Lighthouses

See at first, they didn’t want the lighthouses. The beach scrimagers and the coastal dwellers. Hated the very idea. They’d rather sailors continued to perish in their thousands than have a big shining light to save them from their doom.

Shipwrecks were a livelihood for these communities. They’d go to church and pray for shipwrecks. See where you see the lighthouses now? Well, that’s where ships used to founder on the rocks most often. Round the Lothians and up in Angus and further and over west in Ayrshire. Christ! Have you ever seen the western islands? Death-traps everywhere.

Naw they had no interest in the lighthouses. It was the shipping merchants and the insurers that says haud oan a minute here, we’re losing millions! Get them built.

Try building a lighthouse on top of the rocks in the middle of the North Sea. I bet you couldnae do it!