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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin
Lowther and I'm Liars Wade. Spotlight uses

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a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no

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matter where in the world they live. One hundred years ago, the night

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was dark, the sea was rough, the waves were high, and the

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wind was strong. The sailor was
worried. He had sailed a long way,

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and he knew that he was close
to land and dangerous rocks. If

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he sailed too close to the rocks, they would wreck his boat. He

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could drown. But then he saw
it. He saw something that would keep

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him and his boat. He saw
a bright light in the distance. The

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light was shining on and then off. He stopped worrying. It was a

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lighthouse. This tall building, a
tower with a bright light at its top,

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would guide him. It warned those
at sea to keep away from the

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rocks around it. With its light, the sailor knew where to sail to

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keep safe. Lighthouses like this have
been a guide for sailors for hundreds of

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years, But what is their future? Today's spotlight is on lighthouses. Imagine

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a world without GPS or computers.
How would you know where you are in

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the dark. Sailors depended on lighthouses
for many hundreds of years. They were

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built on the coast, islands,
rocks, and even the sea floor.

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Lighthouses guided sailors. The lights showed
sailors where to sail and where not to

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sail, but lighthouses also helped sailors
to identify where they were. Each lighthouse

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was different, Each had its own
colors and marks, and each lighthouse had

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its own system or pattern of light
flashes, so sailors knew where they were

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just by looking at the lighthouse,
both in the day and at night.

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Before lighthouses existed, fires and taps
of hills sometimes guided sailors. Later people

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built towers to make the fires more
noticeable. The first known lighthouse was the

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Faros of Alexandria in Egypt. It
was built over two thousand years ago.

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For many centuries, this lighthouse was
one of the tallest buildings in the world.

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It was about one hundred and six
meters tall. That ancient lighthouse no

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longer exists, but some other ancient
lighthouses do. The Tower of Hercules in

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northwest Spain is one such lighthouse.
It was built by the Romans during the

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first or second century. This lighthouse
is the oldest working lighthouse in the world.

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Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. Experts say that the age

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of modern lighthouses began in the eighteenth
century. In this period, engineers improved

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the way that lighthouses were lit.
Some lighthouses used coal fires to create the

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important light, others still used wood
fires, and some used oil lights or

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even wax candles. But all these
forms of light produced smoke, and the

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smoke made the glass of the lighthouse
black and dirty. When the glass was

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dirty, sailors could not see the
light. But in seventeen eighty two,

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a Swiss scientist solved the problem.
He invented a method of burning oil that

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did not produce smoke. Other engineers
produced equipment to increase the intensity or power

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of the light. Over the years, lighthouses used different methods of shining a

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light out into the sea, but
in every case someone needed to look after

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the light in the lighthouse. Someone
had to light it at night, someone

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had to keep the equipment working,
so lighthouse keepers were needed. George Medlicott

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was a lighthousekeeper in the United Kingdom
for thirty two years. He told The

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Independent about his memories of living and
working in a lighthouse. It was not

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an easy job. Some of the
lighthouses did not have running water, working

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toilets or heating. Winters were not
great. We stayed in small rooms and

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often spent hours in the dark.
Often a lighthouse keeper had to live away

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from his family, but sometimes his
family stayed with him. Ebony Gregory had

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an unusual time as a child.
Her father was an assistant lighthouse keeper.

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She lived with him on a lonely
island off the coast of Australia. She

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told The Guardian about his job and
how it affected her. My father helped

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the head lighthouse keeper run and care
for the lighthouse and island. They took

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turns to turn the light on every
night and off in the morning. They

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cleaned the glass. They made weather
reports. Our food arrived by air every

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two weeks, along with any letters. If there was bad weather, the

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food drops would be delayed. I
did not have any friends. A picture

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of my second birthday party shows no
one my age, just the two families

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on the island. But times have
changed for lighthouses. New technology for lighthouses

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and navigation has arrived. Soon there
may be no lighthousekeepers living in lighthouses.

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Many countries, including Australia, Finland, Ireland and Japan, no longer employ

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lighthousekeepers. Puntuk Arena is an important
lighthouse on the edge of the island of

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Capri in Italy. Lighthousekeepers worked there
for over one hundred and fifty one years,

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but now its last lighthousekeeper has left. Carlo Doriano was the last lighthousekeeper

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of punter Carena. He did not
want to leave. He felt that it

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was important to have a person in
a lighthouse in case anything went wrong with

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the technology. As he prepared to
leave his lighthouse home and job, he

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talked with the BBC. He remembered
storm waves crashing into his window twenty five

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meters up the lighthouse. He remembered
storm winds that made the lighthouse shake.

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At first, I believed these shakes
were all earthquakes or shocks, But over

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the years I have learned that the
anger of the sea is more beautiful than

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a quiet sea. It makes you
remember that nature exists, and that this

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mass of water is open and alive. Only someone who lives alone can understand

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this. My heart is here.
When I can no longer keep the light,

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I think part of me will turn
off. Two. What do you

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think is lost when lighthousekeepers have to
leave? Do you think technology can do

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a better job guiding boats at night? Do we even need lighthouses anymore?

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Tell us what you think. You
can leave a comment on our website or

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email us at Radio at Radio English
dot net. You can also comment on

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Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight
Radio. The writer of this program was

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Katie Blake. The producer was James
Totten. The voices you heard were from

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the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for the program

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and voiced by Spotlight. You can
listen to this program again and read it

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on the internet at www dot Radio
English dot net. This program is called

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Living in a Lighthouse. Visit our
website to download our free official app for

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Android and Apple devices. We hope
you can join us again for the next

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Spotlight program. Goodbye,