“The difficulty of translating my thoughts was a real trouble.”

A Scots speaker's first collision with official English · Recollection of speaking to his chief in Aberdeen

• Identity
• Language
• Speech

“Two soldiers throwing Shakespearian quotations at each other from opposite ends of the cabin; a cockney sailor struggling into a clean shirt, quite a rare occurrence with him.”

A surveyor's comic eye for shipboard types before exile began in earnest · Voyage chronicle, outward passage to South Africa

• Humour
• Observation
• Travel

“I came to Aberdeen, a country lad of sixteen with a cockit bonnet and, because it was winter, a big gravit.”

The exile's first city self-portrait, still wearing the country mark · Later recollection of arriving as an apprentice

• Home
• Identity
• Youth