Jamie123 Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 (edited) When I was a kid (up to about 4-ish I suppose) our family used to go on holiday to Whitsand Bay in Cornwall, which is a great place for a family holiday. My dad used to take me crab-fishing in the rockpools, and there was a cave which I felt sure was full of pirate treasure if only I could dig deep enough. And this idea seemed well-founded, because when I dug I would sometimes find thruppeny bits (this was in the days of "old money") - though I nowadays suspect that my parents would bury them beforehand for me to find. Anyway, through the window of our hotel room you could see the Eddystone Lighthouse - the world's first ever offshore lighthouse (though not the current structure - that was built some time in the 1880s) and the subject of a well-known shanty involving a mermaid and a lighthouse keeper (Google it). I remember it looking like a white pillar sticking out of the sea, and beside it a smaller stub of a white pillar which was the remains of the previous lighthouse - John Smeaton's lighthouse - which was dismantled some time in the late 19th Century and rebuilt on Plymouth Howe where you can visit it today. But there were two earlier lighhouses before Smeaton's - no remains of which now survive. The first was built in 1696 by a guy called Henry Winstanley, and looked less like a lighthouse than a gothic folly. Legend has it that when people told him it was "the wrong shape" he'd throw out all his toys and say that if any storm were liable to destroy it, he wished he could be present to observe it. He had his wish: during the Great Storm of 1703 the lighthouse collapsed with Winstanley inside it. And that was the end of both Henry Winstanley and his lighthouse. The second lighthouse - built in 1708 by John Rudyard - has an equally colourful story. When it came to lighthouses, Rudyard had more of a clue than Winstanley, and his tower (though made mostly out of wood) stood for nearly 50 years. However in 1755 it caught fire. The 94 year old lighthouse keeper Henry Hall attempted to stop the fire, but ended up swallowing molten lead dripping from the roof. However he did not die immediately and was rescued by a boat from the shore. The lighthouse continued to burn for some time and was eventually completely destroyed. Henry Hall lived on for several days under the care of a Dr. Edward Spry, who was so astonished that a man should survive ingesting molten lead that he wrote a paper on it to the Royal Society in London. The Royal Society pooh-poohed Spry's paper, saying that it was impossible and (implicitly) that Spry was a liar. And here we get to the nasty part of this story... Spry was so angry and determined to be proven right, that he conducted a series of experiments with dogs, pouring molten lead down their throats to prove that they would not necessarily immediately die. Whether he ever made the RS take back what they said about him I don't know, but either way it's a close-run thing between him and Roald Amundsen as to who was the biggest git to poor doggies. (Tempting though it is I shan't have another rant about Roald Amundsen. I dealt with him in another post.) On the subject of moltern metal ingestion however, I've heard it said that in 264 the Roman Emperor Valerian, having been captured by the Persians and held in captivity for several years, was finally killed by being made to swallow molten gold. Who knows? - maybe he didn't die straight away either. P.S. Found this: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=us0NAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA676&lpg=PA676&dq=dr+spry+lead+dogs&source=bl&ots=irWOPBG7vD&sig=7bmCHUmdn0hlW0MFA5qXHXWY0KE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz1tiRzf7KAhXGRhQKHSFTCucQ6AEIMzAD#v=onepage&q=dr%20spry%20lead%20dogs&f=false Edited February 17, 2016 by Jamie123 Spelling Vort and NeedleinA 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeedleinA Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Though I won't be drinking molten lead anytime soon, that sure is a cool picture of that lighthouse out in the water. Fun unique post to read today, thanks! Also, I wonder if that is a helicopter pad on top of it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie123 Posted February 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 2 hours ago, NeedleinA said: Also, I wonder if that is a helicopter pad on top of it? Yes I believe it is... offshore lighthouses don't tend to be manned these days, but I daresay they still need to visit them to change the bulb every now and then. On the subject of lighthouses, here's a joke... Three men apply for a job as a lighthouse keeper. The first applicant comes into the interview room, and the chairman of the interviewing panel asks him: "Being a lighthouse keeper is a very boring job, so what will you do to entertain yourself?" The applicant replies: "I've bought myself a guitar and a book of instructions and I'm going to teach myself to play." "Excellent!" says the chairman, truly impressed. When he asks the same question to the second applicant, the latter replies: "I have bought a computer and a lot of programming textbooks and I'm going to teach myself to program it!" "Truly excellent!" says the chairman, even more impressed. When the chairman asks the same question of the third applicant, he replies: "Well I'll be OK sir, because I've bought myself a box of sanitary towels." The chairman is speechless for a moment, but finally finds his voice. "I know I'm going to regret asking this," he says. "But what exactly are you planning to do with a box of sanitary towels?" "Well," says the applicant, taking out the box and showing it to the chairman. "It says here I can go swimming, surfing, rock-climbing..." Vort 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vort Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 NeedleinA and beefche 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vort Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Oh, wait, I think I got it. "Sanitary towels" UK = "sanitary napkins" US. I was thinking "sanitary towels" were more along the lines of wet wipes. Okay, so that's pretty good. Thumbs up, Jamie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordorbund Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 That explains the other evening when I offered you some ribs like I saw once on Downtown Abbey. You replied, "Thanks! Let me get my sanitary towels and I'll dig in!" Jamie123 and Vort 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vort Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 That's what I get for trying to speak British. Just be glahd I doun't triy to spelle like the Briots. mordorbund and Jamie123 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordorbund Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 "Hablo espanol?" "English, por favour." Vort 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backroads Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 I now have that shanty stuck in my head. I started humming it as soon as I read the subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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