![]() ![]() I wish I’d had more of those, but it’s very, very hard to find crew documents.” One such letter even reveals that the crew carved a makeshift pub out of the ice, deep in the Antarctic, to celebrate New Year together, far from home. “Those little glimpses of how people really felt, the raw stuff, someone telling their wife they might not see them again. “Today I knocked down an old penguin with my geological hammer,” reads one entry from his diary.īut some of the most human and moving moments come from snippets of letters from the less well-educated crew members, says Palin. Palin brings in as much of their original language as possible – in particular McCormick’s eccentric mix of awe and bloodlust for the natural world. These voices and personalities are the backbone of Palin’s book, giving the tale character, warmth and a level of human interest that makes Erebus something more than just naval history. ![]() The ship was named after the darkest part of hell, and it did go to the darkest parts of hell, really, in terms of human survival.Ī note found detailing the fate of the Franklin Expedition ![]() Some of the crew members from the original voyage had published their own accounts - including James Clark Ross, the captain, and Robert McCormick, the assistant-surgeon and naturalist - which formed the foundation of Palin’s reconstruction of the voyage. It’s such an extraordinary story, so getting the facts right was very, very important to me.” It was key for Palin to try and construct as accurate a portrait as possible, through contemporary accounts, ships’ logs, letters from the crew members, as well as secondary sources from historians and specialists. But what attracted me, really, was the truth of the story itself. “There’s the temptation to write in a little bit of fantasy, what might have happened, etc. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the final fate of the ship, but Palin never seriously considered writing the book as anything other than non-fiction. From the moment they discovered the wreck, I thought, ‘there’s a story of life, death and resurrection – I’ve got to tell it.’ This is a book for those with open minds and a sense of curiosity, which is the way I approached it.” A sketch by Owen Stanley, an officer on HMS Blazer It seemed to me a very good dramatic tale – even the fact that the ship was named after the darkest part of hell, and it did go to the darkest parts of hell, really, in terms of human survival.”Īfter Palin gave his talk in February 2013, fate seemed to intervene: “In 2014, after the Monty Python farewell shows at the O2, I suddenly had a bit of a gap because a travel programme I was going to do fell through, and then, within three weeks of finishing at the O2, the Prime Minister of Canada announced that they had discovered the wreck of the Erebus. “I was drawn to it for all sorts of reasons. During his research, Palin realised that before that, aged 23, Hooker was on one of the first expeditions to the Antarctic, on board a ship named the HMS Erebus. He chose Joseph Hooker, who became known as a “botanical pirate” after bringing rubber seeds from Brazil to Kew Gardens, where they were germinated and sent across the British colonies, effectively ending Brazil’s rubber trade. Palin first encountered the Erebus after being asked to give a talk at the Athenaeum Club about a former member. ![]()
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