Grandpa, the weather is so terrible, and we’re bored. Please, tell us a tale. Your tales are so exciting.

All right. But now it won’t be a fairy tale. It will be a true story about me and your grandmother, and of course about your fathers and mothers. Would you like to hear this story?

I was born on the 13th (of) April 1853 in Hampshire in the United Kingdom. I was 27 years old when I decided to come here to the Falklands to work.

Arriving

Their meeting and wedding. ( dance?)

A little bit later I met your grandmother, Hannah, whose father was a German dairy man. Then we got married. We lived in Teal Inlet because I worked there. While we lived there I built a small boat in my free time. In 1901 (nineteen hundred and one) we decided to move to Stanley. As we had six children we could just move with the help of the cutter Shamrock of Stanley. And it also had to carry our furniture. But I didn’t want to leave my boat there so I decided to sail the 35-40 miles with my son, Fredrick John, who was then 9 years old. In fine weather we could expect to complete this voyage in nine hours.

No, we couldn’t. Young Fred and I left Teal Inlet on the 5th (of) May before the Shamrock. Later the weather changed for the worse.

Their sailing in the storm (dance?) (calendar?)

Finally on (the) 6th (of) July after 62 days on the stormy seas we were rescued by the Argentine transport Guardia Nacional which took us to Buenos Aires.

No, we didn’t. We could return to Stanley on (the) 10th (of) August. By the time we arrived home our new daughter was already three months old. She was born while we were at sea.