
Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper (Paperback)
Peter Hill (author)Published: 31/05/2004
When Peter Hill, a student at Dundee College of Art, answered an advert in The Scotsman seeking lighthouse keepers, little did he imagine that within a month he would be living with three men he didn't know in a lighthouse on Pladda, a small remote island off the west coast of Scotland.
Hill was nineteen, it was 1973 and, with his head fed by Vietnam, Zappa, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Watergate and Coronation Street, he spent six months on various lighthouses, "keeping" with all manner of unusual and fascinating people. Within thirty years this way of life was to have disappeared entirely.
The resulting book is a charming and beautifully written memoir that is not only a heartfelt lament for Hill's own youth and innocence but also for a simpler and more honest age.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781841954998
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 226 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 20 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
Both an elegy to an extinct way of life and a tribute to the spirit and expertise of the men who embodied this romance of sea and sky. * * The Observer * *
Few of these books, however, are as wistfully evocative or as thoughtful as Hill's Stargazing. * * The Independent * *
A passionate account and a fine commemoration of the first profession ever to be made totally redundant. -- Bella Bathurst, author of "The Lighthouse Stevensons"
excellent * * The Scotsman Magazine * *
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“Fascinating memoir”
Hill has written a delightful memoir of the summer that he spent working on three lighthouses in 1973 on the coast of Scotland. After a conversation in a pub saying that this is something that he always wanted to do,... More
“Highly recommended”
I loved everything about this book. The era, the style of writing, the subject. The author has beautifully covered a period in his life while simultaneously given an insight into a lost time - when lighthouses were... More
“Stargazing”
This book is excellent; a real triumph for the author as he effortlessly conjures up his student days at Art School, Scottish lighthouses and the variety of extraordinary characters that he met during this time. His... More
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