The Lighthouse On Elie Ness

As it Once Was

Winged Victory, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Elie Lighthouse all have shared the same fate

                The lighthouse. As It Is Today

This is an appeal for someone to come forward and take the initiative to form and head up a not-for-profit organization, (Friends of the Elie Lighthouse), for the purpose of restoring the outward appearance of our Stevenson lighthouse to the look of how it was designed and built and as it stood on the Elie Ness for the first half of its lifetime. 

The lighthouse is currently operated and administered by The Northern Lighthouse Board www.nlb.org.uk  

Today, on October 1, 2008 the  lighthouse has shone its reassuring light for every day of the last 100 years. Imagine that day 100 years ago when the building of the lighthouse was finished and the lighthouse was lit for the first time enabling it's rotating beam to sweep the darkness .

When the lighthouse was built it was topped with a distinctive glass lantern house and it was crowned  by a sloping copper roof and a weather vane.    

The lighthouse  was pristine and looked like a traditional lighthouse.  To me there's nothing more forlorn than a lighthouse that's been decapitated and Winged Victory in the Louvre our lighthouse isn't. 

 Leaving the top of our lighthouse off is no different than if the Nelson Column, Big Ben, the Scott Monument or the steeple of the local church  had their upper sections removed, for whatever reason, then were left that way.  

The present-day topless look of the  lighthouse came about as a result of the rotating flashing light being automated. 

The entire upper lantern house structure  was removed including the system of fresnel lens' that surrounded the acetylene gas flame and the rotating light beam.  (Acetylene gas for the light source was generated at the lighthouse by equipment that added water to calcium carbide.)   In its place was installed a flashing  electric light bulb.   When this happened an iron stairway was attached to the  upper structure of the lighthouse and a wooden shed was erected alongside. 

The lighthouse doesn't have to look like it now does.  Lighthouses around the world have been converted from flame to the flashing light being created by means of an intermittently flashing electric light. When this new technology was embodied into these lighthouses their original external appearances were carefully and meticulously preserved so each lighthouse would have the best of both worlds.  

After the "deed" as I paused in my search for rubies at the Lady's Tower nearby the inspirational aura that our lighthouse had emitted became a thing of my past. Each day after the deed, in my naivety, I expected  the top to the lighthouse to be put back on but the days went into weeks, then months, then years.  

Each summer one lady artist would set up her easel and lovingly make one more painting of the lighthouse. After the beheading she never made another and I well understood why.

The lighthouse, at one time, fulfilled the utilitarian purpose of protecting and guiding mariners.

With the technological advancements of Radar and Satellite Global Positioning it's day of maritime usefulness is about over.

In this world of rapid change  lighthouses transcend physical maritime utility.

Lighthouses are more than just guiding lights that shine in the darkness. 

During the hours of daylight, as our lighthouses stand steadfast on windswept promontories, lighthouses make a statement of solidarity and permanence and are a source of inspiration whether viewed by the eye of the beholder or the brain of the absentee. 

The celebration of the 100 year anniversary which will occur on the 1st. of October 2008 would be the ideal time for someone to launch a public appeal as to restoration.   

However nothing will change unless someone or some entity cares enough and comes forward to make it happen.

Money wise it wont take much to restore the "look" and the aura of the lighthouse. It will take desire and effort. 

A source of restoration funding could be the national Heritage Lottery Fund www.hlf.org.uk which provides funding for worthwhile historical, restoration projects.  

The lighthouse is a visible link to our Scottish History and Maritime Heritage.

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 The first one hundred Years

 The First of October 2008 has come and gone.

There are only a handful of locals who know and remember the lighthouse as it once was and the coastguards who were the lighthouse keepers. John McKevlin and Ernie Gillard, whose fathers were coastguards and keepers of the light, were two of my school classmates.

Each night as I was put to bed I counted the intervals of time as the rotating beam of light reflected on to the ceiling of my bedroom. In no time each night I was sound asleep.

The lady artist I referred to above was my silver haired mother.

At age 93 she painted her next to the last painting for me. It was of the nearby Lady's Tower. At age 94 and from memory as her eyesight was failing she painted for me what was to be her last one.  It was of the Auld Kirk at St Monans, the ancient church where she was baptized, married and finally laid to rest in it's  churchyard.

My first grade teacher Miss Mowat was quite impressed  when I first attended her class and she discovered that because of the lighthouse I knew intervals of time and that I knew how to count. 

Before the lighthouse was modernized the operation of the lighthouse was highly labor intensive.  The light had to be tended and serviced 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The lens' required that they be kept polished. The gas generator was required to be kept constantly cleaned out and supplied  with new batches of calcium carbide. The residual sludge from the spent carbide had to be kept removed. There were two nearby holding ponds for this sludge which as a byproduct had considerable value. Used as a paint on exterior surfaces of buildings the sludge dried to form a completely waterproof, long lasting and brilliant white coating. When villagers needed to paint their houses they just arrived with whatever containers and wheelbarrows they had on hand to carry home the sludge that was free for the taking. The sludge was used to coat the lighthouse itself and ended up on many of the houses in the village. Indeed there are likely a few houses that still have walls and ceilings that are so coated. 

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I've been asked, numerous times, "Why do you care. What's it to you?"  I care because the lighthouse isn't a case of out of sight, out of mind. The lighthouse is and has been a part of me for the 83 years that I have been on this earth. It is a part of my being, whether I like it or not.---- even though I've been away from it for 55 years and see it up close maybe once every 5 years. It is a part of me.   It's message and inspiration becomes imprinted on everyone who sees it. That's why I care. 

Precious places in this ever diminishing world need to be preserved, protected and nurtured. 

The Lighthouse on Elie Ness is one of them.