Farewell to keeper who lit our coast
A LIGHTHOUSE keeper with a smile as bright as his warning light to sailors is being remembered for his love of lighthouses and the often hard, but unique, life it entailed.
The Friends of Tasman Island Wildcare have paid tribute to John “Cookie” Cook – one of Australia’s longest-serving lighthouse keepers.
He manned Tasmanian lighthouses – including on Tasman Island and Cape Bruny – for almost three decades and was there when the Tasman Island lighthouse moved from kerosene to electric lights.
Mr Cook’s daughter Jackie Martin said “there had never been a man who loved lighthouses more and the special life of being a keeper”.
“Like Dad, lighthouses do not ring bells or fire cannons to call attention to their shining – they just shine,” she said.
Being a lighthouse keeper was not an easy life.
Mr Cook left the navy to start his lighthouse career at Eddystone Point on Tasmania’s northeast tip before jobs on Tasman and Maatsuyker islands.
Cape Bruny was his last lighthouse gig.
Mr Cook’s heyday was during the 1970s and ’80s, before electricity was used to beam light to guide ships up and down Tasmania’s jagged coast.
In his memoir, The Last Lighthouse Keeper, which was co-authored with writer Jon Bauer, Mr Cook talked about his love and respect for the natural world and the challenging weather conditions on Tasman and Maatsuyker islands.
“Daunting and beautiful … I have since come to believe that any setting is a kind of impressionist painting for us to daub our feelings onto,” he said in the book.
It also includes some great lighthouse yarns.
Frightening stories of being transferred from supply ship to island. The terror of being suspended in a flying fox basket above wildly threshing seas.