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In the United Kingdom, the company British Gas employs 30,000 workers. Five of them could be said to carry a metaphorical torch that has been burning for 200 years. They are the lamplighters, tending to gas lamps that still line the streets in some of London's oldest neighborhoods and parks. NPR's Ari Shapiro joined them on their nightly rounds.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: I wish I could tell you that these men were dressed in top hats and waistcoats. But as the sun went down around 4 o'clock last night, Iain Bell and Garry Usher arrived wearing regular blue and gray jackets with the British Gas logo. They look like standard, 21st century utility workers.
GARRY USHER: I was originally doing central heating installation for British Gas.
SHAPIRO: About 15 years ago, Garry Usher found out he was being assigned to the lamplighter's crew. He told his boss that's ridiculous. London doesn't use gas lamps anymore.
USHER: I thought he was taking the mickey, actually.
SHAPIRO: You thought he was totally...
USHER: I was...
SHAPIRO: ...Fooling you?
USHER: Yeah, exactly, trying to pawn me off onto another area.
SHAPIRO: But, in fact, London still has about 1,500 gas lamps. The group British Heritage decided to preserve them after almost all the others were replaced by electric lamps. These look almost exactly the same as when they were first installed two centuries ago, just a little taller to accommodate modern traffic. Usher leans a latter up against a lamppost and opens the small glass door at the top of the lamp. Inside, a little ticking clock triggers the flame to go on and off at the right time each night. These clocks must be wound by hand.
USHER: I manually turn it around.
SHAPIRO: The flame jumps up and catches on little silk nets. They're covered with a substance called lime, which produces a bright white light. A couple centuries ago, London's West End theaters realized how useful lime could be to illuminate a stage.
USHER: They used to have a bit of this lime - quicklime - put a flame through it and it showed a really bright light across - on their star - and so the star was the person that was in the limelight. And that's where that comes from.
SHAPIRO: So we are literally standing in the limelight, steps from the river Thames, a stone's throw from Big Ben.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIG BEN)
SHAPIRO: Iain Bell is British Gas' operations manager and a history buff. He describes what this area would've looked like before the lamps arrived.
IAIN BELL: The streets would've been pitch-black. They would've been smoggy. They'd be quite dangerous because the only light the public would have had would have been a candle.
SHAPIRO: If you wanted to walk to the local pub, you could hire a child know as a link boy to light your way with a torch.
BELL: Some of the link boys weren't as nice as you would expect them to be. They actually would mock you, so they would take you down a dark lane and then you'd be set upon and robbed.
SHAPIRO: So when streetlights arrived, everything changed. At first, people were afraid of the lamps - and rightfully so, says Bell. The gas pipes were poorly made from shabby materials.
BELL: We're talking wood. We're talking mud wrapped around it, so there was a lot of leaks. There was a lot of fires. There was a lot of explosions. So that's - the public were terrified.
SHAPIRO: Even today, diggers often come across the remains of old wooden pipes. Today, the gas lamps that are still standing are protected by law. If one is knocked down, it's replaced with an exact replica. They cast a calming, mellow light, maintained by these few remaining lamplighters - literal keepers of the flame. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OLD LAMPLIGHTER")
THE BROWNS: (Singing) He made the night a little brighter.