With its bright red and white stripes, Beachy Head Lighthouse has always held a special place in the hearts of those who have seen it.

In 2009, the lighthouse was the unlikely location for a very special service for the renewing of a couple’s vows.

When Paul and Sarah Iles from Newhaven said “I do” back in 1989, it was in a traditional register office service.

But 20 years later they decided to renew their vows in a much more unusual location.

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Instead of walking up the aisle, the couple walked up a pontoon to board a boat and taken on an inflatable boat to Beachy Head Lighthouse with ten members of their family and friends as well as a slightly seasick minister.

The Rev Martin Miller from St Michael’s Church in Newhaven who conducted the service told The Argus: “It is the first one I have done on the water. I’m not a great traveller so I’m not planning to make too much of a habit of it.

“But it was a nice setting to renew their vows before God and their family, surrounded by the beauty of nature.”

In 1980, The Argus readers came to the rescue of the lighthouse crew at Beachy Head after the threat that staff would lose their annual Christmas hamper.

Fortunately, thanks to an appeal by the paper, Christmas goodies including turkeys, mince pies, Christmas puddings and crackers were collected for the lighthouse.

Days later the traditional delivery of the Christmas hamper by foot at low tide ended in drama when a full-scale operation was launched after reports that a body had been spotted on the cliff edge.

Fortunately the body turned out to be a football which had rolled over the edge at Gun Gardens.

Five years earlier there was less reason to cheer for the lighthouse staff after they were given a bum deal.

Lighthouse owners Trinity House told keepers they needed to cut back on toilet paper because of inflation.

Eachkeeperwas allowedfive sheets a day meaning that one roll should last each member of staff 43 days.

One anonymous keeper at Beachy Head Lighthouse told The Argus back in October 1975: “We’ve got a kind of roster in the toilets so each man can put down how many sheets of paper he uses to sort of keep track of it.”

Things were even more serious for the lighthouse’s headkeeper Basil Dove in May 1966 when he fell and broke both his legs after falling twelve feet.

In a complex operation carried out in gale force six winds, Mr Dove was picked up by helicopter and lowered back on to a lifeboat before being brought ashore.

A first attempt to rescue the keeper failed because of the poor weather conditions.

 

ON THIS DAY

 

1066: William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme River, beginning the Norman Conquest of England.

1590: Pope Urban VII died 13 days after being chosen as the Pope.

1777: Lancaster, Pennsylvania was capital of the United States, for one day.

1825: The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens, and began operation of the world's first service of  locomotive-hauled passenger trains.

1905: The physics journal Annalen der Physik received Albert Einstein's paper “Does the Inertia of a Body
Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc².

1908: The first Ford Model T was built.

The Argus’ popular “Looking Back” feature has been compiled into an A4, soft back book which catalogues the events that have made their mark on the people of Sussex. The fascinating archive of “Looking Back” images dates back to the 1930s when The Argus first started to print photographs. The book costs £6.99 including postage and packing. To order please visit theargus.co.uk/store