Hard down! Hard down!. Captain Jack Isbester
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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 Unpublished manuscript, p.6.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.
John and Susie’s first child, Arthur Craigie Isbester, was born on 4 January 1885 and was named after Susie’s brother, drowned in Quebec 15 years previously. Tragically he died less than three weeks later, on the 22nd of the month. John was still at home when this devastating occurrence took place – he had registered the birth the previous day. Over the years four of their children were to die as infants, but five survived to live full lives. I am aware of no official explanation for the deaths, but my father speculated that the water in the Olligarth well had been contaminated by liver fluke from sheep and was the cause.
My father, Charles Allan Isbester, was in later life an early user of the drug warfarin to thin his blood and, because this was of interest to the medical profession, a ‘routine hospital post mortem’ was performed when he died, aged 74. This found the immediate cause of death and also found ‘hepatic cirrhosis [i.e. cirrhosis of the liver] a morbid condition contributing to death but not related to the immediate cause’.1 My father was a lifelong teetotaller. Could he also have been a liver fluke survivor?
By the beginning of April John Isbester was back in Liverpool, staying in lodgings at 25 Chester Street and looking for the chance of a command. A possible temporary command was taken by a man prepared to accept £3 a week in port and £6 a week at sea, the superintendent telling John Isbester that he knew that John would not agree to such a low rate. The superintendent was not necessarily right on that: John Isbester’s pay as chief mate of the Queen of Australia had been £7 10s a month2 and this would have been significantly better, but he probably knew what a competent master could expect to be paid. A big barque was expected shortly from Queenstown, a ship on which Captain Arthurson of the West Ridge had served as mate, and John Isbester could probably get the mate’s job there. It was frustrating to not have promotion but when he reflected on how other men fared, he was doing no worse than they were.