Audio Clips

Graeme Aldous introduces Coquet Island.

Bel Shepherd regarded the Coquet Island Lighthouse as her 'Ancestral Home', because her family lived there for so many years. She tells of the night her mother and aunts used household utensils to prevent a shipwreck.

Paul Morrison deliberately bought a house overlooking the Island, so he could always see it. He keeps an eye on it in the winter months for the RSPB, and his researches show how the Keepers and their families lived in the past.

Laura Sibbald's uncle and aunt lived on the Island when she was a young mother. They wanted to see the new baby, so Uncle Bob came across in the sailing dinghy to fetch her.

Pat Rowley - the Lighthouse Keeper's daughter who married a Lighthouse Keeper!

Pat Rowley's father was a Keeper on Coquet in the years after the families had to leave. She and her mother lived in Amble, close enough to see the Lighthouse, but too far to meet, But they still kept in touch - with flags!

With special permission from Trinity House, Pat Rowley and Graeme Aldous went back to Coquet Island, to explore the lighthouse where her father had lived, and where she occasionally visited.

The Coquet Lament was written by Isabel Morrison and Tony Rylance, and specially recorded for this programme by the singers and musicians of Coquet High School, Amble. This is a short extract from Side 2 of the cassette.