Windbound for days

To pour oil on troubled water is a saying that has been around for a long time. How far back is a matter of conjecture, says a reader in Montrose, who came across it recently in an old newspaper report dated December, 1884.

He tells me: “It concerned the captain of a locally-owned schooner Peter Brown, inward bound from Berwickupon-Tweed where she had been windbound for several days.

“A rocket had been fired from the coastguard station at Usan, alerting the lifeboat crew at Montrose that a boat heading north was making heavy weather. The lifeboat Mincing Lane was crewed and ready for launching when the craft offshore was identified as a Buckie fishing boat heading home from Great Yarmouth.

“An hour later, another rocket was fired and the lifeboat crew pulled for the river mouth to meet the new arrival, the schooner Peter Brown. She sailed towards the South Esk entrance and crossed the bar in fine style. Captain Taylor, when nearing the Annat Buoy, poured almost a gallon of oil on the broken seas which made ‘a perceptible effect’ and allowed an easier passage upriver. The captain stated afterwards he had frequently experienced the beneficial effort of ‘pouring oil on a heavy sea’.

“As the lifeboat crew were pulling their craft up to the boathouse, another large fishing boat appeared through the haze at the river mouth but it held away to the north. The Lifesaving Brigade had assembled at the Lower Lighthouse with their equipment and proceeded some distance along the sands in case any of the vessels came ashore but their services were not required.”

“Autumn colours provide a contrast with the greyness of the Balmashanner war memorial,” says John Crichton of Forfar.