Fifty years ago in July 1961 Auskerry lighthouse became automated. The two lighthouse keepers and their families packed their things and left the island for the last time. Since then, the light has kept on flashing every 20 seconds thanks to a gas lamp revolved by weights and pulleys, and more recently bulbs and computers powered by solar produced electricity.
The lighthouse is, in fact, the reason behind by childhood dream to become a helicopter pilot. The bright red BO-105 chopper, which the Northern Lighthouse Board used to fly men and equipment to and from their lighthouses, totally captivated my imagination from the first time I saw it. I used to spend hours just watching the helicopter fly back and forth from ship to shore with a load slung under its belly. I thought it looked sleek and cool; the way it could move and hover was amazing, and I even loved the noise and smell of it. I still have an obsession with flying. The sound of a chopper overhead always makes me look up.
Sitting at my old home school desk in Auskerry with its sea view, the helicopter posters on the walls and the sound of the wind generators humming outside brings back many happy childhood memories. This time I’m not doing maths or English, instead I’m writing this on my laptop, a technological luxury, the likes of which I could only have dreamed of when I was still getting to grips with my seven times table. To be honest I’m not all that hot on my tables still.
It’s wonderful to be back on the island. I haven’t been here for over a year, but not much has changed and there is still the same feel about the place. Ever since I first went off to university my bedrooms in Kirkwall and in Auskerry have been more or less kept as I left them; full of my things, the walls covered in my posters and photos.
I will soon be moving from London to Manchester and there are strong arguments for my clearing out of my old bedrooms. It’s a hard thing to do though, as I’ve been discovering over the last few days. I’ve descended from a family of hoarders and therefore I have a large amount of stuff that most people would probably class as junk. I keep things either for sentimental reasons or because I’m convinced they ‘might come in handy’ sometime.
Fifteen years of this behaviour has resulted in these two rooms, and quite a large section of loft, full of old things, most of which would be best left in the recycling centre at Bossack dump. I am reluctant to tackle the issue because my rooms being full of my things make them feel like home. It may seem silly, but although I live and work in London, Orkney is still feels like home and long may that continue.
When I move to Manchester in the next few months I will be living with a friend in his house. I was going to be moving into a flat with Lizi, but she’s got a job as a journalist in Edinburgh that’s just too good an opportunity to miss. The result of this is that in the meantime I won’t have anywhere that I can call my own place. Not to say that I’m not looking forward to living there, I am, but I won’t have a place I can take all my boxes of things, unpack them onto my own shelves and begin the process of hoarding again. As a result, while I’m working on a combination of packing and throwing away in my bedroom in Kirkwall, I find myself wondering what it will be like when I come home to a ‘spare’ room, cleared of my possessions, next time.
Every time I come back I am stunned by how quiet Orkney is compared to the cities down south. In London you have to learn to live with the constant rumble of traffic, the sound of bustling life, sirens and passing trains. When I stepped off the plane at Kirkwall airport I was struck by how amazingly quite this county is. To me, coming back here it feels like an oppressive weight has been lifted. When you live here all the time the quiet feels normal, but to visitors and folk like me who can only be here for a few weeks a year it is immediately noticeable, and very comforting. As I pack away my things I wonder how the keepers felt, knowing that they would probably never return to Auskerry. I certainly hope I will be able to continue coming back here for many years to come.
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