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BS: Lighthouse story for/from Joe O

18 Dec 00 - 09:19 AM (#358990)
Subject: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

[There is a tenuous musical connection in the Phil Collins' song referred to !]
From Daily Telegraph online ISSUE 2033 Monday 18 December 200 By Danielle Demetriou THREE lighthouse keepers who mysteriously disappeared from a remote Scottish island 100 years ago were commemorated at the weekend.

Donal Macarthur, James Ducat and Thomas Marshall vanished from the lighthouse on Flannan Isle, one of seven small islands near Lewis, in December 1900. Their disappearance was reported by a passing ship when the lighthouse, which was normally visible for 24 miles in all weather, was unlit.

The only clues were an up-turned chair, unmade beds and a meal of cold meat and boiled potatoes which lay untouched on the table. Exactly 100 years after they disappeared, silence fell for one minute on nearby Breasclete, west of Lewis, in honour of the three men.

Residents, community leaders and descendents of all three were joined by officials from the Northern Lighthouse Board, which regulates the Scottish coastline. Speculation and theories have abounded as to what took place on the isle on the night the men disappeared. The three keepers were at the end of a 14-day shift but had been prevented from leaving due to bad weather.

A log revealed there had been a storm the day before their disappearance. However, their final entry, on Dec 15, said that the storm had abated. Following the sighting of the unlit lighthouse, the SS Hesperes, a support ship, ventured on to Flannan Isle to investigate.

The island was deserted. The jetty was battered and the rails were twisted. According to popular legend, three birds, either shags or cormorants, dived off the rocks as the SS Hesperes arrived at the jetty of the isle. Other myths that have persisted in the local communities include pirate raids, sea monsters and venging ghosts.

The mystery captured the imagination of Phil Collins, the singer, who wrote a song about the disappearance of the men. The most credible theory is that the three men were swept out to sea by a freak wave.

Alasdair Macaulay, a reporter with BBC Radio nan Gaidheal in Stornoway, who has been researching the incident, said: "I have heard about a woman at Crowlista in Uig who had been hanging out her washing on that day. "

She was said to have seen a massive wall of water coming in from the west. "She apparently ran back to the house as this large wave hit the shore. Her washing and washing line were said to have been swept away."
RtS

18 Dec 00 - 09:40 AM (#358997)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: MMario

obviously captured by Alien Space Beings.

18 Dec 00 - 09:48 AM (#359003)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Mrrzy

Fascinating. I love locked-door mysteries... like that ship with no crew... and this one, which I hadn't heard about. Can we have the song, too?

18 Dec 00 - 10:00 AM (#359010)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Jimmy C

Roger, thanks for the details. I had heard of the story before but no names were mentioned. I do know that there is a superstition that if you save someone from the sea, the sea wil eventually get you.

Years ago in the north west of Ireland all the way down the west coast this was a belief and maybe still is ?.

In the small fishing villages of Donegal for example, if you saved someone from drowning, you had to move inland for fear the sea would take you or one of your descendants instead.

It would be safe to say that the lighthouse keepers had guided many ships to safety and perhaps the legend/superstition was born out of similar events of large waves coming ashore and carrying a person off ?.

18 Dec 00 - 10:42 AM (#359038)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Morticia

Dave TAM better start wearing a life preserver at all times then.

18 Dec 00 - 11:13 AM (#359056)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)

I do Morticia, believe me I do!

18 Dec 00 - 12:17 PM (#359087)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Morticia

Glad to hear it :)

18 Dec 00 - 06:20 PM (#359345)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: MARINER

Thanks for the lighthouse story Roger. I've heard that in the early days lighthouses were manned by just two hands until one day one of the keepers on some English station died and the other went crazy having to spend the remainder of his trip with a corpse. Legend has it that after that three men manned the lighthouses so if one died or whatever the remaining two could keep each other sane, or at least as sane as a lighthouse keeper could be. (Many I've known were slightly "odd"but almost all were fairly intelligent)Does anyone know if this story is true??

18 Dec 00 - 07:05 PM (#359396)
Subject: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Joe Offer

Great story, Roger. I knew there had to be a song in it, the moment I started reading the story. It's "The Mystery of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse," by Phil Collins. I've looked all over for the lyrics, but haven't found them yet. Apparently, it was a demo and not on any of the regular Genesis albums, although it is in a recent box set. Anybody got the lyrics?
-Joe Offer-

18 Dec 00 - 08:55 PM (#359480)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: bill\sables

I dont know of a Phil Collins song about it but when I was at school I learned the poem "Flannan Isle" by Wilfred Gibson and always wondered what had happened to the three keepers of the lighthouse West of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Here is the poem I learned

FLANNAN ISLE Wilfred Gibson

Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steered under the lee we caught
No glimmer through the night.

A passing ship at dawn had brought
The news, and quickly we set sail
To find out what strange thing might ail
The keepers of the deep sea light.

The winter day broke blue and bright
With glancing sun and glancing spray
While o'er the swell our boat made way,
As gallant as a gull in flight.

But, as we neared the lonely Isle
And looked up at the naked height,
And saw the lighthouse towering white
With blinded lantern all that night
Had never shot a spark
Of comfort through the dark,
So ghostly in the cold sunlight
It seemed that we were struck the while
With wonder all too dread for words.
And so into the tiny creek
We stole, beneath the hanging crag
We saw three queer black ugly birds
Too big by far in my belief
For cormorant or shag
Like seamen sitting bolt upright
Upon a half tide reef:
But as we neared they plunged from sight
Without a sound or spirt of white.

