These articles are written especially for Ewell and Stoneleigh Connection, a free monthly magazine circulated to homes and businesses in the area.
A Single Image
Macquarie
Lighthouse, 1909.
An image I keep being drawn to. Its photographer, Frank Hurley,
remained in one position for 4 ½ hours to capture its beams, capping
the lens in time to the beams as they rotated. When I saw it for the
first time (November '22) I may have uttered a small cry (then
stifled it; I was in a public place), for this image had found me and
not me it, and because I'd lately discovered - again quite by
chance, chance family talk – that a great uncle had died on
Macquarie Island. He must have known this lighthouse I thought. Or
maybe not, maybe it wasn't still there in 1951.
Research
had led to an Australian newspaper article which had confirmed in
print the family rumour: a Senior Meteorologist (age 26) of the
Australian research party died after an operation for acute
appendicitis, and will be buried on the island. His widow [my great
aunt Essie] agreed to let his team mates make the funeral
arrangements. His grave near that of Mr. Charles Scroble's, an
engineer who drowned while skiing in 1948. No other meteorologist
will be sent because the landing hazards are too great, and the whole
party is to return in April.
So
Frank Hurley's lighthouse with its multiple beams is for me the
island, is for me Great Uncle John, a man I never knew but grew
fascinated by.
