Читать книгу Hard down! Hard down! - Captain Jack Isbester - Страница 15

In 1884 John Isbester returned to Shetland and to Haggersta, where he stayed with his aunt and uncle. My father, Allan, John Isbester’s fifth son, was an observant man with an excellent memory and a considerable interest in Shetland and our family history. Although born many years after these events he had often heard the story of how my grandparents met. This is the account that he wrote to Florence Grains, a descendent of one of the participants.1

As a boy my father went to the fishing and as a youth he went South to sea. He left his watch – the equivalent of being engaged – with your grandmother Maggie Smith in Strome.2 One time there was a slump and he could not get a job at sea so he joined the Liverpool Police and wrote for Maggie to come and join him. She ‘couldna leave the sheep’ and did not go. Later he got back to sea and later still back to Whiteness – but he did not call at Strome: of course the whole of Whiteness knew that he had not been to see Maggie! Like all the young men returning home he called at Olligarth to tell Magnus Irvine [the laird and the landlord for all the crofts in North Whiteness] all the latest South news. And there he encountered my mother, a very personable, lively young lady of 20 who took it upon herself to scold him for not going to see Maggie. (Father was 32. As a boy of 17/18 he used to call at Olligarth on the way from Haggersta to the school to carry Susie Irvine 5/6 pick-a-back to school).3 My father was not used to being scolded by young ladies, rather enjoyed it and came back for more. One night after he’d gone, mother went out to the well at the back door and he was waiting to speak to her. He asked her to marry him and said that he’d give her a week to make up her mind. He came the next morning for his answer and they were married within the month! Mother said that night she opened her bible for guidance – and it opened at the passage in Ruth – whither thou goest I will go and thy people shall be my people –

She walked in to Lerwick to buy her wedding needs and to tell her friends who had never even heard of Jack Isbester4 as in the running (though there were said to be several others). Anyway Maggie’s heart was certainly not broken – and the families of Quoyness [where Maggie Smith lived as Maggie Gair after her own marriage] and Olligarth always remained good friends. After we left Scotland aged 12 and 9 Eric and I stayed at Quoyness at your grandmother’s for a Summer holiday (we were just about the same age as Agnes and Hettie your aunt and mother).

The Shetland Times of 19 April 1884 reported

At Olligarth, Whiteness, on the 10th April, by the Rev. A McDonald, Weisdale, assisted by the Rev. D Johnstone, Quarff, SUSIE, only surviving daughter of Mr MAGNUS IRVINE to Mr JOHN ISBESTER.

It may be that the two clergymen were in attendance to make clear to everybody that although John Isbester was illegitimate he had a Master’s Certificate and, therefore, the full approval of the church!

Early on the wedding day John Isbester had written his first surviving letter to his bride-to-be.5 After suggesting that he would meet her at the schoolhouse where the wedding was to take place and expressing his pleasure that it was such a lovely day, John continued:

This morning about 7am I took a bottle of whiskey and treated all the town of Haggersta and they all drunk hartily to our long life and happiness and the remainder of what took place I will tell you again I have no paper so you must excuse this scrap I am Your Loving Johnie X

In the 1880s the ‘town of Haggersta’ consisted of four households – the Davidsons, the Mansons and the Smiths as well as the Andersons – so John Isbester’s hospitality was not on quite the scale that his words would seem to suggest.6

Captain Thomson,7 a local man who knew Whiteness well, points out that the schoolhouse used for the wedding was the place where bride and groom both received their early education, and suggests that after the wedding the guests all walked in couples along the banks of Brugarth (where the absent John Isbister, gold miner, had lived as a child) to Olligarth House (Fig.6.1) for the wedding breakfast and reception for the happy couple.

Figure 6.1 Olligarth House in 1916 (Courtesy of the Shetland Museum and Archives)

John’s bride, Susan Elizabeth Irvine (Fig.6.2), was born and brought up in Whiteness, and in her early years had attended the Whiteness school, but as the daughter of the laird she had had opportunities not given to most of the Whiteness community. My father says that his mother ‘Was spoiled, but not spoilt’, as her parents only surviving child. He continues:

Figure 6.2 Susie Irvine, about the time of her wedding to John Isbester

My mother who was known to be delicate, – she had valvular disease of the heart – had been taken gt. care of during her girlhood & had several years wintered with relations or friends in the Scottish Lowlands where the climate was less severe than in Shetland.8

