ship to see when the tide had turned, as she always had her bow facing into the tide. Then we knew it was time to go home.
Well, I expect it was time for the Gannet to go home too. I realise that she is too expensive to maintain. The new Superbuoy will be self-sufficient with its solar panels and wave technology, but I will miss the Gannet whenever I look out to sea from that shore.