But Found No Keepers - The Flannan Lighthouse Mystery
On Boxing Day, 1900, The Hesperus arrives at Flannan Isle to relieve the
lighthouse keepers. She sounds her steam whistle to alert the keepers
but there is no response. The telegram from the captain reads 'managed
to land Moore, who went up to the Station but found no Keepers there.'
What the relief keeper did find was the lamp prepared, the washing up
done, but the clock stopped, the fires out and the last entry in the
diary dated 15th December. The three lighthouse keepers had vanished.
The mystery of their disappearance has fascinated people ever since -
not least artists. Wilfrid Gibson, a friend of Robert Frost and Edward
Thomas, wrote an atmospheric poem on the subject, published in 1912,
that intrigued the public of the day. Peter Maxwell Davies has written
an opera, there's a song by Genesis and an episode of Dr Who all based
on the mystery.
The poet Kenneth Steven visits Flannan and relates what he sees there to
Wilfrid Gibson's poem. Using the original reports - the telegram giving
the first news, a letter written two days later by Joseph Moore, the
official report by the lighthouse superintendent - with archive
recordings and expert opinion, he pieces together what happened, and
interweaves all these elements with the wind, the waves, and the silence
of the deserted isle.
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But Found No Keepers - The Flannan Isle Lighthouse Mystery.mp3