'You Know Me'

This is an excerpt of a work-in-progress radio drama based on the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy of 1801. During the event, two lighthouse keepers – Thomas Griffiths and Thomas Howell – were stranded on a lighthouse for four months. Griffiths sadly died of ill-health and malnutrition and, not wishing to be accused of his murder, Howell kept his body on the lighthouse with him. For several traumatic weeks, Howell kept the lamp lit with Griffiths’ presence looming over him. When he was eventually rescued, Howell’s family couldn’t recognise him, and some accounts say that his hair had turned completely white.

Other media on the tragedy has explored the events as they took place on the lighthouse. This series seeks to explore the aftermath of a trauma such as that, and approaches to mental health at the time. As this was an era in Welsh history before mass institutionalisation, many parallels can be drawn between then and the modern concept of ‘care in the community’. Howell is presented as a character with posttraumatic stress and trauma-induced psychosis; I use a modern speaker confronting similar difficulties to demonstrate the universality of these experiences and allow audiences to connect to this shadowy figure from history.

This section explores the idea of knowing and being known, and the masking techniques that come with self-stigma. I particularly wanted to explore how alcohol is used to numb the anxiety that comes with posttraumatic stress, and how substances are used to mediate interactions between the alienated trauma survivor and the world around them.