Message in a bottle found after 25 years

Robbie Goldsmith sent many messages out during his 27 years in the job.

But none of those to have been found have been at sea for as long as one which was discovered in March.

Mr Goldsmith would always write the same message in each bottle.

‘The note I had written in it was quite simple,’ he said.

‘The message read: “This bottle was thrown into sea from the Hanois lighthouse, which is one mile of the south-west coast of Guernsey, if you find it please let me know when and where you found it”.

‘I would always date them as well.’

One such bottle was found on 30 March on a beach near Calais, by a Gabriel Lenclu.

Mr Lenclu contacted Mr Goldsmith by finding a video of him on YouTube, during his time on the lighthouse.

This particular bottle had spent the best part of a quarter of a century at sea, being dated Nov 28, 1993.

‘I was really surprised for someone to find it after all that time,’ said Mr Goldsmith.

‘I wonder if there are many more bobbing around out there?

‘I have sent a message back to the person who found it, so I guess we’ll see what happened now.’

Whilst dealing with elements of boredom and loneliness during his many years as keeper at Les Hanois, Mr Goldsmith decided to give the communication technique a try.

‘I just thought one day lets stick a message in a bottle and see what happens,’ he said.

‘After a month I got one reply, and I thought this is a good idea.

‘It was a good way to contact people, being on a lighthouse is quite lonely.

‘I used to put 10 or 12 in a week, I must have put hundreds in the sea.

‘I would use any sort of bottle, plastic, glass, mustard jars, and marble tin containers, anything that floated.

‘I’d probably get prosecuted now.

‘Some of my messages only went as far as Rocquaine beach, but that was fine, as I still made friends.’

Mr Goldsmith has had his messages travel as far as Florida and the fjords in Norway.

He has made many friends and formed relationships on the back of people contacting him after finding one of his messages, including a fleeting love affair with a German lady, who found one of his bottles in France.

Mr Goldmsith retired in 1997 and has since donated many of his messages and the correspondence to the Guernsey Museum at Candie.

In addition he donated his lighthouse keeper’s uniform to Fort Grey, which now adorns a mannequin in the museum.