Along the coastlines of the world there are thousands of lighthouses. They give vital information to ships about where it is not safe to sail. As well as showing where the shore is, some of them show where there are submerged rocks that a ship can run aground on, and others mark the position of sand banks. They are also useful if the ship's captain is lost as all the lighthouses in a particular region flash at different frequencies, so you can tell which one is which.

Before they all went automatic a little while back, there were some popular myths about them in Britain. For example, many people used to think that a lighthouse was run by just one person who sat there for months turning the light on at night and switching it off in daytime. In fact there needed to be at least two people, usually three. Someone had to operate the foghorn in the daytime and nobody can work without sleep. They usually had a rota to decide who would work nights and who would do the days. In addition, it helps if someone else does their fair share of the cooking and cleaning when they are not responsible for keeping an eye on weather conditions.

Crews that live and work together in the same building can be found in other professions as well. For example, some soldiers have to guard the same piece of land or missile silo twenty-four hours a day out in the middle of nowhere, just in case someone manages to get there to steal a nuclear bomb or other deadly device. The idea of lighthouse keepers having a lonelier job probably comes from the fact that they used not to hear from anyone until the supply ship came every couple of months. Lighthouses were around long before radio. However, the crews usually didn't go mad and got on with their jobs normally.

Technology comes along and changes a lot of people's jobs as time goes by. Lighthouse keepers are no exception. It is now possible to operate the light and horn from land. This means that people only have to go to the building itself when there is something seriously wrong that needs to be repaired. Not as many people are needed if all the beacons can be operated from one control room so most lighthouse keepers lost their jobs or retired a couple of decades ago. There are still a handful left but only on the mainland. Nowadays most of the people who work in lighthouses are in the tourist trade (running old ones as museums).

Glossary

coastline linia brzegowa

vital niezbędny

submerged zatopiony

frequency częstotliwość

foghorn syrena mgłowa

a rota grafik

exception wyjątek

'Lighthouse keeper' is a compound noun. This means it is two nouns put together to create a new one. Sometimes compound nouns are separated by a space and sometimes they are spelt as one word. How many can you find here?

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