Smalls lighthouse history makes it to Edinburgh
| 5 |
| Jul |
| 2010 |
The Plasticine Men theatre group are taking their play Keepers to Edinburgh:
'It's based on the true story of The Smalls Lighthouse where one keeper died and the other lost his mind. The two keepers were known to quarrel, and so when one died, his colleague feared he might be accused of murder. Too frightened to dispose of the dead man's body, he built a coffin and secured it to the outside of the lighthouse. As the weather conditions worsened, the lid loosened, and the wind made it look as if the dead man was gesturing in the window.
When the keeper was finally relieved from his post four months later friends said that the experience had been so extreme that he was unrecognisable. Subsequently a ruling was brought in which banned lighthouses from being staffed by fewer than three men.'
Thus the BBC online explains one of Pembrokeshire's better known historical anecodotes. We've never heard of a coffin before and were told that the poor man simply lashed his colleague outside in tarpaulin etc but the essence is much the same and the story has as much impact now as it must have done in the 1800s when it was first told.
