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of small, mostly single-storey buildings, such as quarters, as well as paved areas which drained into channels, gullies, and pipes. These led into tanks both above and below ground.34 A record was kept and a plan for the use of water. Following Hong Kong custom, water was boiled before being used for drinking.
During an especially dry period, after storage tanks became empty, they were cleaned and limed. Orders used to be posted in the look-out room to this effect. To reduce requirements, salt water was pumped up from the sea for flushing toilets. It is understood that on one occasion, a building worker who had gone to the island to carry out repairs was caught in the nick of time as he stood behind a building about to relieve himself into a gully. Had he done so, the fresh-water supply system would have been contaminated.
Up to the 1970s, Hong Kong as a whole was generally short of water and, together with rainfall, it was a common topic at cocktail parties. For several months in 1963, and again in parts of July and August 1967, water for the average household was on tap for only four hours once every four days. Water shortages were part of every Hong Kong resident's lifestyle in those times and for no one more so than the keepers on Waglan. There, during especially dry periods, water had to be brought in by tanker.
Manpower
Over the years, lengths of tours of duty varied. After World War One, keepers, it is understood, spent one month at a stretch on Waglan, which was followed by only one week's leave. Later, this arrangement was changed to one month on duty and two weeks' leave (Bruce; 1990, 6).
In an interview with the Superintendent of Aids to Navigation, the author was told that the establishment on Waglan comprised 1 Principal Lighthouse Keeper, 2 Lighthouse Keepers, 5 Attendants (who cut the grass and cleaned the windows, etc.) and 1 Cook. This made a total of 9.35 Figures have, of course, varied, off and on, over the years.
In the years leading up to 1989 (when Waglan was automated), one team would be on duty for one week. They would then be relieved
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