The life of Captain James Cook

Captain Cook, the man who found the other side of the world. Oh yes, oh a little higher, just under me big toe, oh lovely. It's hard on the feet being an explorer and master navigator, all that time at the wheel of a ship. Just higher up, Pat, oh lovely. This envelope is addressed to me, Captain James Cook. Top secret, orders from the British government. But before I see what's in it, I'm just going to relax a bit more, then get into me uniform for my royal orders from home, Britain. Yes, I know, Captain Cook. I'm the bloke supposed to have discovered Australia, so you'll be looking for kangaroos and the like. Well, all in good time. Right now, I'm with my crew on this lovely island called Tahiti. And here are my crew making friends and getting into the local customs. What are those swinging beds, Ratchet? Hammers, sir. Goodness me. Abel Seaman Fumblefingers is having his skin stitched with ink. The locals call it tattoo, I gather. Ridiculous. Let me first tell you how I got to be sunning myself in Tahiti. It begins here in the chilly north of England, where my dad was a Scottish farmer. I said I wanted parrots, not carrots, Dad. He was a hard-working man, and he used to make me work hard too. Nothing wrong with that, except I'm not interested in farming. When I was 16, my dad sent me here to Mr. Sanderson's shop, which sold groceries and other stuff like ribbons and scissors and reels of cotton and combs and... Well, never mind. It's boring, that list. In a little village called Stays, which was a fishing village. What is it about the sea? I've never closed a window if it looked out on the ocean. It's the smell of adventure. Fishermen mending their nets, sailors telling tales, and the great salty hugeness of it pulling me like a ship pulls at an anchor. Mr. Sanderson could see that cutting ribbons and sorting buttons wasn't for me, and he got me my first job on a boat, a collier. That's a boat that carries coal for people's fires from the north where I live, along the coast of Britain to the south. Well, what better way is there to carry tons and tons of coal than on a boat? Don't think this is a cushy job. The work is dirty and hard and tiring, but oh, I love it. Before long, I get offered the job of captain on the collier, but no, I can do better than that. I can sail further than that. His Majesty's Royal Navy. That's where I want to belong. Proper sailors, great ships, amazing voyages. What a time to be alive. It's 250 years before your time. Britain's getting richer and richer and more and more powerful all the time. Sailing backwards and forwards to the new country of America and to the rest of the world, carrying all sorts of stuff. We've got the world's best ships, the world's best sailors, and I am set to be one of them. Goodbye coal. Hello adventure. I don't care if I have to start from the bottom. And it's not long before I discover a talent for looking at coastlines and making maps. And not long after that, I'm captain. Captain Cook. Not bad for a farmer's boy who'd never even seen the sea. Little did I know, but I was already being groomed for a special secret mission by the Royal Navy. The big cheeses at the Admiralty ordered me to sail the tropical island of Tahiti and watch the planet Venus pass in front of the sun. Something she only does every 100 or so years. That bit you can tell your friends. But after that, I was to go undercover with my crew and look for the new land that everyone thought lay in the southern part of the world. So, what is his mission? Well, it was not to discover Australia. Someone else has done that. But look, he is here on Tahiti. An island in the middle of a great big ocean. And everyone in England thought that there was a continent. But where is it? This huge land that everyone thought was there was supposed to be as big as America on the bottom half of the world. They thought if there was a big continent like America in the north, there must be one on the south. As big and as rich. A crazy idea, no? Treasure and anything else you find on the southern continent must be brought back to London for the inspection of His Majesty's Royal Society. And make sure you plant a flag saying the new land is the British southern continent. Terra Australis. The trouble was, there was no Terra Australis. Cook was looking for something huge that did not exist in a huge ocean, which certainly did exist. And while looking, he did what James Cook did best. He made maps of New Zealand, discovering it was actually two islands, and the east coast of Australia with all its wonders. First, I had to prepare my ship. The Endeavour. What would we need? One, an astronomer with a ginormous telescope and a ginormous brain. Two, a botanist. Someone who knows about plants and flowers. Three, Father Jim and Father Wilfred. Important for prayers on deck and converting anyone we meet to become a Newcastle United fan. I mean, sorry, Christian. Yeah, Christian, sorry Wilf. Four, a goat for milk. Five, a pig for meat. Six, fresh fruit and veg for the officers to eat. Seven, sauerkraut. Oh no! Go on, you'll love it. For the crew to eat. And it's basically smelly old cabbage and vinegar. But on a ship, it could save your life. Because if you don't eat your fruit and veg, you could get the dreaded scurvy. That's what killed most of the sailors in my day. First, your gums go black and your teeth fall out. Then you drop dead and you're buried at sea. Nowhere to stick your gravestone. I knew the crew wouldn't like sauerkraut, so with the officers, I tricked them into thinking it was a special treat. Oh, it's that posh sauerkraut clever rich people eat. More, please. Oh, cook, could I have some more? Yum, yum. More, please, cook. After watching the planet Venus getting in the way of the sun, we then set off on the second top secret part of our mission. Have you ever looked for something that's both very huge and also smaller than non-existent? No? Well, I didn't think so. It's not easy. After a long hunt, we found Australia. But that wasn't new. Some Dutch bloke had stopped by before us, but we liked it a lot. Friendly natives, interesting furry animals, fantastic flowers, lots of yummy fruity things, a nice warm water, and no one else there. I thought it was worth planting our flag there just in case we wanted to come back. Coming back? Wait a moment. We very nearly didn't leave. Stranded on an island, Australia, thousands of miles away from home, our old ship, the Endeavour, hit the famous underwater Great Barrier Reef. We didn't know it was there, of course. I thought we'd all drown. We only just made it ashore. There, we found a miracle. The big chunk of rocky stuff called coral that had cracked the hull had stuck fast and plugged the huge hole, stopping the Endeavour from sinking. After the prospect of being left on a faraway island forever, I was chuffed to little kit bags, me, when we got back to England. News of our journey and our exciting discoveries had reached home before us and there was a big celebration when we arrived. The King was pleased that Britain was now leading the way in exploring the world and discovering new lands. But, oh, I love the South Sea. I'm back on my travels halfway across the world again. Hey, I call these beautiful islands the Sam Wedge Islands, but these people making a big fuss of me call them Hawaii. Maybe they don't like sandwiches. Hey, guess what? They think I'm a visiting god. But there's been an argument between my men and the islanders about some stolen boat. Ah, I arrested an important island chief and I held him till they told me where our boat was. That was a big mistake. Look, lads, I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding, you know. Language barrier and all that, you know. No, no, no, no, no, no. Why should you remember Captain James Cook? Lots of reasons, you silly. He made excellent maps of New Zealand, of Australia, even of Canada. He was the first to really see Australia close up and to plant the British flag there. He made his men eat their fruit and veg and stop scurvy. He was a brilliant navigator and a courageous explorer. A true British hero.