Open cloze

For 1. than two centuries, the lights around Britain's coast were tended by keepers who lived in conditions that most of us would find unbearable. On rock lighthouses, built far out at sea on outcrops barely large 2. to hold them, three men would share a tower for weeks at a time, with no means of leaving until the relief boat arrived. And when storms set in, that boat might not come for a month or 3.. The work itself was monotonous rather than heroic: polishing brass, trimming wicks and keeping a log of the weather. Yet keepers took enormous pride in the fact that, on their watch, the light had never gone out, not 4. for a moment. It was a job that called 5. patience and an even temper. Men who did not get 6. with their colleagues tended not to last long, since there was quite literally nowhere to escape to. The last keepers left their posts in the late twentieth century, when automation finally made them redundant. Today the lights still turn, but 7. from the occasional maintenance visit, the towers stand empty, serving only as a reminder of a way of life that has all 8. disappeared.