The Lamplighter
My mother-in-law, Scotty, would sometimes tell me stories about her childhood in Glasgow, and once she told me of the old lamplighter who was known as “The Leary” from R L Stephenon’s famous poem. Every evening at dusk the old man would move down the street with a long pole that had a tiny flame at the end of it, lighting one lamp after another, bringing light to the whole district. Scotty ended her story with the remark, “… and after a while, Son, the Leary would be completely out of sight way down the street somewhere, but you could always tell which way he’d gone by the light he left behind.”
Pete Sumner
