The Beacon Bike: Around England and Wales in 327 Lighthouses Ed Peppitt (Icon, £20)
ED PEPPITT’S obsession with lighthouses began at the age of six, when he realised that the comforting flashing light projecting into his bedroom at his grandmother’s house was coming from the Romney Marsh lighthouse. He even spent his wedding night in a lighthouse— on Lundy—and conceived an ambition to take in all the British ones by bicycle. Then, aged around 40, came a diagnosis of relapsing multiple sclerosis; this didn’t mean giving up on the ambition, but obviously entailed adjustments, such as several cool bags to keep medication at the right temperature.
Seven years later, in May 2015, with a wonderfully cavalier lack of preparation, Mr Peppitt set off from Dungeness, Kent, only to discover that the first lighthouse on his itinerary, at Hastings, had been demolished; the next day he was nearly blown off Beachy Head by a gale-force wind. Progressing at astonishing speed along the South Coast, within a month he is on a fishing boat to view the Eddystone lighthouse 14 miles south-west of Plymouth, Devon; it has been through four iterations—the original perished in a hurricane, together with its builder, Henry Winstanley, in 1703.
On he zooms around the South-west, via Lundy in thick fog, thence to Wales, where he could have sat ‘motionless, for the remainder of time’ looking at Monkstone Lighthouse despite a soaking, hair-raising journey to it in a rib from Barry. Around Pembrokeshire, deep melancholia kicks in, plus the mislaying of his medication; this potentially serious situation is relieved by social-media users and in a good way.
By day 74, he is, breathtakingly, in Whitehaven, Cumbria, ‘a bagger’s dream’ because it’s possible to tick off three lighthouses in 15 minutes. To the reader’s relief, if no one else’s, Mr Peppitt actually gets in a car to cross over to England’s east coast, where he slots in a round trip by catamaran of the Farne Islands. Some three weeks later, he is nonchalantly wheeling back into Dungeness; there have been punctures, near-misses with traffic, many tears and much wine, but it is day 97 and 327 lighthouses have been bagged, together with thousands of pounds for the charity Shift MS. One only wonders why it took him so long to sit down and write this book, which has just the right balance of lighthouse information and humour for the uninitiated.