Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper
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15
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Average rating3
When Peter Hill, a student at Dundee College of Art, answered an advert in The Scotsman seeking lighthouse keepers, little did he imagine that within a month he would be living with three men he didn't know in a lighthouse on Pladda, a small remote island off the west coast of Scotland. Hill was nineteen, it was 1973 and, with his head fed by Vietnam, Zappa, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Watergate and Coronation Street, he spent six months on various lighthouses, "keeping" with all manner of unusual and fascinating people. Within thirty years this way of life was to have disappeared entirely. The resulting book is a charming and beautifully written memoir that is not only a heartfelt lament for Hill's own youth and innocence but also for a simpler and more honest age.
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I was on a bookring for this book, but the originator of the ring brought the book home before Christmas so that he could read the book again and it seems the bookring shows no signs of starting back up. Thus, I was happy to discover this book at my local library. Who woulda thunk it?
Peter Hill is a young, restless art student in the early 70's when he discovers an opportunity to work for the summer as a lighthouse keeper. Lighthouse keeping is a mythical profession and lighthouses are mythical places. A job that no longer exists and a place that is all but unnecessary with today's satellites and GPS. Still, it was great fun to travel with Hill to lighthouses around Scotland and visit with keepers there. It brought me to mind my summer working in Yellowstone Park around the same time. I've always thought that summer would make a wonderful book....
