Detox | Writing News

As I mentioned recently, for the past couple of years I’ve been working away on the first draft of a novel (working title ‘Detox).

It will be a literary thriller set on the island of Eilean Mor in the Flannan Isles, which is about as far flung a place as you can get in the UK. One of the narrative threads that I’m weaving through the novel is the famous disappearance of three lighthouse keepers (James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald McArthur) in 1900 from the lighthouse. No trace of the men has ever been discovered, despite Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) regulations stating that one man had to stay in the building at all times.

The mystery gave me the excuse to travel through to the National Records of Scotland search rooms in Edinburgh, which holds documents going back as far as the twelfth century. Pre-booking is essential, as many of the more delicate books need to be brought out of storage.

There was an embarrassment of riches for me to delve into, from the Flannan Isles visitors’ album from 1900, to NLB annual reports and board meeting papers, to the McArthur’s Head lighthouse stores book which provided me some insight into lightkeepers’ victuals (lesson: don’t expect anything fresh after the first week of your rotation in the lighthouse).

Although free to members of the public, there is a delightful amount of pomp to the delivery of resources to the researcher. One is not permitted to carry and fetch oneself; rather, the historical resources are brought to you and, after having signed a number of documents, they are set in front of you on a cushion so as to avoid any inadvertent damage. The opportunity to leaf through history is then afforded to you, wearing gloves where appropriate and all the time imagining yourself as Simon Schama or Mary Beard.

Fripperies aside, the feeling of working with a piece of history was wonderful, and I was frantically taking notes and photographs, aware that I had a lot of resources to cover and limited time in which to do so. Of particular interest was the visitors’ album, where one can see the signatures of Joseph Moore et al., who arrived on the island on 26^th December 1900 amidst an eerie silence to find the building deserted.

This was one of the many interesting pieces of research I’ve done whilst adding colour to the narrative of ‘Detox’. Now, to write a novel worthy of the background toil…

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Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.