It would be a family party. I would invite my great-great grandparents, John Palmer and Mary Gibson Palmer, and my great grandparents, John Palmer and Mary McAlpine Palmer. Of the four of them, Mary McAlpine Palmer was the only one born on Bute. The other three came to Rothesay in 1844 from Kirkcudbrightshire. The time of the party is very tricky to work out. The younger John and Mary were married in September 1871 and the elder Mary died in February 1873. My grandfather was born in July 1872. There would have been many times during that period when a get-together would have been impossible to arrange. Perhaps it could be a pre-wedding party. I would imagine that John and Mary had known each other for quite a while—she was 34 and he was 32 at the time of the marriage—and they lived within walking distance of each other. John junior was the eldest of his parents’ children still alive in 1871—as far as I know, the first son to marry. He was a merchant mariner on the high seas and had obtained his first mate’s ticket in 1861. Several years ago I attempted to trace his career. I came to a dead end in 1870 when he was obliged to leave his ship, “Annie”, in Cartagena, Spain, after her owners sold her and paid off the crew. After that, John continued to describe himself as a mariner, so he may have worked the inland waters closer to home on the Firth of Clyde. John Palmer, senior, was the schoolmaster of the Burgh School in Rothesay, also the Civil Registrar for the Burgh and the Clerk of the Session of the Church of Scotland. He had come to Rothesay following the 1843 Disruption in the Presbyterian Church. The rift between the sides of the dispute in Rothesay was quite severe and left the Established Church of Scotland in the town without a minister, a schoolmaster, a chief steward or a beadle. The Session Records following the Disruption put the greatest stress of the loss of the chief steward. It was obvious the heritors had to make sure that the church’s funds had not left with him. The chief heritor was the Marquess of Bute and he must have taken it into his own hands to find a new minister and schoolmaster. John Palmer’s previous post had been as schoolmaster in the Southwick portion of Colvend parish, where the Marquess of Bute had considerable land holdings. John and Mary arrived in Rothesay in January of 1844 with 5 children. The enrolment of the school at the time was nine pupils. Over the ensuing 25 years the burgh school steadily increased its enrolment. Its principal schoolroom was the ground floor of 37 Bishop Street, the two upper floors being the Palmers’ home. Looking at the house today, one wonders how quickly pupil numbers became so large that they had to seek additional accommodation. Just how many children could be fitted into a space that might total 15ft x 30ft? By the mid-1860s the heritors settled on the location for a new school, but it was not opened until 1877 when over 400 children, including my 5-year-old grandfather, marched in formation from Bishop Street up to Mill Street. I am sure it would take more than an evening for Schoolmaster Palmer to tell me all the difficulties that occurred through that time. And what about the ladies of the party? First, how were they addressed? In all formal references they are both given the name Mary, but I have seen letters in which my great-great grandmother was referred to as May Gibson, and my grandfather always said that his mother’s name was Marea. What did they look like? From a photograph I can recognize Marea McAlpine—her hair parted in the centre and straight back from her face, plaited and wrapped round the back of her head, her face at first glance serious, but her eyes giving the hint of a smile. She would be dressed in black. Her mother and a brother died in 1871, possibly allowing Marea and John to marry and move into the flat at 3AVictoria Street. What was she like? I wish I knew. My grandfather never shared any memories of her with me. But what about May Gibson? I’ve never seen a photo of her. She had had thirteen children; in 1871 only seven were alive. The eldest daughter, Margaret, had never been in good health. She died eight months after her mother, from what her father described on her death certificate as “debility suffered over many years” . In 1848-49 three of the children had died within a twelve-month. At that time there was no register for their father to enter the reasons for their deaths. What had happened to them? How had these events left their stamp on May? One of her sons stated that she had been the mainstay of the household, that was why they all put off marrying till their thirties and beyond. There would be plenty to talk about. Even the problems of being Registrar for the Census just passed. What couldn’t be talked about was the future yet to come. May Gibson Palmer died in February 1873; Marea McAlpine Palmer in September 1880; John Palmer on 10 June 1881, less than a week after retiring from his post as Burgh Schoolmaster. His son, the mariner, died when? I do not know. He apparently went back to working on the high seas, leaving my grandfather in the care of his Aunt Bella. One day, returning home from school, he was told that his father had died somewhere abroad. I was fifteen when my grandfather told me that, too impatient to get on with life in the here and now to hear the rest of the story. But I have never found a record of the death of John Palmer, the mariner. After that I can't say /cheers Pat Jeffs