Margaret became the keeper of the Hartley Point lighthouse in 1987, when she was just twenty-four years old. At that time, the lighthouse was still operated by a person rather than a machine, and someone had to be there every single night to make sure the light was working. Most people in the village thought she was too young for such a lonely job, but Margaret didn't mind being alone. In fact, that was one of the reasons she wanted it.
Her daily routine rarely changed. She woke early, checked the equipment, cleaned the enormous glass lens that focused the light beam, and made notes in the logbook about the weather and sea conditions. In the afternoons, she walked along the cliffs, watched the seabirds, and sometimes painted watercolours of the coastline. In the evenings, she climbed the one hundred and thirty-two steps to the top of the tower and switched on the light.
The hardest part of the job, she later said, was the winter storms. The wind would shake the entire building, and the waves crashed so loudly against the rocks below that she couldn't sleep. On those nights, she would sit in the lamp room at the top, drinking tea and reading, waiting for the storm to pass. She never once considered leaving, though. The thought that ships out in the darkness depended on her light gave her a sense of responsibility that she valued deeply.
In 1998, the lighthouse was automated, and Margaret was no longer needed. She moved to a cottage nearby and continued painting the sea, but she admitted that she missed the routine and the purpose the job had given her. She kept a key to the lighthouse door and would sometimes let herself in just to climb the stairs and look out at the ocean from the top.
Margaret passed away in 2019. The village placed a small plaque at the base of the lighthouse that reads simply: 'She kept the light burning.'