Thinking about it, the idea had been there for as long as he could remember.  He supposed that it must have begun with Moominpappa at Sea and grown from there.  Or had it been the seaside holiday souvenir that had stood upon the mantelpiece, that upturned phial of coloured sand, mounted on a pebble?  Well, whichever, he found himself drawn to those remote locations, to the inaccessible cliff tops and distant islands where men erected their monuments to the boundless and indifferent power of the sea.  And yet there was something comforting about them, that shaft of light cutting through the darkest night, the walls of granite holding you safe within as the most violent of storms raged outside.  Above all, it had been the prospect of total isolation that appealed, to be cut adrift in a world of your own design…  Oh, yes, he’d always dreamed of becoming a keeper.  And now, for the first time in his life, he found himself giving serious consideration to the possibility.  And this is how it came about…