In 1891, James Milne arrived to take up his post as lighthouse keeper at Point Gilchrist. He immediately wrote to the Marine Department and was advised a new lighthouse was on its way. For three years, the Marine Department continued to say the same thing, advising patience.
Now, James Milne had developed a thick skin, as all lighthouse keepers required. He was not married, so had only himself to look after. But he was also a resourceful type of bloke, and having waited three years, and been told it would be another year or so before an iron lighthouse could be erected at his station, James took it upon himself to write to his father in Auckland, knowing he was a doctor with prominent social standing and excellent connections.
Dr David Milne, James's father, had been overjoyed when his wife Mary had produced a son on her first attempt – particularly since the following five babies all turned out to be girls. They had produced an heir, a good-looking boy with dark hair and fine Milne cheekbones, who would follow his father's footsteps through medical college and work alongside him in the family business until his father retired and James could take over.
But by the time their firstborn was eleven years old, he had squeezed his fifty-second ship into its bottle. He could label all the parts of a ship with ease, but frustrated his father when James failed to recognise his tibia from his fibula and had no interest in hearing about developments in appendectomy.
Doctor Milne thought his son's ships were a passing passion, not a career. That was until James turned seventeen and passed out at his first dissection. Still the good doctor persevered, insisting James join him on rounds, until he threw up while assisting his father to lance Mrs Potterway's boil. His father paid for the curtains to be cleaned and had his only son shipped off… somewhat literally.
James joined the Royal Navy Australasian Auxiliary Squadron as a navigator. His commanding officer said he was born for the job. James never took a wife – in fact, his mother was the only woman who featured with any prominence in his life. But he met some very good friends during his time in the Navy.
When James was discharged, he applied to the Marine Department and was accepted into the lighthouse service. He served time at Cape Egmont in the North Island and Godley Head further down south. Then James was stationed at Cape Gilchrist.
James was sure the creaky old wooden lighthouse was a death trap. He imagined he would meet his death when the rotten wooden steps gave way underfoot. He surmised that he'd only be found, with a broken neck or a smashed skull, when the light failed to shine and a ship was wrecked on the rocks in his absence. So James wrote as much to his father. But Dr David Milne had always felt his son had crafted the art of exaggeration and left the letter lying on the table beside his reading chair while he went for his daily walk around the garden.
His wife Mary found it there and read it in a panic. This resulted in her having nightmares for a week – visions of her only son's smashed head refusing to leave her. She recounted these visions to her husband each day, with great detail and much gusto. By the eighth morning, Dr Milne had tired of the drama over his morning coffee, as his wife knew he would, and dispatched letters to those contacts he felt would be of the most use.
With little fanfare, and without any formal approval, a multitude of bricks were delivered and the local men set about building a lighthouse. James's father had pulled in a favour from a local brick maker, and James had written to an American lighthouse builder, who had provided a rough drawing and instructions. So on March 7th, 1907, the oil burning lamp was transferred to its new, sturdy brick home.
When the Marine Department was advised, and an inspector dispatched, the lighthouse itself was approved, but James Milne was given his marching orders. There was no room for such blatant and wilful disregard of the order of authority, and the Marine Department was not going to allow it.
But the locals here in Gilchrist had developed quite a fondness for Mr Milne.
official records showed Mr James Milne as a potato farmer from 1907, with a small plot of land just outside Gilchrist Village. But the story goes that with each new lighthouse keeper who arrived, the locals would invite him to the local pub for a welcome drink, where he would be taken aside and advised how things worked in these parts. And James Milne continued manning the lighthouse once or twice a week, or when the lighthouse keeper was sick, or had a wife who was in labour.
And as he got older and couldn't manage the stairs, he would simply sit in the lighthouse keeper's cottage, sipping whisky and telling stories to small, wide-eyed children, who never tired of hearing how he built their lighthouse."
Gilchrist Point is a (fictional) lighthouse that features in Lighthouse Love.
Perhaps you'd like to know what became of Gilchrest Point? Lighthouse Love is available through Amazon Kindle RIGHT NOW! It will be available in all eBook formats in early September 2013.
