1 Death and the Lighthouses (1 January 2001)

Frank Key
IT is with great pleasure that I have come to this charming — if windswept —
seaside resort, at the invitation of Mr Daly, to speak upon that most
fascinating of topics, the administration of lighthouses. First of all, I must
confess that it is a topic of which I am almost wholly ignorant. Ask me about
ponds, or badgers, and I can rattle on like a maniac for days on end. But I
have never even set foot in a lighthouse, and can think of no conceivable
reason why I should ever want to. Much as I adore ponds, I am terrified of
the sea, for the sea is a fearsome and horrible thing, progenitor of countless
nightmares, a vast and unpitying force of nature, hideous to behold and
murderous in its immensity.
BUT I have promised to speak of lighthouses, and I am not a man to shy
away from a challenge. As luck would have it, my oldest and dearest friend,
the Reverend J. H. Jowett, has spent the best part of his life engaged in the
administration of lighthouses, and he has been kind enough to share with
me some of the more thrilling aspects of his career.
YOU may think it odd that an ordained clergyman, indeed a Jesuit,
should devote his life to such a calling. Jowett spends his days on
horseback, speeding across the land from one lighthouse to another, his
pipe clamped in his jaws and his catechism tucked into the pocket of his
soutane. The man hardly knows the meaning of rest. Sometimes he will
accept an invitation to sleep overnight when a kindly lighthouse keeper
offers Jowett a mattress upon which to sprawl; but more often, this most
driven of men will ride his trusty steed through the night, galloping with
alarming speed along cliff top roads whose tempest-wracked fences have
been damaged or uprooted, and where both man and horse are in constant
danger of plunging hundreds of feet into the churning waters below. I beg
your pardon, I must pause for a sip of water.
WHAT is Jowett up to, careering from lighthouse to lighthouse I have
asked him this question myself, many times, and he simply refuses to
answer, merely clamping his pipe in his jaws and raising his eyebrows in a
highly irritating manner. Oh, there have been times when I have felt like
dashing the man to the ground in a fit of deranged violence, but he is much
stronger than me, and indeed much taller; at seven and a half feet in
height, he is bigger than most people I have come across as I wend my way
through life. But I digress. The invitation to give this talk prompted me to
ask Jowett once again about life as an administrator of lighthouses. I
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