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Lighthouses of Victoria |
| State Indexes > VIC > Cape Otway Lighthouse - 150th Anniversary |
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The Cape Otway Lighthouses 150th Anniversary newspaper clippings |
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![Fond Recollections: Stuart Marinner spent his younger years at Cape Otway [Picture: Faith Lynch]](Cape%20Otway%20150%20echo%202.jpg)
Fond recollections: Stuart Marinner spent his younger years at Cape Otway Photograph: Faith Lynch |
Memories
of a Dramatic Past
By Karen McCann, The Echo, 2 September 1998 Stuart Marriner will never forget his first glimpse of the immaculate and sleek white tower standing on the edge of the cliffs at Cape Otway. Mr Marriner, now 79, first caught sight of the tower from his parents' horse-drawn buggy more than 70 years ago. "I had never seen anything like that magnificent white tower," Mr Marriner said. He was just a boy but the impression of the lighthouse has stayed with him his entire life. Mr Marriner grew up at Hordernvale, near Cape Otway. The lighthouse, and its ocean, surrounds, have always intrigued him. As a boy he often watched the ships, sail past. On foggy nights, rockets were fired to alert the ships when the light was difficult to see. And he recalls the "magnificent" liquor bottles that used to wash up on nearby Station Beach. The bottles were often thrown overboard as incoming ships celebrated their arrival and the outgoing ships celebrated the return trip home. But the remains of a mast washed ashore at Station Beach in the 1940s have left the deepest impression on Mr Marriner. He says the mast had come from an emergency lifeboat. Its midsection had worn through. And he feared, its occupants had died. "I would say whoever was in that lifeboat must have died in it. I often wondered what the story was. There must have been crew members in the boat and they would have been in it alive long enough for it to have worn like that. They might have hit a wave and been toppled. Who knows how far away." Mr Marriner recalls the Navy and the Air Force setting up base at the lighthouse station during World War 2. |
And he remembers the time a ship approached the Cape and refused to respond to signals from the lighthouse, requesting the ship to identify itself. Melbourne was contacted and then planes descended on the sides south of the lighthouse, searching for the ship. "But they never found it," he said.
It was believed the ship had been dropping mines in the waters off Cape Otway. Several of the mines were responsible for sinking an American ship, The City of Rayville, near the lighthouse.
On Saturday, Mr Marriner journeyed from his Dandenong home, and joined local relatives at Cape Otway for a nostalgic look at the lighthouse. The lighthouse has changed in just 70 years. While the building remains the same, the lighthouse is now just an icon of a bygone era. In Mr Marriner's time, four families lived at the site, each lighthouse keeper taking shifts to keep the light aglow.
"When we had visitors this was one of the places we took them. We Would drive them in by horse and buggy and the lighthouse families were so pleased to see anybody. You were lucky if you got away with only three cups of tea."
But Mr Marriner is not envious of the lighthouse keepers who worked the Cape. It would have been a hard life, he says.
And he's also glad he was never a passenger on one of those "magnificent ships" sailing past, making the perilous voyage in the small gap between Cape Otway and King Island. "Imagine approaching this area on a wild night. You would be scared stiff."
On Saturday, Mr. Marriner had one of the best views of the lighthouse standing before the choppy seas and the dramatic grey skies. He says it was a "bit of a heart wrencher" to, see the lighthouse changed from the one in his memory. But Mr Marriner was glad to see hundreds turn out to appreciate the historic building's place in Australia's past.
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Tales of Courage
By Karen McCann, The Echo, 2 September 1998 For six months Ron and Shirley Scott's lives revolved around keeping a light ablaze. Every night at 6 o'clock sharp Ron would turn on the light of the Cape Otway Lighthouse to guide the ships travelling through Bass Strait. And at 6 every morning he would switch off the light. Ten years ago the two Australian Lighthouse Service members moved into the lighthouse after, travelling to and from the 19 lighthouse beacons that dotted the southern coastline. For nine years Ron's job as a maintenance electrician took the couple to every lighthouse from Gabo Island to Cape Nelson. Ron was recalled from retirement to relieve a lighthouse keeper at Cape Otway for six months. He counts those months - and the years tending lighthouses - as among the best in his life. But the importance of the lighthouse, dictated Ron's every waking moment. And at night, it often interrupted his sleep. He would sometimes wake to the sound of alarm bells ringing, warning him the light was out. "Everything revolved around the light and everything used to be done manually. Satellite navigation was only just coming in." |
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And while Ron was working, Shirley was tracing the history of the people who had lived in the lighthouses along the coast.
The couple hold great respect for the lighthouse keepers who manned the stations - and particularly their wives.
"The women behind the men on the lighthouse stations were unbelievable," Shirley said. "They had such courage and fortitude. Without them the lighthouse keepers wouldn't have made it that's for sure".
The women, who often left school at just 14 years of age, educated their children and struggled to keep a family together in the isolation of the coastline.
"On one island lighthouse station in the 1920s, a wife fought to keep her family alive after her husband died. For nearly three months, the wife manned the lighthouse and battled to feed her children, before help arrived. Three months after her husband's death the family were almost starving," Shirley said.
"Over the years the women have done remarkable things. Go back 40 years and the women had nothing. I imagine it would have been very primitive."
Ron, a former structural engineer with BHP, never encountered the loneliness and isolation that so many families had endured years before him. He wishes he had become a lighthouse keeper long before his retirement.
"It was great to get back to nature".
On Saturday, Ron and Shirley braved the cold weather throughout the day to meet with former lighthouse keepers and share their stories. But they didn't stay to watch the lighthouse being relit. They'd seen it all before.
![Cape Otway Lighthouse Circa 1890 [Photo: Carl Haechnel]](Cape%20Otway%201890%20ch%201.jpg) Cape Otway Lighthouse, circa 1890 Photo: Carl Haechnel (courtesy Apollo Bay Historical Society) |
The Way We Were
By Karen McCann, The Echo, 2 September 1998 The oldest lighthouse on mainland Australia steered hundreds of ships away from the hazardous rocks at Cape Otway. And on Saturday, the firing of the light attracted hundreds of people who looked back to the Cape Otway Lighthouse of a bygone era. Gone were the thoughts of the modern technology that had replaced the light four years ago. The lighthouse was instead remembered in its heyday - When the families of the lighthouse keepers fought to survive a life of isolation and hardship. Families, gathered, to pay homage to the historic lighthouse and it's keepers who had shed the 146 years of light on the dangerous waters surrounding the Cape. For Johanna resident Joy Evans it was a day to celebrate her family's arrival in Australia. Her husband's great great grandfather, William Evans, came from England to Cape Otway in 1885. Mr Evans had worked in the British Navy and his lighthouse position at the was the beginning of a new life in a new land. He kept the light aglow for 23 years. In that time, he raised a family at the lighthouse and buried two children there. |
At least 80 descendants of William Evans joined Joy at the weekend to celebrate the lighthouse's 150th anniversary.
"They have come from all over the place to be here," she said.
"There's a lot of families here today who are families from lighthouse keepers and people who have lived at the lighthouse. Without him coming out here they wouldn't exist - all my family and all of the people who mean so much to me".
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last updated: Page created: |
20/02/98 6/09/97 |
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![No Strangers: Ron And Shirley Scott operated the Cape Otway light for six months [Picture: Faith Lynch]](Cape%20Otway%20150%20echo%201.jpg)
