Life on the Island

Many keepers have been on the island since 1880. The minimum appointment was two years but one keeper stayed for eleven years, and each could tell a story of their life on the island. One wife said it meant to her "fresh air, peace and quiet and security".

Two head keepers were awarded the Imperial Service Medal by the Queen on their retirement. One was John Henry Fisher, who married a daughter of George Dammerel, the Signal Master, and the other was Wilfrid Reginald Tulk. Mrs Tulk still living in Coffs Harbour, tells this story: One day, about the year 1937, she and her husband went over the channel (thirty feet wide) on a bosun's chair suspended from the cable and were gladdened by a haul of twelve schnapper, a twelve pound groper and sundry small fish. This was probably a record for the island in that Mrs Tulk hooked and landed the entire catch, except the groper, in which case an extra pound was required on the line from tier husband. Needless to say, fish figured largely on the island's menu for several meals. 

Another keeper, John McNally, who was there in the early 1900's experienced great difficulty in getting his pregnant wife, an Irish lass, into the basket and down into the launch for the trip to his mother's home in Bowraville. Imagine his surprise when, a few nights later, the Morse lamp flashed "Twin boys''. One was called Charles Bowraville McNally and his widow and some of his children still reside in Coffs Harbour. 

Jim Garbutt tells this story while on the island during the 1930's:"One evening about 9 pm when I was in the optic room, I heard the end door at the bottom of the tower bang. A voice came from the base of the tower "Come on down, I'm dying", then the door banged again. It seemed like some big joke until I returned to my quarters at 10 p.m Cyril, the third keeper, was slumped at the kitchen table and his neck and upper half of his body was covered with what I took to be blood. The hurricane lamp was on the kitchen table and a writing pad was open and written on. I thought he must have cut his throat, but when I spoke to him, he raised his head to tell me he had been bitten on the back of the neck by a centipede that had crawled between his pillowslip and pillow. The blood turned out to be the contents of a full bottle of iodine which he had emptied over the back of his neck. South Solitary is over-run with some of the biggest centipedes I've seen. Cyril was in a bad way and became delirious. I raced to the signal box to try to raise the mainland. Finally someone answered my call and I requested help from the local doctor. Half an hour later I got the reply from the doctor, but our medicine chest had nothing suitable for treatment. Two more attempts were made until the doctor asked for a list of things we did have. We had nothing so all we could do was to apply hot salt water foments. It took three days to get Cyril back on his feet again and I'm pleased to say that the will he had written out, wasn't required." 

From Smoky Cape we moved to Solitary Island (her father Jim Duncan - Keeper from 1947 to 1951), off Coffs Harbour, one of the only two island lighthouses in NSW, the other being Montague Island. My mother was in hospital while the packing up was going on and she was horrified to later learn that when Dad had packed her well used treadle sewing machine into it's crate, he had stuffed our eiderdowns all around it. She imagined the eiderdowns would be covered in oil, I think, but in fact, they saved the machine as the crate got dropped into the water on the trip. Because of the eiderdowns, the crate floated and was hauled back into the launch. The sewing machine was never quite the same again but I still have some of the eiderdowns.  

Life at Solitary Island was much the same as at other stations - a pedal radio was our link with the mainland, later a radio telephone was installed, that innovation saved a lot of leg power. A wonderful whale watching place, I delighted in seeing those massive creatures come in very close to the rocks on calm evenings.

Calm weather wasn't always our lot, of course, cyclones and adverse winds often delayed the weekly delivery by launch of mail and supplies. One memorable cyclone caused such massive seas that water washed over the middle of the island and the light tower was chipped by rocks thrown up by the waves. On that occasion the supply launch was unable to deliver goods for three weeks. Toward the end of that time, food for the chooks was running rather short and for a few days we fed them with bread. When the sea had calmed a bit, Dad was able to fish on the sheltered side of the island and he caught a lot of big schnapper - up to five pounds in weight - and we boiled these up and fed them to the chooks. 

Mercedes Sauerstein had an upbringing many of us could only imagine. As the middle child of the Tulk family, "Toni", as she is affectionately known, spent all her early life growing up around lighthouses. Five of those (1930-1935) at South Solitary Island.

As the daughter of the head lighthouse keeper her memories are vivid and cherished, as so few can relate to her magical and isolated stories.

Toni's father, Wilfred Tulk, served as the head lighthouse keeper at every lighthouse in NSW. He was also one of two head keepers awarded the Imperial Service Medal by the Queen for 30 years of service.

Despite its peaceful façade South Solitary Island has many tragic and sad stories. One which sticks with Toni is the parting from her youngest sister, Fay, who left the island in 1933 for a medical reason.

One afternoon during play Toni and her older sister Norma put Fay in a shoebox and slid her down the island on a bag of wheat.

"She was only about two and we were all having great fun until she fell out of the box, hit her head and fractured her skull."

Unsure of the problem at the time Toni's father desperately signaled the mainland for help in the rough seas, it took two days before a doctor was able to visit South Solitary Island.