It appears most of the materials came over from England. Even if they came out of St. John's, they probably came over from England to St. John's and then they were dragged up over the cliffs here. The remnants of the landing area are still down there.

This was probably one of the best-kept lights, up until the numbers of lightkeepers were downgraded from 24-hour watches down to two and now down to one. You can't keep a light with one person like you can with three. I get called down at odd hours, when the light is out, or when the fog alarm is not working. I can't know about that when I'm home.

I do not turn on the fog alarm any more, unless the automatic system fails. It comes on automatically. The fog alarm is controlled by a fog detector. There's a beam of light fed out to be reflected. The more light reflected, the lower the visibility. When it gets down to about two nautical miles, the system goes into standby and five or six minutes later, the system fires up.

They had diaphones here up until sometime into the fifties, sixties. They were just huge devices that provided the sound that deafened most lightkeepers that worked back in those days. The sound is what's caused most of us who worked in the system to have serious hearing problems. I too have a serious hearing problem. My wife says I'm as deaf a doorknob. And that's a fact.

The diaphones were driven by a compressor. As the sound trailed off, it made what's called a grunt. As the piston came to a stop, there was a grunt. That's what they called the sound. The Fishermen's Broadcast still has the sound of a classic old diaphone in the introduction.

It looks like lightkeeping may have a new lease on life. It has now been confirmed that the 24 lightstations in Newfoundland as well as 27 in B.C. will remain staffed by lightkeepers.