Читать книгу Hard down! Hard down! - Captain Jack Isbester - Страница 8

My father Allan Isbester, eighth child of Captain John Isbester, cherished his parents’ history and often expressed the view that the story of his father’s life should be written. He saved documents, letters, postcards and newspaper cuttings, and was always ready to reminisce about family, sailing ships and Shetland. Without his compiling and guarding of the Isbester Archives this account would have been much diminished. My mother Jean Isbester was an avid and discriminating reader and correspondent who had a big influence on my writing. She would have enjoyed this book.

My wife Audrey shared the considerable task of transcribing all the family correspondence – she read while I typed – and welcomed the fact that this book, unlike my previous ones, actually contains human interest. Audrey and my daughter Claire Isbester have read every word that I have written and both have helped with constructive suggestions and encouraging comments, for which I am very grateful. Claire also met me regularly in the London Guildhall Library where we spent many hours tracing John Isbester and his ships in the microfiched pages of Lloyd’s Lists

The late Captain John P Thomson OBE of Sandness in Shetland knew John Isbester as a respected elder when he himself was a young officer. On his own retirement in the 1960s he went to considerable trouble to gather together a record of all the ships on which John Isbester sailed and sent it to my father. I have found this record and the commentary with which he accompanied it very helpful.

Useful advice on nautical sources and their interpretation from Emeritus Professor Tony Lane, a valued friend for more than 50 years, has been a considerable and welcome help, while Dr Alston Kennerley responded to my appeal for information on the loading, stowing and securing of cargo and ballast aboard sailing ships, suggesting a number of helpful and interesting sources.

From Shetland Davie Smith, retired fishing skipper, has helped me with his extensive knowledge of Shetland boats and fishing; John Goodlad PhD has made his fascinating study of the work of the Faroe smacks available to me; Marion Hughson, former Whiteness Registrar, has helped me to sort out details of the Isbester family history; and Florence Grains has clarified the story of Maggie Smith of Strome who ‘couldna leave the sheep’ to marry John Isbester in Liverpool.

A shipmate of mine from the 1950s, the late Alan Thompson, found himself sixty years later with the task of sorting through a neighbour’s posthumous papers. Recognising that the correspondence included letters from my aunt reminiscing about life at sea with her father, he traced me and sent them to me, for which resourceful and thoughtful act I am most grateful. The aunt in question was the late Kathleen William Margaret Davies, née Isbester, and I am grateful to her son the late John Davies, his widow Aeurona and their son Philip for memories shared and documents loaned.

When needing a second opinion on sailing ship matters I have been fortunate to be able to consult two experienced sailing ship men, Captain Peter Hamer BEng and Bill Dineley ExC. Bill also explored the resources of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and put me in contact with Gina Bardi, librarian, and her colleague Stephen Canright, park historian, both of whom were most helpful.

My warm thanks go to my grandsons Jonah and Reuben Privett who spent many hours searching through 5,000 wreck reports on the internet to identify large sailing ships which had been abandoned or lost between 1876 and 1914. Jonah also redrew and improved my diagrams, while Reuben created a Hard Down! website for me.

I am grateful to my nephew Andrew Isbester who discovered the record of John Isbester’s sighting of the intra-mercurial planet Vulcan; to Dr Anna Pegler-Gordon who provided me with a revealing story about events in Frisco; to Allen Martin who translated Captain Jaffré’s account of the rescue of the survivors of the Dalgonar disaster; and to Scott Muir who gave me some simple but effective advice on searching the internet.

Dr Rick Lupton earned my gratitude by honing my computing skills, while Dr Sean Privett-Main advised me on medical issues in my manuscript, and Claire Woodhead ACR preserved and digitised the 100-year-old Loire/Dalgonar trackchart tracing, while John Theobald skilfully digitised most of the ancient photos of family and ships. Alan Hanson from the Otago Shetland Society in Dunedin provided useful information about Isbester family members in New Zealand.

I am indebted to Captain Hdjalmar Styra in Bremen, Captain Jean-Daniel Troyat in Brittany, the late Captain Einar Sjuve in Tønsberg and Bjørn Tore Rosendahl PhD in Kristiansand for help with research in their localities.

Dr Keith Whittles and his publishing team have ‘gone the extra mile’ to give me a book of which I can be proud and for this I am very grateful.

If with all this help, so willingly and generously given, the book is less than perfect, the fault is mine.

Jack Isbester. Autumn 2018