Mistress and Commander Read online

  ‘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.’

  Lee Durrell

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

  Peter Hughes, travel writer

  For ten years, Amelia Dalton owned a small ship running cruises to the remote island chains of Scotland’s stunning West Coast. She worked closely with The National Trust for Scotland, and gained her commercial qualifications as a Captain. Amelia now advises individual clients on river and ocean cruises and runs her own travel company, Amelia Dalton Travel.

  First published in Great Britain 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 may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © Amelia Dalton 2017

  Editor: Moira Forsyth

  The moral right of Amelia Dalton to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  This book is based on actual events. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals 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 and Noble

  Ebook compilation by Iolaire Typography Ltd

  To my wonderful, supportive son, Hugo and in memory of his little brother Digby.

  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 Flying Tomato 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 sh
e 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.