Mistress and Commander E-Book

Amelia Dalton

• Herausgeber: Sandstone Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 310

Beschreibung

Weary of her Yorkshire county life of grouse moors and hunt balls, Amelia Dalton threw herself instead into converting a deep sea trawler into a holiday cruiser. Unprepared by her background, she had to deal with the closed community of fishermen in NE Scotland in the '90s, negotiate red tape, oversee shipyards and deal with engineers, while coping with demanding shareholders and wayward employees. What began as a love affair with the romance of the sea became a battle to stay afloat – financially and literally. This is a lively account of an adventure like no other – and a voyage of self-discovery.

Leseprobe

‘My encounters with Amelia Dalton have been mostly on the high seas near places like Madagascar, Borneo and Venezuela, where she has proven time and again her ingenuity, resilience and courage. Now I know how this mix of attributes came to reside in one extraordinary person. Mistress and Commander is exuberant, heart-warming and inspiring, a captivating read.’

LeeDurrell

‘Imagine A Year in Provence with the castof Para Handy; add a touch of James Herriot, andyou’ll get the drift ofMistress and Commander. ImagineFreya Stark, or some other dauntless female, taking on thealpha male communities of maritime Scotland and you’ll have the measure of Amelia Dalton.’

Peter Hughes, travel writer

For ten years, Amelia Dalton

First published in GreatBritain and the

United States of America

Sandstone Press Ltd

Dochcarty Road

Dingwall

Ross-shire

IV15 9UG

Scotland

www.sandstonepress.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without theexpress written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © Amelia Dalton2017

Editor: Moira Forsyth

The moral right of Amelia Daltonto be recognised as the author of this work hasbeen asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and PatentAct, 1988.

This book is based on actual events. Somenames have been changed to protect the privacy of theindividuals involved.

The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

ISBN: 978-1-910985-17-5

ISBNe: 978-1-910985-18-2

Cover design by David Wardle at Bold

To my wonderful, supportive son, Hugo and

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Acknowledgements

I owe many, many thanks to the people who enabled these events to take place and this book to exist. My then-husband, John for his early enthusiasm and financial wizardry, the shareholders for their finance, Kate for her stalwart strength, Cubby who taught me of the sea and whose jokes I shall never forget, Peter Hughes for his unceasing encouragement and patience, and finally, Moira at Sandstone Press for her unwavering help and advice.

All of you changed my life.

One

It was January 1989, the day of my father-in-law’s funeral and I was late. I hurried downstairs, past portraits of glaring ancestors and the armorial stained-glass window, resisting the urge to run. That would be considered unseemly. As I reached the bottom step, the ancient black Bakelite telephone, lurking on a linen chest, tinkled into life.

I knew I was already unpopular with my mother-in-law for not being ready and waiting in the drawing room and I really did not want to answer the insistent ringing. The grey, dead light of a winter afternoon in Yorkshire seeped through the chilly hunting lodge, packed with the great and good of the county come to pay their respects. If I answered the urgent ringing, as well as incurring my mother-in-law’s ire, my fierce sisters-in-law would accuse me, the future mistress of the estate, of taking over. Yet I couldn’t just ignore it; no doubt it would be someone wanting to offer condolences.

‘Could I speak to John Dalton?’ a woman’s crisp voice asked.

‘I’m afraid he’s busy,’ I said. ‘This is Amelia, his wife. Can I give him a message?’

‘I’m ringing about his boat,’ the woman continued. ‘Could you tell him there’s a problem? I’m told it’s sinking in the North Sea and an oil rig has had to be closed down.’

‘I’m sorry, but you must have the wrong—’ I stopped. What was she talking about? It dawned on me: we did have a boat, which we’d owned for all of two days. How could it be sinking already?

People were pouring past me, through the hall and on into the library, the drawing room, the study, filling up the house. My father-in-law had been much loved in the village and respected by all. He was a staunch churchman who had enjoyed a distinguished career as a major-general. Tall and handsome even in his eighties, he had been High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and possessed the quiet strength of those who have successfully negotiated war and command, dealt with family crises and village in-fighting, horses, shoots, hunts and dogs, as well as running London Zoo.

The high-ceilinged Victorian rooms were packed by now as I went looking for my husband, John. Eventually I found him. True to form, he wasted no time asking questions such as why was the boat sinking, but simply told me: ‘Sort it out, Amelia, but do it quietly.’

