Nisbet, Albert Edward

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A Veteran of Jutland A MAN WHO SERVED on HMS Barham at the Battle of Jutland is Albert Nisbet of Lerwick who joined the battleship as a lad of 16. He has had an interesting career which includes service through both world wars. He was born in 1899 in Liverpool, where his father was a policemen and in 1905 he came to stay with an aunt at North Yell while his father completed his police service. In 1908 the family took over ythe croft at Smithfield, Gutcher. Albert left school in 1914 and went as deckhand on the herring sailboat Star of the East. In those dayes young boys had a rough time at sea being given the most unpleasant job - that of coiling down the heavy tarred bushrope as the nets were hauled and to add to Albert's problems he suffered from seasickness. He got a job ashore at John Brown's station at Lerwick where he was engaged to wash fish before they were salted. On the outbreak of war he joined the St Ninian as crane boy encountering some stormy weather during the winter. On one occasion they were stormbound at Walls and took a fortnight on the return journey between Leith and the West Side ports. In June 1915 he and his pal, Willie Henry, decided to enlist in the Gordon Highlanders and travelled to Lerwick one Saturday for that purpose. They found the recruiting office closed and Before long Albert met a friend, leading seaman James Swanie, who suggested that he should come and join the RNR. Together they went to the Customs Office where Albert had to lie about his age saying that he was 18 when in fact he was only 16. Next day he passed a medical examination and on Monday he began drilling at Fort Charlotte. A few days later a notice went up on the board seeking a hundred men to go to Portsmouth and Albert was among those who volun- teered. The group went by troopship to Scrabster and then by train to Portsmouth. Albert was not there long since he was one of 22 men drafted to HMS Barhan, then fitting out at Clydebank. He served on her for the next three years. During the Battle of Jutland, Albert, with another Yell man, Bertie Anderson of Burravoe, was assigned to stand by one of the six inch guns in case the hydraulic training mechanism should break down when they would operate the hand training mechanism. Before the battle started he left his station to have a look outside the gun turret and he saw the horizon ringed with fire as the German ships started firing. Then the Barham opened up with her 15 inch guns and Albert was knocked flat on his back and his cap went over the side. Asked if he was ever afraid during the battle Albert replied, "I never seemed to think much about it." Albert remained on the Barhamuntil 1918 and finished his war service in minesweepers being de- mobbed on 29th January, 1919. Later in 1919 Albert married Minnie Spence of Cullivoe and they settled at Brough, Cullivoe, where they brought up their family of three daughters. The croft was, of course, too small to provide a living and the following year Albert went back to the Merchant Navy, his first ship being the ss Clifton Hall. His peacetime service was not without incident since he found himself in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. His ship had arrived at Huelva to load iron ore for Philadelphie but they got no cargo. They were stranded there for twelve days, often in the line of fire from a light cruiser which was shooting at enemy aircraft. The captain finally got clearance and they headed for Odessa to load a cargo of pig iron for Japan. On another occasion he was at New Britain and island in New Guinea, during a volcanic eruption when many islanders were killed and the dust lay more than a foot thick on the ship's decks. During the Second World War he enlisted as a member of Shetland's Home Defence and served in the Gordon Highlanders. He was the first man to take a watch on the top of Saxavord in Unst. After the war he returned to sea for a time, serving with Metal Industries on the salvage tugs Bertha and Metinda. He retained the croft in Yell until his wife died in 1971 when he handed it over to a daughter and son-in-law and moved the Lerwick. In 1973 he married Dora Paton who had been a brides- maid at his first wedding, she died in 1979. Now aged 85 Albert lives with his third wife at 68 North Lochside. He remains very fit and active taking long walks around Lerwick and going dancing at the British Legion on Saturday nights. Hard work and plenty of exercise he belives, are the secret for a long, active life.	Shetland Life, November 1985, Pages 13 and 14