A Tale From Dent

Memories of time spent on Dent Island as recorded by Reg Hatch in his book “Dent Island 1959” – an extract.

Reg was 20 years of age and a qualified painter when he left Brisbane in 1959 to “see what was over the hill.”  On what was only his second plane trip, he arrived in Mackay and then, with two other passengers, flew to Lindeman Island on his first small-plane trip. After three weeks on Lindeman, Reg boarded the “Hossack H” bound for Dent Island.

On Dent Island, the lighthouse is now an automatically operated light but, in 1959, when Reg Hatch worked there, there were two lighthouse keepers and their families.   Reg observed, “The lighthouse itself wasn’t very high. It was about 30 feet and painted white with a red top. Near the lighthouse was a new split level timber weatherboard house in which the head lighthouse keeper and his family lived.” On the same level to the north, a second new house was being constructed for the other keeper and his family and it was this house that Reg was there to paint.

Reg remarked, “The light keepers didn’t seem too be big on gardening.  There wasn’t any soil, only rocks.  The few trees on the island were stunted. Steps ran down from the lighthouse to the old houses. The only place where it was level was where the houses were perched and it seemed to me if you had one leg shorter than the other, you would be suited to the light keeper’s job.”

Reg also noted there were 200 steps from the lighthouse to the beach.  Lloyd Williams was the head lighthouse keeper. His wife taught their youngest child on the island, whilst the older children attended boarding school. The second keeper, also Reg by name, was English.  He explained to Reg Hatch the method of working the light “six hours on, six hours off, right through the night.”

The workers’ camp was three miles from the lighthouse as that was the only place where water was available.

Living quarters for the workers was a shed which had apparently been erected earlier on by the O’Hara family who had a cattle lease on Dent Island at that time.

Reg said that the primitive conditions the men worked under at Dent Island caused them contact the union organiser in Mackay, asking him to travel to the island to investigate the situation. But the two McDonald brothers (who owned the business engaged on the Dent Island project) had gotten wind of the visit and met the organiser incognito in Mackay and accompanied him on the journey to the island. They plied him with as much alcohol as he could drink so that upon arrival, he was totally incoherent and had to return to Mackay to recover. More men were then employed from Mackay to hurry the job along.

After completion of the work on Dent Island, Reg again worked for a short time on Lindeman Island before moving on. He concluded, “These are my memories of Dent Island as a young painter in 1959.  Little did I realise then that I would later become a lighthouse keeper, serving at various stations along the Queensland coast - Sandy Cape on Fraser Island; then Cape Cleveland outside of Townsville; Booby Island and Goode Island in the Torres Strait and then in 1970, I was made Head Lighthouse Keeper at Cape Moreton. I took over from Lloyd Williams when he retired, eleven years after I had first met him on Dent Island in 1959.”

Postscript: The Dent Island Lighthouse, the first in the area, was erected in 1879. Automation was effected in 1983 and the lighthouse was demanned in 1987.

One of the graves in the accompanying photo is that of three-year-old Caroline Bliss, daughter of the then lighthouse keeper. She was buried on 3rd April 1885.  The occupants of the other two graves are unknown.

Story courtesy Proserpine Historical Museum and Reg Hatch. Photo courtesy Proserpine Historical Museum.

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