Association of Lighthouse Keepers

About the ALK

The Association of Lighthouse Keepers provides a forum for everyone interested in lighthouses, lightships and maritime aids to navigation. Despite its name, being a lighthouse keeper is not a requirement for joining the Association, although a number of serving and former keepers are members. Whatever your interest in lighthouses, you can join the ALK!

The ALK holds a large archive of lighthouse related material, and the goal of the Association is to establish a study centre available to members. In striving towards this end, the ALK has helped and advised the setting up of display material at lighthouses open to the public around the UK.

The Association has a wealth of expertise and works with other lighthouse-related societies and organisations, both nationally and internationally. Members come from right across the globe, ranging from Australia to the USA and across Europe.

Whatever your interest, background, age or ability, you can be assured of a warm welcome.

Where it all began

In the late 1980s Graham Fearn was Principal Keeper at Cromer Lighthouse in north Norfolk – at that time the lighthouse was run as a ‘Keeper and Wife’ station. Cromer Lighthouse was also the departure point for helicopter reliefs to the Haisbro, Dudgeon, and Dowsing lightvessels, and also the Inner Dowsing Light Tower off the Lincolnshire coast.

Neil Hargreaves was an Assistant Keeper on the Inner Dowsing and on one of his transits via Cromer he mentioned that with automation of lighthouses and lightvessels going on across the Service, soon there would be no keepers left, and that perhaps an old keepers association should be formed. Graham agreed that it would be good to have a medium of maintaining contact with personnel once they left the Service.

When Neil next passed through Cromer a few weeks later he said he had managed to get support from another couple of East Anglian based keepers and that he had arranged an initial meeting at Southwold Yacht Club. Subsequent meetings were held at Lowestoft Yacht Club or the heli-ops lounge at Cromer Lighthouse, and soon, as roles were allocated, Graham found himself the first Chairman of the Association of Lighthouse Keepers. By this time several serving and former keepers were supporting their efforts and Graham suggested writing them a letter with progress on their initial musings – the letter was typed by Graham’s wife Audrey on an old typewriter.

Eventually Gerry Douglas-Sherwood agreed to edit a more formal newsletter – and LAMP was born. Gerry was at that time an Assistant Keeper on the Needles Lighthouse off the Isle of Wight. As a ‘rock’ lighthouse, keepers served one month on and one month off. Traditionally keepers on rock stations used to fill their off watch hours with hobbies and crafts (model making, woodwork, ships in bottles etc). Gerry’s off watch hours were now filled with the methodical thump, thump, thump as he bashed away on a typewriter to produce LAMP.

When Gerry came back ashore he would post his hand-typed proofs to a print shop in Norwich who would print LAMP – which Graham would then collect and mail to members. Gerry also designed the ALK logo – based on the Eddystone Lighthouse with a lens panel behind.

In the early years, the ALK membership was made up solely of serving and former lighthouse service personnel – and it was from this rich source that the early articles in Lamp came. Thus, often they were first hand reminisces of times and experiences while in Service. A number of these original members were already retired from Service, but they were keen to share their memories from decades past – all a wealth of information for those of us who want to learn more of this now lost way of life.