Makes you want to cry

I’m reading a book at the moment called Stargazing by Peter Hill. It’s his recollections of his time as a relief lighthouse keeper in the seventies in Scotland. It’s quite enchanting and very well written. The reason for the blog title is his observations of the change in a lifestyle that I liken to the loss of the staff who looked after the canals with a passion akin to ownership.

It also reminds me of a old colleague Tom ( long passed sadly) who was a guard on the trains in the 50’s. He was a porter at the university Green lane campus and he used to tell some lovely tales of sunrise views from the back of the guards van as they trundled across the country.... another lost lifestyle.

....and to present day, in a lesser context Sandra on NB AreandAre recently blogged about their  visit to Midland Chandlers Teddesley and the fact it’s not reopening. Just serving ( for the time being) on line orders. It’s all change and towards a faceless online automatic future. Not something that in my opinion is good for us, we need contact and society will be the worse for it.

Anyhow I hope Peter will not mind me using an extract from his book.....

“As I write this there are no longer any manned lighthouses around the coast of Britain. No aspiring novelist is up in the light chamber doing his word count with pencil, mental arithmetic and youthful optimism. No human presence is there in case of emergency. No wise old men are teaching the young the ‘routine’ and the ways of the world. No Finlay Watchorn passing on his culinary skills or Jim Codey teaching a boy to row and set down lobster creels. It’s a damn shame and it makes you want to cry.”