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