I had only seen what was to become ‘our’ boat once, when we had gone to check it out in Denmark, and I knew it was a powerful machine. We’d bought an Arctic trawler, built for working in frozen seas, eighty-five feet of solid oak. How could it be sinking? There were people on board – what about them? Shutting down an oil rig sounded horribly expensive.

I had no idea what to do. I was a middle-class Yorkshire girl with a background in antiques and cooking, the daughter of a judge, happily married with two little boys and an unruly springer spaniel.

I needed advice from the man we had engaged as our future skipper, Cubby MacKinnon. He was whiling away the days, as he waited for his new command, by keeping a fancy yacht warm through the winter. He, his wife, Kate and the yacht were tucked away in a remote village on Scotland’s west coast. I went back to the hall and rang his village pub fully expecting him to be there, propping up the bar. Surprisingly, he was not. The barman, in typically helpful west coast style, sent someone to find him. I waited, listening to faint sounds of laughter from the other end. Suddenly Cubby’s soft Highland tones came down the line into the hall. He listened to the little I could tell him. ‘Find a shipyard,’ was his succinct response.

Find a shipyard during a funeral party from the middle of the Yorkshire Pennines! I started with the basics – Directory Enquiries. Surprisingly, they gave me a number. But suspicion met me as I tried to sound knowledgeable about getting a large boat out of the sea. One yard after another made it quite clear they weren’t interested, each one fobbing me off with another shipyard’s number, but I ploughed on. In a flash of inspiration, I offered to pay the next one up front, using John’s gold Amex card. And so it was that a shipyard in a place curiously called ‘Fraserburgh’ became moderately willing to help.

‘Yes,’ I said gratefully, ‘she’ll be with you tomorrow. This is her call sign – Mike Hotel Alpha Zulu 8.’ I hoped I sounded professional.

Twenty minutes later I had made my excuses and was in the car, heading away from the ancestral pile along the gravel drive, leaving behind the tea and scones of the wake. It was dark, the road was icy, and I knew I had to get over the Pennines to the north-east corner of Scotland where it seemed I would find Fraserburgh. It looked a good way north of Aberdeen, so I must have at least a six- or seven-hour drive, and I needed to go via Glasgow to reach the west coast to collect Cubby and Kate. I settled into my seat and focused on the road as it wound away up Wensleydale, empty in the winter Pennine dark. My little car had been christened the Flying Tomato by Hugo, our older boy. The two boys, Hugo and his younger brother, Digby, had clambered into the back seat, giggling with excitement at being able to sit in a car with no roof, and they loved the Ferrari red. ‘Mummy, this is a flying tomato and we’re the seeds!’ Hugo had exclaimed and so the little Ford Escort XR3i had been the Flying Tomato ever since. Digby, enjoying the open roof, proudly called it our ‘topless’ car.

It was fun to drive, fast and responsive. I pressed the button for CD number three on the multi-disc player. Crystal Gayle crooned out from the dashboard, sweeping me on through the frosty night. I put my foot down; I needed to fly. I knew the boys would be happy and safe with Granny, and John was anxious for some good news.

The FlyingTomato slid on patches of ice on the unfenced moorland road. Sheep, sleeping on the tarmac for warmth, loomed out of the dark like grey lumps snow. I swerved to avoid them; hitting one would definitely slow me down. Now, though, I had time to reflect, as I worked my way through a bar of chocolate, how a sunny summer cruise to the magnificent archipelago of St Kilda five years earlier had led to this slippery winter dash. Marine mortgages, business expansion schemes, development loans, shareholders and curious machinery: they all loomed much like the sheep and would have to be negotiated just as carefully, I would learn. But I felt excited.

Ticking off the miles, the motorway sliced through central Glasgow. I paid the toll for the Erskine Bridge crossing over the River Clyde, and began to wind my way along the cold black shores of Loch Lomond. Crystal Gale was getting repetitive but I was focusing on the twists and sharp bends of the road on this icy January night. On the straighter stretches I could push on and we swooped over the Rest and Be Thankful mountain pass, dropping down towards Inveraray. The sky was starry and frosty, but the road over the pass was well gritted and there were no cars to slow me down: the Flying Tomato sped along. Six hours after leaving Yorkshire, we slithered around the last tight bend into the tiny canal-side hamlet of Crinan. I parked close to the pub tucked under the hillside where I had called Cubby, and grabbing a torch from the glove pocket made my way across the glittering grass. No mobiles then, just a cold call box with a clammy black handset whiffing strongly of fish. I gave John a quick ring to report on progress.

