Of my short story ‘Dreamed a Dream,’ Michel Faber wrote: ‘…it grips us solely with the poetry of its prose and the atmosphere of long-simmered madness.’ (Foreword to Fish Publishing’s anthology 2005-6, All the King’s Men).
The madness belongs to Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (pictured here) who was second-in-command of Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest passage for ships across the top of Canada. Equipment aboard the two ships was state-of-the-art for 1845, but this did not prevent their being stuck fast in ice that refused to melt despite two springs. The story goes that Captain Crozier advised against advancing into pack-ice. The men suffered not only from hunger, but also from lead poisoning from the inadequate soldering of newfangled canned food.
The little town of Banbridge in County Down, Ireland, boasts a statue of Captain Crozier, surrounded by polar bears.
Yes, the good Captain was an ancestor of mine.