Kōrero: Lighthouses

Cleaning the lenses used to be a daily task, since the lamps burning oil, and later kerosene, left smoky residues. It was a three-hour job carried out in the precise way that Balfour had stipulated in 1867. With the advent of electricity, such frequent cleaning was no longer necessary. Here, Steve O’Neill does the weekly clean at Baring Head in 1988.