After the snug warmth of the Flying Tomato, the chill of the phone box cut through my weariness and when John told me the news, I was sharply awake. His office had called again. It seemed our trawler, glamorously named Monaco, had been declared a full-scale emergency. However, John, typically resourceful, had found a tug and instructed the captain, whatever the swells and seas of January, to find her wherever she was in the North Sea, and to rescue her. But even this had not been enough: the Monaco was sinking too fast to get to Fraserburgh. The lifeboat had been called out too and now she was now being towed by the lifeboat into Peterhead. ‘That’s about thirty miles north of Aberdeen and so not as far as Fraserburgh. Get there,’ John said, ‘as quick as you can. I’ve spoken to Adrian and he’s on his way too.’ Relief flooded through me. I’d met Adrian, our marine surveyor, a couple of times. He’d done the final survey of the Monaco before we bought her. He knew about boats and the sea, and he would be there in Peterhead.

I ran across the slippery wooden lock gates, anxious not to waste time. There was the flimsy white yacht with Cubby and Kate, who were on their umpteenth coffee, killing time. But they were ready to go and I was thankful their funds hadn’t run to a dram to ease the boredom of the wait.

Squeezing into the Flying Tomato, we headed off into the dark. I settled in for another five hours of twisty roads, but this time I had company. Cubby was ensconced in the front seat, quietly teasing tobacco out of a plastic pouch to roll a skimpy cigarette, and Kate – over six foot two of her – was curled up in the back, a large bottle of Irn-Bru wedged next to her proclaiming her Glaswegian origins. It was good to see them and hear their news. I knew none of the people they talked about, but the miles clocked up faster and the craic was entertaining.

‘Do you think his survey was a load of rubbish?’ I asked anxiously after a while, keen to have Cubby’s view. ‘Do you think she’s just a tub full of holes?’

‘No, I reckon she’s OK. But there’s a wee problem somewhere,’ Cubby said.

Finally, after six hours of driving, I eased the trusty Tomato downhill into the granite port of Peterhead. The thin light of a bleak winter morning lit the blank, faceless walls of the top-security prison glowering over the town and the air was thick with a smell of treacle and fish. With its Branston pickle factory and tight-knit Baptist community of resilient, monosyllabic fishermen, Peterhead would become a vital part of my life. Over the years to come I learnt what made the town buzz, but right now I needed to negotiate the narrow streets leading down to the harbour and find our boat. Kate had never seen her, and Cubby and I only briefly three weeks earlier.

Exhaustion, momentarily gone in the excitement of arriving, now washed through me like an outgoing tide as I stopped the car. In the half-light of a dreich January morning, we peered through the windscreen towards a dense mass of trawlers tied up three or four deep along the quays. We searched for the Monaco. All I could see was a forest of steel struts and masts. In due course I learnt they were radar scanners, VHF aerials, whalebacks (deck shelters), rigging, trawl doors, A-frames and gallows. Cubby, totally at home in this apparently chaotic muddle, gently reminded me that she would have been pulled up out of the water to stop her sinking, so we needed to find the slipway. A working port landing hundreds of tons of fish every morning would not countenance a sinking boat in the harbour: the Monaco would be well out of the way, not hindering the urgent movements of the trawler fleet.

The harbour had five interconnecting basins, linked with narrow channels and swing bridges, and in the furthest corner from the sea was a large open area with sections where five ships could be pulled up out of the water. And there she was. There was the Monaco, looking totally unlike anything around her: like a fish out of water. She was not a trim, purposeful navy blue or black Scottish fishing machine, with tidy decks and neatly stowed fishing machinery. She was a bulky, tangled, smashed up mess. And her hull was painted the palest, daintiest, most delicate sky blue. She was, after all, Danish and the Danes painted all their fishing boats sky blue. You need a few tricks to ensure a big catch and a light blue hull merges into the dips and troughs of the swells, the spray and the mist, and you become invisible. A canny skipper can fish where he likes, secretly and unnoticed.