Miss Urquart, a live-in governess from Scotland, was found for her, and seems to have coached her well because she became a talented singer and pianist and a fluent and entertaining letter writer. Her Sinclair ancestors on her mother’s side included doctors, clergymen and army officers in their number, and it was from that side of the family that her parents had inherited ownership of a number of crofts in Whiteness. Her father, Magnus Irvine, was a farmer and, by virtue of his wife’s inheritance, a landowner. That he was actively involved in farming can be seen in a photo (Fig.6.3) which shows him ploughing with two oxen. He is the man guiding the plough. The large black-bearded man with the oxen is probably Robbie Tullock, the general farm servant who remained with the family for many years.

An elderly acquaintance of the Irvine family visited Olligarth a few months before the wedding and, writing to his own granddaughter, explained that Mrs Irvine had not been at home but reported that they had been given dinner and that ‘Miss Irvine of Strom Bridge is a sprightly young lady and did the honours of the table well’.9 In the weeks after the wedding, clearly charmed, he wrote:

Figure 6.3 Magnus Irvine, on the left, ploughing with oxen

The husband of the young lady of Olligarth is a grandson of Peter o’Brugarth and his mother was Sarah Anderson. The young man had been seven years south and he and the young lady fell in love at first sight. She was just the age for that, full of life.10

If we take that literally, as I think we should, this was John Isbester’s first return to Shetland in seven years.

John Isbester (Fig.6.4) and Susie Irvine had made a very happy and rewarding choice. Allan Isbester writes:

From my Father’s first letters – written when he was Master of the Ann Mactavish, – it is apparent that my Mother and he when they married did not know each other at all – what they had in common was temperament. They were both lively and spirited, they were both entertaining talkers and good listeners, they were both responsive to, interested in and fond of other people. Each was proud of the other, each took responsibility for the other’s relations, and when they were together on the Centaur or the Dalgonar, their ship immediately became the host ship of the other ships of whatever port they were in. And they each had a serious side to their natures.11

Figure 6.4 John Isbester in his early years in command

John Isbester clearly believed that one reason to get married was to have babies. When his own daughter married and after a year of marriage was still not admitting to being pregnant, he expressed his anxiety: ‘Kathleen writes bright enough but surely she is not well if there is no sign yet’.12 His own marriage gave scope to no such concerns: Susie gave birth to their first child on 4 January 1885 and must have known that she was pregnant within weeks of the wedding. John Isbester needed to earn some money but did not want to risk a deep sea voyage which might put him on the other side of the world when their first child was born. Instead he was fortunate to obtain a short-term appointment as master of a schooner sailing from Lerwick to the Baltic.

The law required that when a British ship travelled outside Home Trade Limits a master with a full foreign going master’s certificate must be carried. Captain Mactavish, owner and master of the schooner Ann Mactavish had no foreign going certificate, so when his ship was offered a cargo from Lerwick to Danzig he needed a master for the voyage.; John Isbester took the job, sailing from Lerwick on 22 August 1884. Being in love’s grip and on his best behaviour and having little experience of writing love letters his communication usefully reads very much like a voyage report.

About 9 o’clock we took our departure by bearings of Bressay and Sumbrugh Head lights, course SE with a light breeze NE and we ran 140 miles. When the wind changed to about South we tacked ship and made another 70 miles SSE [sic]13 when we sighted an Island, Utsira, on the coast of Norway on the Friday after I left you. But we had moderate weather tacking along the coast up to Sunday afternoon when the wind commenced to freshen and we had a strong breeze the remaining part of Sunday and Monday and we have had two or three breezes since but nothing to hurt us but head winds all the time.14

Arriving at Hornbæk at the northern entrance to The Sound, the waterway between Denmark and Sweden, he wrote:

we have arrived all safe as far as Hornbek that is about 30 miles from Copenhagen and I expect to be a week or two yet before we get to Danzic as the weather here is very fine light airs of headwinds and calms and the glass up to the top branches. It is so calm today that we have had to drop anchor to stop us from going back with the current what we have already come and the village ashore here looks most beautiful.15

John Isbester was visiting the Baltic for his first and only time, and it is no surprise that he was enraptured by the Danish village, with its clean and brightly painted houses set in a verdant countryside basking in still, clear summer weather. He continued:

