A despondent ship merchant struggles with rebuilding his life and finding resolve to sail passengers through the unlit and treacherous Scottish coast, weaving together three stories of 19th century lighthouse building, the grim realities of coastal wrecker life, and discovering a new reason to love.

SYNOPSIS:

The Lamplighter is an action-packed period drama that follows the struggle of Alfred, a once successful 19th century ship owner who is trying to escape the personal trauma of losing his son and wife in childbirth. This is then followed by a financially ruinous shipwreck.

On a stormy spring day in 1870, fourteen miles off the west coast of Scotland, Alfred's fully laden cargo ship is wrecked with the loss of its entire crew. The one last hope he has in order to recover financially is to use his only remaining vessel, Aemilius, to carry passengers from Scotland to their new lives in Nova Scotia. However, a huge obstacle stands in his way in the shape of a treacherous sheet of concealed rock, spanning ten miles across the sea off an unlit Scottish coast.

In a bid to hasten the construction of the nearby, newly proposed Dubh Artach lighthouse, Alfred sails to the tiny island of Erraid, located off the western tip of the Isle of Mull. There, within the small lighthouse workers’ community, he investigates why the work has been so chronically delayed.

While in the village, he meets the nineteen-year-old Robert Louis Stevenson, a fourth generation Scottish lighthouse engineer who is on the island to complete his university dissertation. Intelligent, yet distracted with ideas of his own, Louis’s attention is often diverted by fantasies of leaving the family tradition and following a more creative occupation. This in turn slows down his duties on Erraid, much to Alfred’s annoyance. Nevertheless, Louis and Alfred do find common ground in wanting to create a safe passage for Aemilius and Louis is inspired by the older, more experienced man who encourages him to follow his dream instead of his family’s expectations of him.

As Alfred sets sail home to Greenock, he decides to lay anchor in a cove at the nearby Isle of Iona, to follow up on rumours of coastal ship wreckers and the slight chance of locating his lost cargo. There, Alfred discovers the harsh existence of these impoverished people who survive solely on what they can harvest from the sea by any means possible. Ewan and Cameron, two young and imaginative brothers of the ship wrecker community, find the curious stranger and lead him to their makeshift home where they live with their widowed mother, Cait.

Alfred learns of Cait’s brutish brother-in-law, Hamish, who preys on the widow’s pitiful circumstances in exchange for keeping her family fed. Having an unpredictable and jealous nature, Hamish is resentful of Cait’s kindness shown to Alfred, who she mistakenly assumes is an ex-lighthouse worker. Reluctantly, Alfred allows her to believe this in order to hide the fact that he is actually there solely to look for his cargo. Later, when Alfred returns to Iona, Hamish suspects their growing affection for each other and when Cameron provokes him, the young boy is attacked so violently as to leave him with life threatening consequences.

When Alfred suggests he takes Cameron back to Greenock for medical attention, he is forced to reveal his true identity to Cait. In spite of Alfred’s deception, which causes her to lose trust in him, Cait allows him to take Cameron away for the sake of his survival. Whilst in Alfred’s care, the pair develop a formidable bond. Tosh and his wife Marion, close family friends of Alfred, warn him that the relationship is one of a faux replacement for his own son, who died at birth and keeping him would cause even more heartbreak for all involved.

Marion convinces Alfred that he must decide where his heart lies and emplores him to choose between returning Cameron to his mother or to rescue the whole family from Iona and, in particular, from Hamish’s control.

The three intertwining stories converge with a frightening escape from Iona and a second shipwreck, captained by Tosh, that is caused by the untimely mislighting of the Dubh Artach lighthouse while a storm brews at sea.

The story concludes with Alfred learning to move on from a culmination of lifelong grief, to trust in love once again and Louis decides to persue what will be his true destiny, to become a writer.

THE LAMPLIGHTER: HOPE SHINES BRIGHTEST IN THE DARK