As well as looking completely out of place, Monaco seemed to writhe like an ant heap. People swarmed all over her. Men were underneath her, hammering at the hull, and there were more on deck, hacking at the twisted, broken fishing gear. Another bunch looked down from the wheelhouse windows forty feet above. I stood on the sloping concrete, staring up at the activity in a state of disbelief as again I wondered about the survey and whether this workforce was simply covering up inadequacies we should have known about.

Cubby leant against the harbour wall, again rolling a cigarette, eyeing up this mess that was supposed to be his future command. When he’d last seen her, she had at least been floating. Kate stood rigid beside him, staring, not moving a muscle, at the pale blue hull. A month ago she had signed on as cook and mate and this was her first introduction to her future life.

Monaco loomed over the wet, windswept slipway, high above us. She looked huge. But she was not threatening, already she almost seemed a bit of a friend, if a demanding one.

A lugubrious face peered out of a wheelhouse window: our surveyor, Adrian. He waved and made his way slowly down the ladder, joining us on the sloping concrete.

‘Hello! When did you get here?’ I could feel Cubby eying him up and knew he was wondering about the survey too. But when he and I had seen her we’d been sure she was not just a rotten hulk unable to keep out the sea. Cubby wandered off and slowly worked his way around underneath the hull, studying the planking.

‘Adrian, please could you tell everyone to stop? We’d like to have a look round,’ I said as firmly as I could manage.

‘But every moment she’s on the slip, up out of the water, is really costly. There’s no point in wasting any time,’ he protested.

I glanced across at Cubby, who by now been all round under the hull and was resolutely studying his roll-up.

I persisted. ‘Yes, of course you’re right, thanks. But all the same, please can you tell everyone to stop working and take a break. I’d just like to take a moment to see what’s what.’

Not waiting for an answer, I took a deep breath and put my foot on the first rung of the ladder stretching up the Monaco’s side. Thirty foot above, it was lashed to the gunwale and as I started to climb, it dipped and flexed each time I moved. Eyes watched from across the harbour, from under the hull and down from the deck. I climbed gingerly upwards. I was really tired and my legs were wobbly and stiff after the drive. I just kept going steadily, hand over hand. Up and up. The ladder bounced more and more as the others started up behind me. Eventually I reached the top and flung a leg over the gunwale, virtually falling on to the damaged deck. Carefully I worked my way around the torn, twisted metal and broken fishing gear which formed a steel cat’s cradle over the deck, making my way over to the port side: I could just remember the layout.

I allowed myself a little grin. I’d made it — I was standing in the wheelhouse.

Two

It was all my father’s fault.

In 1983, six years before my father-in-law’s death, I had been sorting out the larder at our home in the tidy little garden suburb of Barnes when the phone interrupted me.

‘Oh, Papa, it’s you, how nice. How are you?’

‘All well here.’ He sounded as positive as ever. ‘How are things with you? How is Digby?’ He could always tell when I was a bit low, and Digby found even the early summer warmth difficult. ‘Yes, it is extremely trying, I know. But it’s time you and John had a break. Digby will be fine. You’ve not left him day or night for almost four years. It will be good for you. I’ve chartered a small boat for a week on the west coast of Scotland. The highlight will be visiting St Kilda.’

‘Papa, I’ve never heard of St Kilda and I really don’t want to leave Diggers.’ I was not the slightest bit keen, but he was used to getting his own way.

Diggers, as he was always known, was our second son. Hugo, the eldest, had burst into the world, pink, happy and bouncing fit, like a miniature Buddha, but Digby had been frail from the start and I had known something was not right. He was smiley, and usually happy, but at times was clearly in pain and I seemed unable to help. He was regularly drenched in sweat and often overheated. Feeding him was difficult too and he was horribly thin. Four years of ceaseless hospital investigations had come up with nothing. None of the experienced medics at Great Ormond Street Hospital had an answer. He’d fought pneumonia three times, his skin was thin and fragile and at the age of four he was still unable to walk. I spent every moment of every day, and most of every wakeful night, trying to figure it out. But he was also utterly endearing and rewarding. He was very bright, delightfully musical, had a glorious giggle and a disarming smile. ‘You’re not going anywhere! You’re staying here with me!’ he would say when I bent down to kiss him goodnight, locking a thin arm around my neck. I was lucky to have wonderful help in the pretty Sarah, whom the boys adored and who was as calm as I was frantic. She loved the boys but was rather less sure of our springer spaniel, Conker.

