LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

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