Alan lights the way with model project
A CASTLETOWN pensioner has captured the spirit of our coastal lighthouses with two models he created after attending a special workshop.
Ninety-year-old Alan Jones made the two models as part of a woodworking and woodturning course run by the DATEC Retired Group in conjunction with North Highland College.
"I decided it would be an interesting project to produce an exhibit of Caithness flagstone and a model lighthouse," said Alan.
He said that a company involved with the county's flagstone industry "kindly provided a selected piece of stone modelled to represent rocks and surrounding sea" to set the finished lighthouses on.
The two models are not based on specific lighthouses but taken from various images he researched in some books he had been loaned.
"I had done some of the lathe work on the models from a book on Scottish lighthouses lent to me by a chap in our village who had worked on maintenance of them for 15 years or so before he retired."
He said that the style and look of the models was also "conditioned" by the materials he had at the time of woodturning.
"The white one relates more to the Pentland Skerries [lighthouse] whilst the banded one is more typical of those outside Caithness such as at Buchan Ness in South Boddam," said Alan.
He said that he wanted people to not just appreciate the lighthouse models but also the flexible use that can be made of flagstone.
"As the water level of Lake Orcadia rose and fell, the sediments of sand, stone and fish coated the basin floor in layers.
"Fused together over time, these layers formed a sedimentary layer named old red sandstone which is also known as Caithness flagstone."
Alan said that he had worked with a younger member of the group in his late 60s to produce the models of the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper’s premises.