Script quote across upper back

You will have heard by now that the Skerry Light goes automatic in spring, and that Dad has put in for the Ardmore post before anyone thought to ask him. I know what you will say. You will say he is a stubborn old lamp-trimmer and I should let him be. But on Tuesday I went up the tower with the brass polish and found the logbook open at the page where Mam wrote out your christening date. Beneath it, in her small slanting hand, she had copied a line from the back of a tea tin: Forget the risk and take the fall.

The rest was smudged, as if she had written it and then wiped her eyes. If it's what you want it's worth it all. I sat on the iron stair with the polish drying on my hands and thought of the autumn you went to the mainland and how Dad said nothing for a week after. He never once asked me what I wanted. He only ever asked whether I was sure.

So here is what I have done, and you may scold me in person. I have written to the board and asked for the keeper's post for myself. They laughed down the line. Sandy at the pier is rowing me across on Thursday to sit the examination in Stornoway, and I have not been this frightened since I jumped off the north wall at nine for a dare.

Tell Dad I have kept the lamp lit every night this week while he slept, and that the beam still reaches the Sound. Tell him I am not afraid of the dark. Your loving sister, Nell.