I wish you were here with us until we lift anchor again. We have had a bumboat alongside and old Mactavish has bought a bag of potatoes, a fresh cod and a lb of potatoes. I have bought 20 eggs for 1/6 and a lb of tobacco for 2/- so we have had fresh cod for dinner and eggs for tea. Now we are ready for another passage a week of light fair winds or a fortnight light airs and calms but I would rather have the fair wind. I am thinking long as I never did before it is very wearing making so little headway but I can keep my mind easy as the owner is on board and can see that I am doing all I can to get ahead. I daresay now I could count 50 vessels in the same condition as ourselves beating with the light air and at anchor with the calms.16

Later, when in The Sound, he wrote:

Now we have got into a beautiful narrow sound only about six miles across and fine calm weather. We have about 70 miles of this narrows then out to free sea again about 300 miles more so you can reckon the time we will be going with light airs and calms and the time we would take with a fair wind as I have no doubt you will. So I am afraid that Sept. will be done before I get back and where we will come back to I can give you no idea of. So Dear Susie I suppose you will be tired of reading of all the different courses and distances.17

After explaining that he hoped to land his letter when passing Copenhagen, John Isbester enquired about the farm work and visitors to Olligarth, then continued with some intriguing domestic details.

I forgot when my changing week was so to make sure did not change until Wednesday 10th except stockings. I had five pair wet all at the same time. I shaved off the chin Thursday week. After I left I had a long look for your photo as I knew you gave me the one saying it was the only one you had and it was only last Sunday I found it when I took a good turn and started to read the bible it dropped out but before that I consoled myself with the one in the locket. I have read old Daniel’s religious Notions and a few pieces of the other. I don’t know if it was Daniel’s Notions I was to read on Sunday or was it the bible you put in my trunk? I find everything I require and thanks to you for them it shows me how careful you have been to mind on everything Now My Dear Susie with kind love to your Mama and Papa, Dolly, Mip, Meek and Mr H M and remain yours faithfully John Isbester with a X-X.18

It reads as though Susie was laying down some rules about when a change of clothing or a spot of religion was needed, and John was prepared to go along with that provided he could remember what he had been told. In their correspondence throughout their marriage there are hints that Susie, using tact and charm, exercised her influence on him to make the best of himself.

Writing from Danzig, John Isbester noted that there were a number of Scots and Shetland schooners all carrying certificated masters just for the voyage with the old masters signed on as purser, so now in port there were two separate gangs – the certificated masters and the pursers/owners. Old Mactavish was the best of the latter: ‘he’s a good old sort, very easy minded and content and I am very comfortable’.19

On 24 September the Ann Mactavish was discharging in Danzig but with no news of a homeward cargo. Captain John wanted to buy a pair of slippers for Susie but it was difficult:

There is scarcely a shop you go into that they can speak a word of English. You have just to go and take a hold of anything you want, then they tell you how many Marks it costs. So it’s very difficult to get anything you want. I went into a shop last night to buy a pair of slippers for you. I came in and pointed to them, got a lot on the counter and was looking through them and every pair I took hold of he would tell me how many Mark they cost, which I said nothing about. At last I tried to ask him the size of them – but he could not understand me but thought I was going to bid him down of the price, so he got hot and I got hot. He was going ahead in Prussian and me in English and I believe that the girls that was in the shop nearly turned red headed, and at last a Prussian soldier officer came in that could speak some English so he cleared the dispute up for us. The dispute was I was asking for size 5 and he was saying 5 Mark and every time he said 5 Mark I gave a roar at him and he thought I was thinking it too much and wanting to get the slippers out of my hand and I would not give them so I bought them such as they are and there were nothing but girls crowing and laughing in every corner of the shop before I left with the slippers bidding them all good night.20

In 1884 Danzig was part of Prussia, part of the German Empire. In the 19th century, when the British merchant navy comprised half of world shipping, British merchant seamen expected the whole world to speak English.

Later in the letter John tells Susie that the pipe she had bought him ‘turned out to be good. I have used it ever since we left. It is now getting nicely coloured’. He adds that he has bought a snuff box for the old man (i.e. his father-in-law) ‘with a compass on the top so that if he is at Scalloway and fog comes on he will be able to steer by the compass’21 – an interesting reminder that from Whiteness to Scalloway was 7 miles by land and only 6 miles by sea. Making the trip by sea, when you had your own boat and people to row or sail it, was more convenient that hiring a pony and trap.

