Skip to main content

We're not afraid to die

 I get a lot of queries from students as well as teachers about Gordon Cook's essay prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's class 11 English course. So I thought of presenting certain salient points here. [I'm thus saving myself from having to answer too many people.]

Gordon Cook was replicating the second voyage made by Captain James Cook from 1772 to 1775. Gordon Cook is not related directly to James Cook. James Cook was married but none of his children married and none of them had children of their own. So there are no direct descendants of Captain James Cook. 

James Cook undertook three voyages all of which started from Plymouth, the same starting point of Gordon Cook too. But only the second one was for circumnavigating the globe. The missions of the other two were different. Gordon Cook intended to go round the world too in a ship similar to the one used by his role model. 

Resolution and Adventure, a painting by William Hodges

Strictly speaking, the Resolution did not start voyage from Plymouth but a small river town called Sheerness. It carried 118 people including the 20 men who had sailed earlier on Cook's first voyage. At Plymouth, it was joined by another ship called Adventure. Both the ships together set sail from Plymouth on their mission on 13 July 1772. 

Gordon and family in their ship in 1976

James Cook's 3 Voyages: Green indicates 2nd

James Cook's second voyage was commissioned by the British government with the mission of not only going round the world but also determining whether there was a great landmass (Terra Australis) lying further south of Australia. That's why you will find the route taking too many circles near Australia. 

Ile Amsterdam

Ile Amsterdam and the neighbouring ÃŽle Saint-Paul were first claimed by France in June 1843. Today they are French scientific bases just as when Gordon Cook and family sought asylum there in Jan 1977. 

What happened to the Cook family after this? The textbook tells us that some of them were badly injured and needed much medical assistance. For example, Suzanne - the 7-year-old daughter - required 6 minor surgeries to remove a recurring blood clot in her head. 
Gordon receiving Lady Swathling Award

Gordon Cook was awarded the prestigious Lady Swathling trophy by the Shipwrecked Mariner's Society for that year's 'most outstanding act of seamanship and navigation that saved the lives of everyone on board.' But Gordon never turned up to receive the award until 33 years later. The Wavewalker was repaired in Australia and the voyage that was to last three years went on for 16 years. Mary who was a teacher by profession taught Jon and Sue in the ship. Later on Sue and Jon went on to take university degrees through distance education systems. But Gordon Cook was of the opinion that he had saved them from the British education system. 

After the longer-than-planned voyage, Gordon established a bookshop in Cambridge, England, in 1993. Jonathan went on to complete 4 Masters while Suzanne did PhD in zoology. In 2013, Gordon at the age of 74 was bitten by the travel bug again and undertook another round-the-world voyage, alone this time since Mary was not in the mood to join him. But she did join him at some places on his route for a few weeks. 

I haven't been able to find out more about Gordon and his family. Anyone who has more information is requested to leave it in the comments space below. It will be your gift to a lot of students and teachers. 



Comments

  1. Hari OM
    Most interesting! I was vaguely aware of this part of recent history, but had not known of the 2nd voyage undertaking. The most recent report I could find was from May 2019 in The Telegraph with Cook still out on the waters... so one wonders if he still out there somewhere?!! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That Telegraph article is one that I wanted to read but it keeps demanding subscription. Thanks for providing the information which i had suspected that Cook is still there somewhere in the seas.

      Delete
    2. Hari OM
      Paywalls are tiresome - just met same with your link in next post to the article on the subject. Still - your post was sufficient! Yxx

      Delete
  2. The daughter - Sue - has published her own account of the voyage in her book “Wavewalker”, April 2023

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r