At the weekend I finally made use of my Association of Lighthouse Keepers (ALK) membership, which I have had for 5 years, and attended their AGM and associated lighthouse visits in South Wales.

Earlier in the year I received an email to say that the ALK required a new team to organise their events and I had expressed an interest in joining the team. After meeting their Secretary/Events Coordinator, I was still keen to be involved so I spoke to their Chair, Neil Hargreaves (a former lighthouse keeper for Trinity House), and Trustee Lin Sunderland, who is also joining the events team and is on the committee for the St Mary’s Lighthouse Group and a volunteer at Spurn lighthouse.

Of course, to organise any events for the ALK I needed to attend at least one of them, and the AGM in Cardiff seemed like the perfect one – particularly as the members would be approving the new events team at the meeting. Going along to the AGM would also mean I’d get to see Ian Duff again (see my earlier post on Skerryvore for more information about Ian), as well as Stephen Pickles from Bidston lighthouse who I’d met a few years ago on our visit there. Prior to the event I had also been in contact with another ALK Trustee, John Best, who shares my enjoyment of lighthouses of all shapes and sizes (including the Northern Lighthouse Board’s “flat-pack/IKEA” type). John has been a massive help recently in my attempt to pull together some form of a list of lighthouses. So the AGM would also be an opportunity to meet him.

So Bob and I went along and were immediately welcomed by the record number of ALK members attending the AGM. I shall prepare separate posts about our lighthouse visits over the weekend, which included East and West Usk, Caldey Island, Flatholm and Nash Point. We met a number of them during the day on Friday and had some good first in-person chats with Lin, John and Neil.

On the Saturday afternoon we arrived at the amazing AGM venue, Atlantic College at St Donat’s Castle. It really is a hidden gem with some incredible buildings and a fantastic little beach and slipway where the early lifeboats/RIBs used to be launched. The room we had dinner in reminded me of a smaller-scale version of the hall in Harry Potter, and I don’t even know where to begin with describing the toilets…

The AGM went well and the new events team proposal was approved, so I am now officially involved with the ALK. As well as Lin, I also met Laura who is the third member of the team and has embarked on her own lighthouse tour this year. She had come across this blog while preparing for her tour, and it was nice to hear that it was useful to her. The three of us had some good laughs over the weekend, so I am sure we will get on well as a team. The AGM was concluded with a fascinating presentation on foghorns delivered by a lady who is doing a PhD on the human aspects of the topic!

As well as meeting Neil Hargreaves, I was also privileged to meet another former keeper, Gerry Douglas-Sherwood. Gerry was one of the three founding members of the ALK alongside Neil and the recently departed Graham Fearn. Gerry served at the Needles lighthouse and wrote the first issues of the ALK journal, Lamp, on a typewriter during his time in the lighthouse. Getting a chance to speak with both Gerry and Neil, as well as Ian again, was a real honour for me. To date I have found no other profession that people are more proud of than lighthouse keeping. It is incredibly refreshing in a time when work is so frequently seen as a chore. The former keepers also seem very grateful to the rest of the ALK membership for their appreciation of the structures they lived and worked in. They all seem so modest and humble. Such a wonderful experience to speak to them.

Among the others I met at the AGM and dinner were Chris Nicholson whose book Rock Lighthouse of Britain was one of my first ever books on the topic. Also, Roy Thompson who appears to know boatmen all over the country and will, I’m sure, be a huge help in putting us in touch with the right people. There were a number of very well-connected people there who were happy to help anyone looking to visit a particular lighthouse. There were also a number of people wishing me “good luck” with taking on the events! I’m not sure if I should be scared by this or not. I guess only time will tell!

While this hasn’t been my standard sort of blog post, I felt it was important to share and to give some more details on the ALK. As stated on their website:

“The Association of Lighthouse Keepers provides a forum for everyone interested
in lighthouses, lightships and aids to navigation. We have a number of serving and former keepers amongst our members, although being a lighthouse keeper is not a requirement for joining the Association.

Membership is open to everyone!”

There may be some regular visitors to my blog who aren’t aware of the ALK, but if you are interested in lighthouses anywhere in the world (they have members from a number of countries) then do check our their website. Annual membership is only £18 per year, £24 for joint membership or £35 for family membership. I would highly recommend it already and I’ve only just become an active member. Why I left it so long, I don’t know!

More to follow soon on the lighthouses we visited over the weekend 🙂