Writing again from Danzig while the crew, assisted by three local men, were loading a timber cargo, John Isbester responded to Susie’s questions about drink.

You were asking me if old Mactavish took much and all that I can tell you is that he takes more I think than does him good but he don’t trouble anybody with it for he’s always in such good humour with it. But you did not ask me if I was taking much so I am going to tell you Susie, Dear Wife, that I really don’t take much. I think you are afraid of me in that way but you need not Dear. Old Mactavish tells me that ever since his wife died he does not appear to care how things goes and I think myself that he does not care much for his family.22

Turning to the way the schooner was sailed, he reports:

The men that are with us are very steady sober men. At sea I don’t keep any regular watch but just on deck when I am wanted. Sometimes I have a long watch and sometimes a short one. The man that was Mate and the boy are in the one watch and Mactavish and the other man in the other so that very seldom I have anything to do with regards to work at sea. When they go off to reef or make sail I do the steering for them. The schooner is so handy to anything I have been used to that it’s only a pleasure to work with her, she is as easy tacked as a boat and never misses stays.23

To reassure Susie he writes:

I am trying to take as much care of myself as I can. I don’t go with wet stockings. I have had a change of clothes and five pairs of stockings ashore at the wash and have just got them back so all we want now is a Good SE wind and we’ll soon be home, so ta ta for this night Susie Dear and all the kisses as soon as we can get them and a cuddle you know what I mean don’t you …24

Clearly the sports page25 was not a recent invention, but gentle jokes were also worth trying. He may have been complaining of midges rather than flies when he wrote:

The flies are so thick here that they even disturbed me, but if I was beside you I would have peace for I know they like you better than me.26

As he was going to bed another thought struck him and he took up his pen again:

You were asking me if ever I made my bed since you did. I thought I would do it tonight. There has been a turn in my blanket now for some time and I could not find out how it was, so tonight I have taken it out. I’m off now, ta ta.27

By this time John Isbester was some six weeks away from Lerwick. It is clear that bed making was not a frequent activity.

He remarks that the timber loading in Danzig had taken nine days and that he had never previously loaded in less than ten days – though mostly, it must be remembered, on larger ships. This is a gentle pace of work that contrasts strongly with fast turn rounds experienced by most shipping nowadays, when nine days in port would be viewed as luxury. The timber cargo was destined for Hartlepool, where John Isbester paid off on arrival, to be back in Shetland with his bride a few days later.

1 Isbester, Charles Allan, letter CAI1, 17.09.1966 (Isbester Collection).

2 By the time my father knew her, long after these events, the lady in question had married and become Maggie Gair of Quoyness. Before her wedding she was Maggie Smith of Strome and not as my father had it. His letter has here been amended to correct this.

3 This implies that John Isbester still visited the Whiteness school when aged 18. He may have done so to study navigation during the winter months when he was not fishing, or this may simply have been a joke between my grandparents.

4 My grandmother always called my grandfather Jack. I was named after him.

5 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J1, 10.04.1884 (Isbester Collection).

6 Shetland Island Census 1881.

7 Thomson, Captain J.P, OBE ExC. Captain John Isbester’s Career at Sea. Unpublished manuscript, p.6. (Isbester Collection).

8 Isbester, Charles Allan, Note CAI4 written about 1965 (Isbester Collection).

9 Laing, Robert. Letter to Christina L Jamieson, 19.01.1884 (Isbester Collection).

10 Laing, Robert. Letter to Christina L Jamieson, 17.06.1884 (Isbester Collection).

11 Isbester, Charles Allan, Note CAI4 written about 1965 for Captain J P Thomson (Isbester Collection).

12 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J32, 27.07.1913 (Isbester Collection).

13 From a plot of the courses and from the wind direction it is evident that ESE not SSE is meant.

14 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J2, 11.09.1884 (Isbester Collection).

15 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J2, ibid.

16 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J2, ibid.

17 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J2, ibid.

18 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J2, ibid.

19 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J3, 21.09.1884 (Isbester Collection).

20 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J4, 24.09.1884 (Isbester Collection).

21 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J4, ibid.

22 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J5, 30.09.1884 (Isbester Collection).

23 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J5, ibid.

24 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J5, ibid.

25 Sports Page – sailors’ term for that part of a letter devoted to sexual matters.

26 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J5, op.cit.

27 Isbester, Capt. John, Letter J5, ibid.