Text 1: The light above the storm, by Alice Morley

An original contemporary magazine article.

The weather report had promised showers. This seemed reassuring when I stepped from the boat on to Black Tor, carrying a rucksack, a notebook and the foolish confidence of someone who has never spent a night in a lighthouse.

Mara, the maintenance engineer, was already halfway up the tower. I followed her through a white door and into a circular kitchen where every cupboard had a brass catch. She explained that the catches stopped the plates escaping in rough weather. I laughed. Outside, the sea lay flat and grey, and the idea of an escaping plate seemed ridiculous.

By six o'clock the windows were shaking. Rain struck the glass in fistfuls and the lighthouse gave an occasional low groan, as though it objected to being awake. A mug slid across the table. I caught it with both hands and stopped laughing about the cupboards.

Mara moved through the tower calmly, checking doors and reading numbers from a control panel. I followed her because every other room sounded worse. On the stairs, the wind became a whistle; in the lantern room, it was a roar. Beyond the glass there was no horizon, no rock and no sea, only our own reflections floating in the blackness.

Then the lamp began its slow turn. A white beam swept out and, for a second, the storm acquired a shape: rain flew sideways, foam boiled around the base of the tower and waves lifted like dark walls before collapsing. The beam passed on, and everything vanished again.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Mara said.

I told her that this was not the word I had been considering.

At midnight the whole building shuddered. I gripped the rail, but Mara merely placed one hand against the wall, listening. She said the tower was designed to move a little. Apparently this was another reassuring fact. It did not reassure me.

Yet, as the hours passed, my fear changed. The noises became familiar. I began to recognise the deep thump of a wave and the quick rattle of rain. Most of all, I watched the beam return, steady and punctual, however fiercely the weather attacked the glass. Each time it crossed the sea, I imagined someone far beyond us seeing it.

At dawn the storm pulled away. Wet rocks appeared below, shining in a pale strip of sunlight. I had expected to feel brave for surviving the night. Instead, I felt grateful to the quiet people who keep lights working while the rest of us sleep.

Text 2: A letter from Black Tor, by Thomas Ellery

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1872, a newly appointed assistant lighthouse keeper describes his first severe storm at Black Tor.

My dear Samuel,

You asked whether the loneliness of this station troubles me. Last Tuesday afforded me no leisure to be lonely, for before sunset the sea was striking the windows and the wind had found a hundred voices within the tower.

Mr Vale, the principal keeper, ordered me to secure the lower rooms and then joined me in the lantern. He spoke no louder than usual, although the glass trembled in its frame and the tower appeared to quiver beneath our feet. I endeavoured to imitate his composure. I cannot claim that I succeeded.

Our lamp required constant attention. The flame leaned and fluttered whenever a draught entered, and every such movement filled me with alarm. We cleaned the glass, adjusted the mechanism and carried fresh oil up the stair. The vessel seemed determined to grow heavier with every step. I thought of complaining, but Mr Vale had made the same journey twice and had not wasted a breath upon it.

Shortly after eleven, a wave struck with such force that the tools leapt upon their hooks. For one dreadful instant the flame shrank. I believed it would expire, and with it every hope of any vessel seeking the channel that night. My fear was not then for the tower or for myself. It was for that small circle of light.

We restored the flame, and presently the beam passed once more over the windows. Between the bursts of rain I saw three distant lights upon the water. They appeared frail as sparks from a dying fire. Whether those ships observed us I cannot know, but I felt bound to them by our lamp, as if we held one end of a rope and they the other.

The remainder of the night was measured not by clocks but by duties: trim, clean, carry, watch. The regular labour steadied me. Even the storm seemed less a monstrous enemy when divided into tasks that could be completed by human hands.

At first light, Mr Vale looked at the clearing sky and said only that we should polish the salt from the outer glass. I had imagined that the end of such a night would bring cheers or congratulations. Instead, we ate bread and began the morning's work.

I am tired beyond description, but I no longer think this a lonely place. While the lamp is burning, the whole dark sea is our concern.

Your affectionate brother,

Thomas

Compare:

• what each writer thinks and feels while spending a stormy night in the lighthouse
• the ways in which each writer conveys the experience

You must use evidence from both texts and make it clear which text you are referring to.