And still too mazed to speak,
We landed and made fast the boat
And climbed the track in single file,
Each wishing he were still afloat
On any sea, however far,
So be it far from Flannan Isle:
And still we seemed to climb and climb
As though we'd lost all count of time
And so must climb for evermore;
Yet all too soon we reached the door
The black sun blistered lighthouse door
That gaped for us ajar.

As on the threshold for a spell
We paused, we seemed to breathe the smell
Of limewash and of tar,
Familiar as our daily breath,
As though 'twere some strange scent of death;
And so yet wondering side by side
We stood a moment still tongue tied
And each with black foreboding eyed
The door ere we should fling it wide
To leave the sunlight for the gloom:
Till, plucking courage up, at last
Hard on each other's heels we passed
Into the living room.

Yet as we crowded through the door
We only saw a table spread
For dinner, meat and cheese and bread
But all untouched and no one there;
As though when they sat down to eat,
Ere they could even taste,
Alarm had come and they in haste
Had risen and left the bread and meat,
For at the table head a chair
Lay tumbled on the floor.

We listened, but we only heard
The feeble cheeping of a bird
That starved upon its perch;
And, listening still, without a word
We set about our hopeless search.
We hunted high, we hunted low,
And soon ransacked the empty house;
Then o'er the Island to and fro
We ranged, to listen and to look
In every cranny, cleft or nook
That might have hid a bird or mouse:
But though we searched from shore to shore
We found no sign in any place,
And soon again stood face to face
Before the gaping door,
And stole into the room once more
As frightened children steal.
Aye, though we hunted high and low
And hunted everywhere,
Of the three men's fate we found no trace
Of any kind in any place
But a door ajar and an untouched meal
And an overtoppled chair.

And as we listened in the gloom
Of that forsaken living room
A chill clutch on our breath
We thought how ill chance came to all
Who kept the Flannan Light,
And how the rock had been the death
Of many a likely lad
How six had come to a sudden end
And three had gone stark mad,
And one, whom we'd all known as friend,
Had leapt from the lantern one still night
And fallen dead by the lighthouse wall
And long we thought
On the three we sought,
And on what might yet befall.

Like curs a glance has brought to heel
We listened, flinching there,
And looked and looked on the untouched meal
And the overtoppled chair.

We seemed to stand for an endless while,
Though still no word was said
Three men alive on Flannan Isle
Who thought on three men dead.

19 Dec 00 - 03:00 PM (#359953)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Joe Offer

Thanks a lot, Bill. That's great. I visited some 30 lighthouses on my recent vacation. I guess that means I'm an addict...
-Joe Offer-

19 Dec 00 - 03:16 PM (#359963)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Bert

Is this related in any way to the Dr Who episode about Fang Rock???

13 Oct 09 - 09:37 PM (#2745434)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: Joe Offer

Well, I'm still on my post-Getaway vacation. Last week was Pennsylvania, including two railroad museums and a coal mine tour. This week, after Sandy Paton's memorial service in Connecticut, I toured the lighthouses of the Connecticut coast of Long Island Sound. I saw some wonderful lighthouses, but I had to trespass on a lot of private property to get to them. Nobody chased me away this time, and it seems like maybe most of these private roads are more-or-less open to the public. One place, the borough of Fenwick, had a disguised entrance - but once you got past that, there were signs that seemed to indicate they expected the public to use borough roads. You can see information on Connecticut lights on this links page (click).

-Joe, now in Rhode Island-

13 Oct 09 - 11:51 PM (#2745470)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: wysiwyg

What about that horror story about the rats at the lighthouse-- true story?

~S~

13 Oct 09 - 11:53 PM (#2745471)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for Joe O
From: wysiwyg

(Three Skeleton Key: http://www.horror-wood.com/radio.htm)

~S~

14 Oct 09 - 10:15 AM (#2745533)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for/from Joe O
From: GUEST,BBP at work

Three men?. Probably has absolutely nothing to do with the "Trinity" bit of Trinity House (the organisation that runs the lighthouses in the UK).

But spooky nonetheless.

14 Oct 09 - 11:29 AM (#2745604)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for/from Joe O
From: Charley Noble

Susan-

"What about that horror story about the rats at the lighthouse-- true story?"

Is that a reference to the Bishop in his tower on the Rhine?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

14 Oct 09 - 11:33 AM (#2745608)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for/from Joe O
From: Jim Dixon

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles#Mystery_of_1900

14 Oct 09 - 12:45 PM (#2745667)
Subject: RE: BS: Lighthouse story for/from Joe O
From: open mike

fascinating...i was not able to find the song, but i did find these:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles#Mystery_of_1900

http://www.lighthousedepot.com/lite_digest.asp?action=get_article&sk=02267&bhcd2=1255538179

http://www.altereddimensions.net/general/PrintArticle.aspx?ID=83

http://www.chautauquaghosts.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42:eilean-mor&catid=15:stories&Itemid=7

http://www.twine.com/item/120qt16ch-341/the-mystery-of-flannan-isle

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/western-isles/other-mysteries/eilean-more-flannen-islands.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1378632/Missing-lighthouse-keepers-remembered-after-100-years.html

http://ufocasebook.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=mysterycasebook&action=display&num=1240840599