AS a loner, I like lighthouses. Sometimes, I even think of myself as one, grim and stark, living on the edge, a rugged rock in the raging storm. Then, prodded by the tiny, rational part of my brain, I acknowledge I’d be more like a butterfly, buffeted aboot, tossed hither and, on particularly inclement days, yon.

At one point, albeit briefly, I considered buying a flat in a lighthouse, at Sumburgh on the southern tip of Shetland, a promontory I was once particularly fond of visiting.

But I’d doubts about life on the edge for a chap who occasionally liked a wee swallie of an evening and, thus primed, might find himself going outside to rant at God, only to take a step too far and plummet into the briny deeps of notoriously rough seas, watched by a tittering puffin.

Other lighthouses have lit up my life. Mull of Galloway I’ve visited several times. I sat beside the big red foghorn. The narrative moves seamlessly to my lavatory, where on one wall hangs a print of the Bell Rock light off the Angus coast, near Arbroath. It’s dear to my good friend and former newspaper colleague David Taylor, whose ancestor commanded supply boats during the beastie’s construction.

For a long time, I harboured a secret desire to work for the Northern Lighthouse Board, preferably writing light verse, but no such vacancy came up. So, upon youse I inflict these prosodic lines anent yonder Muckle Flugga.

Muckle Flugga is the name of the small, rocky island upon which an eponymous lighthouse sits. The unusual, vaguely comical name comes from Old Norse, Mikla Flugey, meaning “big steep-sided island”. Vikings: so prosaic.

Northern light

Muckle Flugga is the most northerly lighthouse in the UK. Pretty much on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska, it lies off the northern tip of Unst, a northerly part of the Northern Isles, and was once Britain’s northernmost inhabited island, until the lighthouse was automated. Muckle Flugga is not Britain’s most northern island, which pretty pointless honour goes to Out Stack, an islet a little to the – all together now – north of it.

According to Shetland folklore, Muckle Flugga and Out Stack (the latter obviously known to locals as Da Shuggi) were formed when two giants, Herman and Saxa, got the hots for the same mermaid. Not unnaturally, they proceeded to throw large rocks at each other, one of which became Muckle Flugga, another Da Shuggi.

Risking a rock on the bonce, I have stood on the northernmost tip of Unst, across from Muckle Flugga, on the shore at Hermaness (named after one of the aforementioned colossal clots). Pretty sure, knowing me, that I waved at the lighthouse.

Now the page goes all wavy as we journey back in time to 1851, when Commissioners first considered establishing a lighthouse off Unst. Debate to determine the exact site delayed construction till 1854, with the matter afforded greater urgency and purpose by the advent of the Crimean War and a need for the safe guidance of British ships (which would have to be pretty lost to be up there).

David Stevenson, of the famous Lighthouse Stevensons, surveyed several sites around Shetland, and recommended temporary lights at Whalsay, east of Shetland’s Mainland, and Lamba Ness, on the northeast of Unst.

The Admiralty, however, preferred Muckle Flugga, though they almost reverted to Lamba when the temporary light erected in 1854 got severely blootered.

Reportedly built in just 26 days, the temporary light stood 50ft high on rock 200ft above sea level and, during a wild winter gale, the sea broke heavily on the tower, running up the sides and bursting open the massive iron door of the dwelling room.

Can't Keeper dry

The Principal Keeper reported damply that 40ft of stone dyke had been knocked down and that “we had not a dry part of sit down in or even a dry bed to rest upon at night”.

To prevent a recurrence, the lightroom was raised when the permanent structure, designed by David Stevenson and his brother Thomas, started taking shape in 1855, with a 64ft high brick tower and foundations sunk 10 feet into the rock.

It was difficult and dangerous work, with men offered twice the normal rate of pay as an incentive to sign up. But, on 1January 1858, the first light of the North Unst Lighthouse (as it was initially known) shone forth.

Muckle Flugga cost £32,000, and the beastie was built well, withstanding continuous salty assaults strong enough to move 2ft sq blocks of stone and never letting in a drop of water. In 1869, it let in Robert Louis Stevenson and his dad, the aforementioned Thomas of that ilk. Some say Unst influenced RLS’s Treasure Island, as many of the parrot-loving locals had peg legs and wore eye patches.

During the Second World War, the old radio beacon was reactivated, and the shore-based lightkeeper was kept busy, constantly passing service messages between headquarters and the rock. “Seen ony Germans?” “Ah just tellt dee: naw.”

Survival spirit

In 1948, the Assistant Keeper fell into the sea during a relief. Fortunately, he was unhurt and a bottle of brandy was opened to help him recover. He denied this had been a ploy.

One Christmas Eve, in 1973, the hoist broke and most of the supplies were lost down the cliff face. The swelling seas saw to it that no deliveries could be made until 2 January. Yay, Merry 2 January!

In 1968-69, a new dwelling block was built, using space saved by electrification, and replacing the primitive conditions where lightkeepers had lived hitherto, probably getting on each other’s wick. In the Scottish drama-documentary Chewin’ The Fat, the conversation of two typical Scottish lightkeepers is recorded: “Gonna no’ dae that.” “How no’?” “Just gonnae no’.”

This all came to an end in 1995 when the lighthouse at Muckle Flugga was automated. However, romantic persons clad in sensible anoraks may still visit Hermaness and wave at the nearby structure, as it stands grim and stark, a rugged rock in a raging storm.