John, rather to my surprise, had agreed with my father. A break would do us both good and so, with much trepidation, we had left the boys in Yorkshire with John’s efficient mother and major-general father in charge. But once we got to Scotland I knew I’d be out of communication, bobbing around in a boat way out in the Atlantic.

As we travelled north, my mother told me, ‘As you know, Amelia, I’ve travelled all over the world with your father, and really, the west coast of Scotland still remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.’

The two of them had travelled widely, to New Zealand, Capri, Dubrovnik and Sicily. They had stayed at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice and in glorious private chateaux in the Medoc attending glamorous wine parties, so it seemed curious she regarded Scotland so highly. As my mother wittered on, I pretended to be dozing. I had a good excuse after hours in the rattling so-called ‘sleeper’ from London.

I gazed out at the hills as the train trundled towards Oban. They really were a soft heathery purple and the wild irises beside the track made spectacular splashes of gold. It was a perfect early summer’s morning in June and my first visit to Scotland. We were an ill-assorted party of twelve. No one knew everyone. Glancing around the carriage, I surreptitiously tried to size them up. In Oban we were to join the boat chartered to take us to what had once been Britain’s most remote island community – the jewel in the crown of the Scottish National Trust – the lonely archipelago of St Kilda. My father and his chum Viscount Livesey were involved in raising money to support the Trust’s projects there and felt they should visit the island and learn first-hand why it mattered.

It was my thirty-first birthday but even the champagne at breakfast had made little difference to my mood. I felt utterly miserable at leaving the boys, wondering if Diggers would be OK and whether Sarah would remember to check on him every hour through the night as I did. My charismatic, charming gynaecologist, Dickie, who had delivered Digby and now sat opposite me, nodding off, had insisted I should have bubbly for breakfast. Disapproval tinged with envy had oozed from every smoke-reeking pore of the elderly waiter in the station hotel at Glasgow Central, and in the Victorian gloom the early risers had been shocked at the sight of bubbly at seven a.m. I was still not sure what had made me suggest to Dickie and his wife, Sarah, that they might like to come with us. We had been practising a whip finish on a particularly pretty Green Highlander double-hooked salmon fly we were learning to tie at evening classes in Putney when the idea had come to me. And so here they were. They seemed happy enough, but who could tell?

A five-minute walk from the ornate station in Oban took us to the quay. Gulls strutted through fishy puddles, a big black-and-red car ferry loomed over the fishing boats tied up two or three deep alongside the pier. I followed along behind the viscount, wondering if we were in the right part of the harbour, then he stopped at the edge by a gaggle of trawlers and peered down. Twenty feet below, in deep shade, was a small black boat. I had been looking forward to a sleek white yacht, with smart teak deck furniture and cushions neatly piped and plumped, maybe a matching deck awning, and of course a sexy crew of bronzed hunks in white shorts and blue jerseys. Instead there was a scruffy old fishing boat, its deck awash with plastic carrier bags, and no one to be seen. No crew bustling about, no welcome party. We all peered over the edge, looking into the shadows below.

A tousled head with balding patch was suddenly stuck out of a window. ‘You’ve arrived. Come on down. Can you manage the ladder? Tide’s awful low just now.’ I stood back, waiting for one of the men to go first, to see how it was done. My turn. I plucked up courage and launched myself over the edge of the quay onto the top rung of the ladder, leaning out over the twenty-foot drop while I hung onto a bar set into the concrete and started down the vertical ladder. As I neared the boat the man grasped my arm to make sure I didn’t slip as I stretched across the gap between the ladder and the side of the boat. Rather to everyone’s surprise, we were soon all standing safely on the deck. The man flicked his cigarette into the water.

‘Hullo, I’m Cubby. I’ll not shake hands – they’re a wee bit oily.’ I wondered whether Veronica, the immaculate girl I had barely spoken to, had an oily handprint on the sleeve of her cashmere jersey. He turned towards a woman now standing on deck: she looked equally tousled.

‘This is my wife, Kate. I’m glad you’re not late. The forecast’s good, a variable 3, so we’ll be off in just a wee while.’ He was quite short, with a neat little beard and a thin line of hair as a moustache along his upper lip. He looked bouncy and compact, light on his toes and completely in command. There was no air of deference to the viscount or to any of us, the charterers standing on his deck. Kate was a good six inches taller and looked a solid, no-nonsense type, with short spiky blonde hair. She smiled welcomingly and told us we’d find crisps and yoghurt in the saloon. Then she scampered up the ladder to deal with the cache of luggage waiting on the quay.

