Lizzie Lights

Shag Island lay off the Tasmanian coast. Bleak, windswept and rocky, it was the home of the lighthouse keepers who manned the Shag Light - a home they shared with their families and with sea-birds, seals and lizards. For Elizabeth Wigg, the thirteen-year-old daughter of the head lighthouse keeper, Shag was a place of refuge. She secretly feared the outside world, and trips to the mainland were made nightmarish by the terrors of the haulage and the mammy basket which had to be negotiated before one reached a small, rocking ship's boat at the foot of the cliffs. Elizabeth - or Lizzie Lights as she was known on Shag - preferred to spend her time on the island, sketching the sea-birds, or writing to her many pen-friends, or playing with the keepers' small children. But this year was to be different from all the others. First of all, there was the trip to Melbourne to visit relatives; then, the arrival of her pen-friend Myra for the summer holidays. Myra's visit to Shag Island proved to be a shattering experience for Lizzie Lights, with unforeseen consequences affecting the lives of all on the island...