The Bishop and the Diva
The Rock. The Island. The Shipwreck. And the Singer.
A lot of this story is true. Or at least, according to the newspapers of the time.
But whether the stories come from the fertile imaginations of eighteenth century journalists, or the inspirational writing of Annmaria Murphy; the entertainment value is worthy of the strange and dramatic story. And some of it really is true.
There are stories that are set about the huge towering bulk of the Bishop Rock Lighthouse, from the topmost platform 144ft. above the crashing waves, to the claustrophobic isolation of the keepers' quarters, to the abode of the ghosts swaying with the bladderwrack in the depths below its foundations.
There are stories of the golden voice that set Georgian London alight, and then did the same in the steamy cities of the new Indian Empire.
And there are stories and songs of the heroic builders of the light, and of the unbelievable 'Grand Ball' they held amidst the ships' graveyard of the terrible Western Rocks of Scilly.
There is taunting and boasting and haunting and singing.
There's kidnapping and escaping, and loving and dying -
And, perhaps, if you listen hard;
A baby crying.
A form of Sea Shanty
A Jamaican Cod Fritter
or -
A Cornish Shanty Band....
you can learn something new every day ......