We stood about awkwardly, trying not to get in the way, as between them Cubby and Kate roped down our bags; soon these nestled amongst the cardboard boxes and bulging carrier bags which littered the deck. Weetabix, UHT milk, digestive biscuits and a catering-sized pack of banana yoghurts snuggled up to tins of baked beans. None of it looked very encouraging.

‘Katie! Are you there? Here’s your fish,’ a voice shouted from above. More boxes were roped down, this time with sandwiches labelled ‘crab’ and ‘prawn’ and finally two silvery salmon came swinging down on string looped through their mouths and gills. Papa squeezed about moving amongst the provisions, carefully studying the cardboard boxes. I knew he was searching to make sure the ones stamped Wine Society had arrived.

Seeing the others going inside the little boat, I followed, stepping up into a cramped passage. The others had all disappeared along the deck and, like everyone else, John and I needed to bag a cabin. We ended up with the smallest, immediately at the bottom of the vertiginous ladder-like stairs. It had two small bunk beds, three shelves fitted across a corner and a minute washbasin. I could just stand upright if I squeezed in alongside the bunks. All the cabins opened off the narrow barely lit passageway and people edged politely past each other, manoeuvring about to get their bags into their cabins. It all felt like boarding school at the start of a new term.

‘Darling, whatever kind of boat is it? You never said it would be like this!’ Veronica screeched. There was a mumbled reply from her companion Vernon, clearly well practised in absorbing her criticisms.

A steady rhythmic vibration began. Scrambling hand over hand up the ladder, I lurched over the high metal step and out onto the deck. In the midday sunshine with a cool breeze, the Conochbar had left the quay and was nosing out from between the fishing boats. Curious heaped-up chain-link contraptions stuck menacingly over their sides but she squeezed past without touching anything, turning away from the trawlers and the huge black and white ferries with Caledonian MacBrayne stamped along their sides. I stood in the bow and watched the hills above the town grow as we moved out into the harbour. The deck shook slightly under my feet and our boat turned to point towards open water.

Oban, compact with its prim little station and neat Victorian houses circling the bay, was to become the beginning and end of countless voyages. It was a view I would come to welcome. But for now I had not the slightest indication that from the first beat of the engine, my life had changed. My first experience of the west coast and my life at sea had begun.

John, calm as ever, stood chatting to Dickie. My mind drifted back to the boys, wondering again how they were. Glancing up at the windows of the wheelhouse high above the deck I could see Cubby was at the wheel, Kate standing next to him. I waved cheerfully and then felt rather silly as neither waved back. I realised they were doing whatever you needed to do to get out of harbour on a busy sunny weekend at lunchtime in June. Ahead, there was an imposing fortress-like castle and a little lighthouse like a tiny white exclamation mark; both were dwarfed by the magnificent hills. Scotland. It was just as I had imagined: it really did look like a picture on a biscuit tin.

Our party of twelve was made up of the viscount’s six and my father’s six. Viscount Livesey, a Yorkshire friend of Papa’s, with his wife, Patsy, had brought their four friends: a journalist called Veronica with her absorbent boyfriend, Vernon, and an elegant couple who it seemed had their own yacht. Not, I suspected, like this workaday trawler, as they lived in the Canaries and owned a banana plantation. They had brought their house flag with them and now a bright yellow curved banana on a pale blue background fluttered incongruously beside the radar on the Conochbar’s stumpy mast.

We cruised up the Sound of Mull heading north-west. Little villages and white cottages dotted the shores, and it all looked idyllic in the warm sunshine as we ate our sandwiches on deck. After about three hours, the coast fell away behind and out in open waters the deck began to lift, much to my delight. It was like being at the fair.

‘Hello! Can I come in, please?’ I knocked on the wheelhouse door.

‘Aye, in you come. There’s not much of a seat, but you’re very welcome.’ I squeezed in and sat down quietly on the port side. ‘That’s Ardnamurchan light.’ Cubby pointed to a big white lighthouse standing out on a rocky promontory. There were bumps of other islands, smoky blue and hazy in the distance. ‘Those’ll be the Small Isles, Canna, Rum, Eigg and Muck,’ he went on, seeing where I was looking. ‘And that’s Skye away over there with the high hills. They’re the Cullins; they just rip the arse out of the clouds! That’s why it rains so much.’ I giggled at the graphic description. It all seemed pretty with the sea a soft blue. Maybe my mother had been right after all.

