# Workshop day-book of T. Ferrick, Old Customs House — 1961 to 1963 (transcribed)

*Transcribed from the second day-book, kept at the bench by the window. Spelling regularised;
nothing else touched.*

**14 March 1961.** Began the tide clock in earnest today, after two years of the harbour board
saying next year. Cleared the window bench. Dr Aldervane came down at noon, looked at the empty
bench for a while, and said "good" and went up again. That is as much ceremony as this house
runs to and more than I wanted.

**29 March 1961.** Brass from the mainland founders, forty ferlings the hundredweight and worth
it — the last lot from the harbour chandler machined like cheese. Paid another six ferlings
carriage and will not grudge it in writing, whatever I said on the quay.

**11 May 1961.** The problem is not the tide, the problem is the escapement carrying the tidal
train without the tidal train telling the escapement about the weather. Third sketch of a
double detent. Burnt my thumb on the small lamp, which the bench has done to me since I was
sixteen and will do to me at my funeral.

**2 August 1961.** Carried the two aneroids up to the KSB for proving, and stood the regulation
half hour while the reduction was made. Whatever else changes in this house, the KSB stair does
not get shorter. Both instruments within tolerance; the marine one only just. Marked it for the
softer duty.

**19 October 1961.** Equinoctial blow put water across the quay and the fish market smelt of it
for a week. Went along the strand at Corrie Ness on the Sunday with the youngest, who filled both
pockets with saltglass pebbles and one small crab, discovered late. A good piece of glass, the
black kind with the green edge; she means to set it in the lintel when she has a house, she says.
Eight years old and planning lintels.

**7 February 1962.** Double detent runs. Ran it dry on the bench through a full lunation of the
model train and it dropped no beat I could find. Dr A. came down, watched it the better part of
an hour without a word, then said it would do, which from her is a citation from the Republic.
Ordered the tower wheel castings — sixty-two ferlings, and the founder wants half in advance,
having been paid late once by a harbour board and never by me.

**23 June 1962.** All day on the tidal gearing for the home port. The arithmetic is the Survey's
and I trust it as I trust the tide itself, but cutting a wheel to it is another church. Fourteen
leaves recut where the count and my temper disagreed. The count was right both times, which I
record because Dr A. says a day-book that only remembers a man's victories is a calendar.

**15 January 1963.** Cold in the long room fit to prove brass by. The harbour size stands
complete on the bench and I find I walk past it on errands I invent. Proving begins Monday
against the transit series, one full lunation, and I will not shorten it though the board asks
weekly. The board would ask the tide to hurry if it thought the tide had a council it answered to.

**4 March 1963.** Set the clock going in the harbour tower today. No speeches, the board being
kept off by weather, for which the weather has my thanks. Dr A. climbed the tower with me,
watched the first change of the tidal train, and said that the tables promise and the harbour
performs, and that a clock that sides with the harbour was worth the wait. Then we came down and
had tea at the counter like any two islanders with a watch between them. The rate card goes up on
the tower door Monday. Let the tide argue with it.

**30 September 1963.** Half a year of the tower clock proved against the transit series and the
season's storms. The rate holds close enough that the Survey has stopped writing me letters,
which is the highest honour the Republic has yet paid me. The next in the order book is a house
size for the light on Little Moriny, and the bench by the window is cleared again. Begin
tomorrow.
