Story of a lighthouse keeper
There is a joke that you should become a lighthouse keeper if you are fed up with people and want to be alone.
But Mossel Bay resident Eddie Crafford worked at lighthouses for 41 years and simply loves people.
Crafford said he "had the best of both worlds". He grew up on a farm and loves nature, so he enjoyed the environment surrounding lighthouses. Also, although some lighthouses are quiet and lonely, others such as the St Blaize Lighthouse in Mossel Bay and the Cape Point lighthouse in Green Point, Cape Town, are part of town and city life, so he was able to engage with people regularly.
In more than four decades of his work he was given valuable training and gained enormous experience.
He was a trainee for a few years and then was promoted to lighthouse keeper and then senior lighthouse keeper.
‘Jack of all trades’
"They trained us in many different aspects through the years: electrical, technical, plumbing, anything, because we had to be a jack of all trades. Most lighthouses are isolated and, for example, you can't send someone from Cape Town, to go to do something small 200 or 300km away."
Crafford's last place of work before he retired in 2014, was at the lighthouse in Mossel Bay.
Before that he worked at the following lighthouses: Cape Point, Cape Columbine, Walvis Bay (Pelican Point), Diaz Point (south of Namibia), Green Point in Cape Town, Cape Receife in Port Elizabeth, Dassen Island north of Cape Town, Hood Point in East London and Green Point in KwaZulu-Natal.
When he got married in 1981 and had four children, that did not stop Crafford's migratory work. "My children said moving around made them better people. Fortunately none of them had learning problems at school and they all went on to study further and do well in their careers."
'Really rude'
Crafford has some interesting stories to tell about his work. Once a couple popped in at the St Blaize lighthouse and left almost immediately, extremely unhappy. "People could be really rude," Crafford says. The couple thought they knew everything, but Crafford said to them: "That's not how we do things around here."
They then sent an email to Crafford's supervisor, with a list of about 10 complaints. The supervisor called Crafford, saying: "I know you and this email does not ring true, but I need to hear your side of the story."
Crafford gave his account. "I was totally honest about what had happened. Nothing came of it," he says.
He was on night shift at Cape Receife in Port Elizabeth when he definitely heard someone walking around in the lighthouse tower. He went to investigate but could find nothing. On another night there, he heard a knock on a door. He went to check, but again there was nothing.
"It had a scared, funny feeling," Crafford said. He was shaken. "When the next guy came on shift, I had left the building and was waiting outside for him," he says, chuckling. "He told me they were used to that kind of thing."
Ghosts
Eddie says that before he started at Cape Receife, two staffers had been fighting in the tower of the lighthouse. One tried to push the other off, but he grabbed his colleague as he overbalanced and they both fell to their death on concrete several metres below. Crafford believes it was these men's ghosts he had heard at the lighthouse.
His most stressful day ever at work was after two tankers collided at sea off Plettenberg Bay in thick fog in the 1970s. "I am also a sea radio operator. I was sitting in Mossel Bay at that time." Crafford did not yet have radio experience then and was nervous. But other lighthouse staff in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town could not pick up a signal from the tankers, so Crafford had to ship in and help. He spent the whole day conveying messages between the helicopter and the tankers.
"At the end of the day I had done a good job and had gained experience."