Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lowther and I'm Liars Wade. Spotlight uses
a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
matter where in the world they live. One hundred years ago, the night
was dark, the sea was rough, the waves were high, and the
wind was strong. The sailor was worried. He had sailed a long way,
and he knew that he was close to land and dangerous rocks. If
he sailed too close to the rocks, they would wreck his boat. He
could drown. But then he saw it. He saw something that would keep
him and his boat. He saw a bright light in the distance. The
light was shining on and then off. He stopped worrying. It was a
lighthouse. This tall building, a tower with a bright light at its top,
would guide him. It warned those at sea to keep away from the
rocks around it. With its light, the sailor knew where to sail to
keep safe. Lighthouses like this have been a guide for sailors for hundreds of
years, But what is their future? Today's spotlight is on lighthouses. Imagine
a world without GPS or computers. How would you know where you are in
the dark. Sailors depended on lighthouses for many hundreds of years. They were
built on the coast, islands, rocks, and even the sea floor.
Lighthouses guided sailors. The lights showed sailors where to sail and where not to
sail, but lighthouses also helped sailors to identify where they were. Each lighthouse
was different, Each had its own colors and marks, and each lighthouse had
its own system or pattern of light flashes, so sailors knew where they were
just by looking at the lighthouse, both in the day and at night.
Before lighthouses existed, fires and taps of hills sometimes guided sailors. Later people
built towers to make the fires more noticeable. The first known lighthouse was the
Faros of Alexandria in Egypt. It was built over two thousand years ago.
For many centuries, this lighthouse was one of the tallest buildings in the world.
It was about one hundred and six meters tall. That ancient lighthouse no
longer exists, but some other ancient lighthouses do. The Tower of Hercules in
northwest Spain is one such lighthouse. It was built by the Romans during the
first or second century. This lighthouse is the oldest working lighthouse in the world.
Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Experts say that the age
of modern lighthouses began in the eighteenth century. In this period, engineers improved
the way that lighthouses were lit. Some lighthouses used coal fires to create the
important light, others still used wood fires, and some used oil lights or
even wax candles. But all these forms of light produced smoke, and the
smoke made the glass of the lighthouse black and dirty. When the glass was
dirty, sailors could not see the light. But in seventeen eighty two,
a Swiss scientist solved the problem. He invented a method of burning oil that
did not produce smoke. Other engineers produced equipment to increase the intensity or power
of the light. Over the years, lighthouses used different methods of shining a
light out into the sea, but in every case someone needed to look after
the light in the lighthouse. Someone had to light it at night, someone
had to keep the equipment working, so lighthouse keepers were needed. George Medlicott
was a lighthousekeeper in the United Kingdom for thirty two years. He told The
Independent about his memories of living and working in a lighthouse. It was not
an easy job. Some of the lighthouses did not have running water, working
toilets or heating. Winters were not great. We stayed in small rooms and
often spent hours in the dark. Often a lighthouse keeper had to live away
from his family, but sometimes his family stayed with him. Ebony Gregory had
an unusual time as a child. Her father was an assistant lighthouse keeper.
She lived with him on a lonely island off the coast of Australia. She
told The Guardian about his job and how it affected her. My father helped
the head lighthouse keeper run and care for the lighthouse and island. They took
turns to turn the light on every night and off in the morning. They
cleaned the glass. They made weather reports. Our food arrived by air every
two weeks, along with any letters. If there was bad weather, the
food drops would be delayed. I did not have any friends. A picture
of my second birthday party shows no one my age, just the two families
on the island. But times have changed for lighthouses. New technology for lighthouses
and navigation has arrived. Soon there may be no lighthousekeepers living in lighthouses.
Many countries, including Australia, Finland, Ireland and Japan, no longer employ
lighthousekeepers. Puntuk Arena is an important lighthouse on the edge of the island of
Capri in Italy. Lighthousekeepers worked there for over one hundred and fifty one years,
but now its last lighthousekeeper has left. Carlo Doriano was the last lighthousekeeper
of punter Carena. He did not want to leave. He felt that it
was important to have a person in a lighthouse in case anything went wrong with
the technology. As he prepared to leave his lighthouse home and job, he
talked with the BBC. He remembered storm waves crashing into his window twenty five
meters up the lighthouse. He remembered storm winds that made the lighthouse shake.
At first, I believed these shakes were all earthquakes or shocks, But over
the years I have learned that the anger of the sea is more beautiful than
a quiet sea. It makes you remember that nature exists, and that this
mass of water is open and alive. Only someone who lives alone can understand
this. My heart is here. When I can no longer keep the light,
I think part of me will turn off. Two. What do you
think is lost when lighthousekeepers have to leave? Do you think technology can do
a better job guiding boats at night? Do we even need lighthouses anymore?
Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website or
email us at Radio at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was
Katie Blake. The producer was James Totten. The voices you heard were from
the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for the program
and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it
on the internet at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called
Living in a Lighthouse. Visit our website to download our free official app for
Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next
Spotlight program. Goodbye,