Fourteen hours after leaving Oban we arrived at the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. We’d been rocked to sleep after a surprisingly delicious dinner of salmon and plum crumble, not a sign of the banana yoghurt, while our floating home had steamed steadily across the open waters of the Minch. Cubby had told us we’d be allowed ashore and, as the boat neared the quay in the little port of Lochmaddy, Dickie announced he’d been at medical school with the doctor who had kindly offered us the use of his car. The four of us jumped in; Dickie knew the island well from previous holidays spent fishing amongst the tiny lochs spattered amongst its flat, peat bog terrain. He headed the car across the island towards the beaches on the western side until we found ourselves looking again at the sea, at the open Atlantic with nothing between us and America, only our destination, St Kilda, way out there in the soft misty distance. The beach stretched away into the distance: right and left, pure and white, it stretched, unrolling like a ribbon, as far as I could see.

‘Where’s Dickie disappeared to?’ I asked, turning to John who was sitting on a tuft of grass taking off his socks.

‘Wha-hay!’ A naked man hurtled past me down the beach and plunged into the waves. Dickie! Starkers! It was usually he who saw me with not much on, not the other way round. Sarah was snuggled down into her Barbour jacket with clearly no intention of joining him. Three of us, trousers hitched up, paddled rather primly along in the strand while Dickie swam way out into the silvery sea.

Cubby’s strictures about boat behaviour and timing had been unequivocal: we knew not to be late and we also knew by now that Cubby was God. The skipper is always God, but Cubby had made his command quite clear from the moment we had stepped onto the deck of ‘his’ boat. We could join him in the wheelhouse and he had joined us for a dram after dinner, but whilst we might have chartered the boat, viscounts, surgeons, judges, journalists and financial wizards were all to dance to Cubby’s tune.

‘There’s one of you not here!’ he growled as we climbed down the ladder to get back on board. ‘You were to be back for four and it’s now fifteen past.’ Above the sound of the engine, John shouted, ‘Veronica’s squatting in the pub!’ As Dickie had parked the car, Veronica, swathed in a Hermes headscarf, had stalked past us, going in the opposite direction away from the quay.

‘Just orff to the pub, darlings!’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘I’m totally constipated at the sight of that loo! And how could anyone possibly call it a bathroom?’ Now, she was just visible, as she sauntered slowly along.

‘Buck up or the gap’ll be too wide!’ John called, standing on the gunwale with hand outstretched as the Conochbar steadily moved backwards. Cubby hung out of the wheelhouse window, watching, a roll-up firmly clamped between his lips as he judged the slowly widening gap. He winked and took the cigarette out of his mouth, pointed at me and then at the seat beside him. No one else had seen; all eyes had been on Veronica and the carefully judged widening gap.

John pulled her over the gunwale and inelegantly she fell onto the deck. Cubby knew exactly how to make it difficult but not impossible even in high heels.

The route out to St Kilda, between the islands of North Uist and Harris, was tricky to navigate and shallow so our boat could only make the passage at the right state of tide. Most boats, I later learned, avoided the route, deeming it far too complicated and dangerous, but it was shorter than going north around the Butt of Lewis, or south to Barra Head and offered less open water for the crossing: Cubby knew it well. I had loved every single second since leaving Oban: the space, the swooping, swirling seabirds, the misty blue islands strung out across the soft blue sea, the whoosh as the bow cut through the clear rolling swells. Every moment had filled me with a sense of mystery and excitement and even the ceaseless worry of Digby was easing. John’s mother knew how to contact the boat, so I fervently hoped no news was good news, but I did wish there had been time to ring and check he was all right.

Squeezing past Kate and Dickie who were chatting in the galley, I knocked on the little door into the wheelhouse. Cubby, at the wheel, had the VHF handset tucked under his chin. He waved me in, still speaking to someone he clearly knew well.

‘Thanks, Murdo, it’s good to know there’s not too much of a swell out there.’ The VHF, it seemed, was not just for serious things, but gossip too; not only could you chat, you could also learn about the swell and sea conditions where you were going.

I carefully eased past him and tucked myself into the corner seat out of the way. I looked at the chart – yet another new thing.