LONELY LIGHTHOUSE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 286, 14 September 1933, Page 8

LONELY LIGHTHOUSE.

NO NEWS FOR SEVEN MONTHS, DOG ARRIVES ON AN ICE-FLOE. An amazing letter, written by a man who, with his family, has been entirely cut off from § the world for seven months, was recently received in England. He is Mr Ernest Abbott, light-house keeper on Peckford Island, a tiny place, little bigger than a rock, off the coast of Newfoundland, one of the loneliest lighthouse stations in the world. Except for a mail on December 20, not a word did this family hear of the outside world from October 4 to May 2, and during those seven months not a human being landed on their tiny island in the Atlantic. A strange visitor, however, did arrive one stormy right in March. The strange visitor was a large sheep dog, swept to the rocks on an ice-floe—from where no one knows. He was very thin and weak, and had probably been on the ice <some time. Once they had recovered from their amazement, the Abbott family were overjoyed to have a new face among them though it was only a dog's face; and as for the children, they no longer wondered what fresh game to play at. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like to be left alone in this way for seven months, hearing no news and being able to convey none; but it is easy to understand the light-house-keeper's desire for a radio .set. It would make all the difference ill the world to this lonely family, but they cannot afford it yet. That is why Mr Strain, of the Lighthouse Literature Mission, has passed on Mr Abbott's letter to the Children's Newspaper. Many a magazine and paper has been sent to this lighthouse by the mission, but it canvnot afford a radio set. An appeal for the cost of a set has been made.