Our luggage was stowed away in the hold of the boat, and I was tucked away beside it. A tarpaulin was laid over all… on that first crossing we bucked and heaved and rolled and tumbled our way across the two miles or so of the Sound. It was dark in the hold, which was pervaded with a mixture of smells – oil, tar, ropes, fish among them. Spray spattered on the tarpaulin like showers of hailstones. It seemed a long time, and I was sick, before the tarpaulin was lifted, and we were tied up to a pier.
For cooking we had two stoves. One was a heavy, black, iron, coal-burning ‘Victoress’, and the other a ‘Valor’ paraffin stove with two burners, and for an over, a tin cabinet to set on top of one burner. A round, glass tank fixed to one side held the paraffin.
Every baking session I would produce brown scones and white scones, something made with pastry, brown cakes and white cakes and biscuits… Ingredients were no problem, for Jimmy, knowledgeable about lighthouse life, advised keeping at least a month’s stock of non-perishable foodstuffs, just in case the weather prevented the boat crossing.
What a difference it made to have an electric iron! Up until then I had used my set of Mrs Potts’ irons… they were heavy chunks of iron which you set on top of the stove to heat. A composition handle clipped into the indentations in the top, and you used one till it became too cool, and then replaced it with a hot one. How light and how convenient the electric iron seemed after this! I no longer had to hang the floor mats over the washing land and beat and beat with my cane clover-leaf carpet beater.
Water for washing was collected off roofs and courtyards in large underground tanks from which it was piped [into the houses]. Our drinking water, which originated as a spring on a hill near the shop, had to be carried in from a tap on the [lighthouse] station gate. The other summer, I saw a replica of my first washing machine being exhibited in a museum. It consisted of a metal tub on a stand. ON top of the tub’s lid was a handle which I pushed to and fro describing a semi-circle each time. Inside a metal rod with a sort of paddle at the end swished the clothes about…
There were once four shops on the island, and from about 1910 to the Great War, and for a few years after 1918, Stroma was served weekly, through the summer months, by ‘The Floating Shops’, a little fleet of sailing smacks from Orkney… My grandmother amazed me by remarking, ‘I used to pack boxes of boots for the floating shops.’ … At the sight of [the smack’s] white sails approaching from Orkney, the word was passed round… for she came not only to sell but to buy [eggs and fish]…
Nearest the bow of the ship was the grocer at his counter. Along the bulkheads and sides of the shop were shelves on which groceries were displayed. Bars of wood were nailed in front of the goods to prevent their tumbling off the shelves. Midships there was kept the meal and feeding-stuffs. A large weighing machine stood in the centre, and sacks of flour, oatmeal, bere meal, bran and Indian corn were built up along the sides.
The least busy of the departments was nearest the stern – the drapery. The draper had his goods set out on a bench right round his domain, as well as on barred shelves and hinging on criss-cross lines above his head. When a lull came, and no one wanted a pair of boots, a roll of wall-paper, and overall or oilskin… he was expected to jump on deck and deal with the incoming lobsters and fish.
It was agonising to see home after home stripped and left bare. Blank windows gaped at us like the unseeing eyes of stunned creatures. Some of the older people were very distressed about having to leave. Old Andy became withdrawn and wouldn’t speak.
… among the people steadily streaming away form the island, now that the school and shop had closed, was Bessie the nurse, who was also the wife of an Islander. Mr Hislop (the Principal Keeper) had to have regular medical treatment, and with Bessie’s departure this was no longer possible.
During the Superintendent’s last visit, I had requested that when we were move, would he please take into consideration that we’d like to have children…. The doctor who looked after us from Caithness had asked if we intended having a family, and made it clear that were I to become pregnant on the island, he’d whisk me away to ‘the other side’.
Because of my great age – thirty two – I was put under the care of a specialist gynecologist… he told me not to return to the lighthouse, not even for my suitcase, because if events occurred as hastily as they thought they would, it would not be possible… to send an ambulance to the island for me.
… Labour was induced by breaking the waters. Our son, Richard, was born successfully. I won’t bore you with all the unpleasantness of the post-natal period in ‘that place’ as Mrs Lamont would have called it. Suffice it to say that I vowed I would never ever return thither, and two years later, our daughter arrived delightfully in the small cottage hospital in Peterhead.
Margaret Aitken’s book, Twelve Light Years, is out of print but available online.
My name is Ben (admittedly an unusual name for a woman) and I live in one of the old lightkeeper’s cottages at Noss Head, a few miles from Stroma. I often think about the women who lived in my house before I did, and the sheer hard work of feeding a family, doing the laundry, and keeping the place spotless.
If you would like to experience being next to a lighthouse with rather more comfort, you can book a stay next door in the Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage.
