A journal kept at sea, by Annie Calder
An original journal written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.
In this journal, kept in 1883, a young Scottish woman records her voyage by steamship from Glasgow to New York, where she was going to join her brother.
Tuesday. Our fifth day at sea, and the first on which I have been able to hold a pen, for the ship has rolled without mercy since we passed the north of Ireland, and I have lain in my berth unable to keep down so much as a spoonful of broth. There are six of us in a cabin no larger than Mother’s scullery, with the bunks set one above another like shelves in a press. The two Irish girls below me have been kind beyond anything, bringing me dry biscuits and cold tea, though they were scarcely better themselves.
This morning the sea grew calmer and I went on deck at last. The steerage passengers are allowed only the forward part of the ship, behind a rope, and there must have been three hundred of us crowded there in the sunshine: Swedes, Germans, Irish and Scotch, babies crying in every language. A fiddler played reels and some of the young men danced, though the deck tilted under them like a see-saw.
Our dinner was salt beef, potatoes and a pudding the stewards call ‘duff’, which is heavy enough to sink the ship. We are given fresh water once a day in a tin can, and must make it last.
The purser says we shall see the American coast on Sunday, if the weather holds. I have taken out my brother Robert’s letter again and read it until the paper is soft. I wonder whether he will know me.
(a) How many people shared the writer’s cabin? (b) What did the two Irish girls bring the writer? (c) What does the final paragraph suggest about the writer’s feelings about meeting her brother?
120 exam-style questions on Eduqas GCSE English Language 2.1.1 Two unseen non-fiction texts, 19th and 21st century. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.