A trip up north to Sunderland to attend a National Trust legacy event was made last week. (I wrote about 13 and a half pages and took around 450 photos in the 3 days away from home) – and this was the outing made on Wednesday to the Souter Lighthouse…
We were on an E6 bus (driven by a foreign accented man – and a very well spoken female robot was telling passengers what to alight for) by 10.20am; I saw a sign for the National Glass Center; then a stop called Wheatsheaf – Roker Avenue was where a driver swapped over. Fulwell Road was a very very long one, I’d been told my eyes were bulging out of my head, a barbershop on that road was advertising waxing and wet shaves, Dykelands Road had an army reserve centre on it; and the sea became visible at 10.35am. I saw a Blues Micropub; then an ‘Oh My Dog’ grooming centre was on a road I forgot, followed by a golf course and a riding school; we disembarked by a building site with a big crane on it – despite the driver warning us it was still a bit of a walk, and Mum marched off.
Google Maps pointed us in the right direction, I spotted the alleyway that got us to the A183 – which wasn’t far from the cliff edge, seagulls were making loud noises, and I really really wanted a hairbrush when the Lighthouse became visible at 11am. Mum continued marching, a big stone wall had what appeared to be partial tunnels under it; and then we reached the Souter Lighthouse – where garden gonks were in the tiny shop, and a large man was behind a desk and gave us magnetic badges.
In a room next door a big TV said ‘weak or no signal’ on it, another man was stood in front of it saying stuff to the people seated in there, a purple haired lady told us all her name, a stick thin girl (who looked younger than me) was extremely nervous about telling everyone her name, I noticed a little fluffy dog limp upon a lady’s knee, an old man called Drummond did something I forgot; and then we were led out again, I had to stuff my hand down my t-shirt to attach my badge, my hair got blown everywhere again, and I grabbed 1 of the cookies on offer.
In the Engine Room, a volunteer called Geoffrey said Souter was the first purpose built Lighthouse to be powered by electricity in the British Isles – and built due to the numbers dying in the sea (there were 20 shipwrecks in 1869), he showed us pictures of the first generator used (one engine is now in the London Science Museum) – coal and water were put in to a bit of it I forgot, apparently there were a couple of pig styes in the original complex (and a village was built around the Lighthouse); the electric light was replaced with an oil light in 1905, then became an electric light again (it was a huge electric lightbulb), and that continued until the Lighthouse was turned off in 1988. The big green air compressors were explained, he held up his phone to show a clip of the foghorn – and said it really rattles the chest when you hear it in real life; then we were led down a very thin corridor and into a room containing a couple of lamps and a table with buttons to press, the man warned everyone that the Lighthouse has 76 steps (54 are a spiral staircase and 22 are a ladder); and he told us all about the evolution of the lamps (which I couldn’t remember and was frantically trying to photograph the info boards).
The next room had a range, he pointed out the lack of a TV, and then up some stairs was a bedroom – with a fireplace, a clothes brush, a candlewick bedspread, feather pillow and straw mattress; and Geoffrey held up a chamber pot and said the kids come in here and think it’s a giant mug. I enquired about something I forgot – because the camera got annoying; and then the ladder got climbed up (making my neck sweat), and Geoffrey said Freiner lenses are concentric prisms,
explained the science behind them, that the Souter lenses give a flash of light every 5 seconds, none of the lighthouses on the coast are the same colour or have the same light pattern, and this one’s due to be painted next year (it’s done every 5 years and costs £75000). The rotating bit used to float on half a tonne of mercury, that was replaced with an electric motor in the 1970s, smog was mentioned, and then we came back down the stairs backwards, Geoffrey was thanked; and back outside at 12.25pm – my hair got blown around a lot, and the sun felt hot.
A dog was enjoying the sun, the visitors centre had a ‘pop up bookshop’ – and a little wooden trailer contained Chinese cooking books and an unauthorised biography of Shania Twain. A lady extended an extendable walking stick, I wondered how much brushing my hair would need later, and then Mum said in Bhutan, they have steep stairs coming down from their houses. A bloke said stuff about the British Trust for Ornithology, storm petrels and ringing them, that he’s a qualified nest recorder, this building is a godsend, and then he picked up a small blue bag containing a blue tit, explained the bag, and got it out (the little bird was making noises); another lady had a blue tit and was stroking its wing feathers, another man was holding a robin, it was mentioned that 1000->2000 birds are ringed each year, and Mum quietly said to me that she wanted to call the blue tit Bernard.
Outside again, and up some stairs – the bloke explained the design of the bird net, said warblers just sit in them, and they generally get one long eared owl; a very doddery lady with a walked stick slipped slightly while walking along the path; and then I was told about my quadriceps (by Mum) and how they work differently going up to going down. A Burnet moth was shown to us –there is a 6 spot and a 5 spot;
a slightly doddery man asked if I was doing work for a publication, and I tried to explain myself; back at the building at 1.20pm, Mum wanted to wash her hands, and a wobbly man made a little tower of sandwiches on his plate. Another man had got pictures of Whitburn Colliery up on a big TV screen, I decided to sit in a corner with a small cookie; and I was asked by one of the staff about my notepad – so I explained myself, she looked and sounded really impressed, and her and another girl chatted to me, and she said she’d been in the events team a month. I explained myself to a couple more of the staff (and read out a couple of excerpts), Jason wanted to read my blog; and then we thanked the staff, and by 2.30pm – Mum and I were stood by the bus stop in very hot sunshine (and I was told Lydia and Jason had said ‘what a lovely person your daughter is’ to her).
We were there for 15 minutes, an E1 bus appeared, we got on it, the driver asked if I was under 21 – so I said yes and got a cheaper ticket; and seated on it I was told (by Mum) that this was the bus we should’ve been on earlier. There was powerful air conditioning, Whitburn Road had ‘Leisure World’ on it, the well spoken robot I remembered was telling people the next stop and what to alight for, Harbour View had a knob at the end of a long stone wall…
…and what appeared to be a pretty busy marina/harbour; then I forgot when we got off, and it took a bit more wandering (with a little help from Google Maps)(and thankfully Mum wasn’t marching at high speed) to make it back to the Holiday Inn (and I forgot when we made it).
