The Keepers

'Almost every generation that has grown up in the island since 1854 has given its quota of young men as lightkeepers,' writes Peter A. Tulloch in A Window on North Ronaldsay. There was never any difficulty, he says, for the Lighthouse Board to find occasional keepers for holiday or sickness relief, while other became full-time members of the service and went on to other lighthouses.

Among them was John Muir of Midhouse, who had twelve years' continuous service at another Alan Stevenson lighthouse, Skerryvore. 'While in charge of that station, he planned and carried out a scheme that greatly improved the landing facilities,' writes Peter. John Muir was a qualified ship's carpenter who had been employed on the Forth Railway Bridge throughout the period of its construction.

Peter lists the names of other island lightkeepers. Thomas Tulloch, around the middle of the nineteenth century. Martin Thomson, Peckhole, and John Thomson, Bewan, around thirty years after. Later, Robert Tulloch, Upper Linnay and Robert Thomson, Antabreck. Shortly after the First World War, John Scott, North Manse, and Charles Tulloch, Ancum. And after the Second World War, two brothers, John W. Thomson and Thomas H. Thomson, both of Nether Linnay. As the secretary of the Union of Lightkeepers, John Scott worked hard for the betterment of conditions.

Following automation in 1998, the Northern Lighthouse Board retained William Muir, Hooking, as part-time keeper/caretaker. Awarded the MBE in 2009, he is now in his 41st year of service.