Mr Nick Kelley is Head of Publicity at Queenswood, in addition to teaching Drama and (from September 2021) Media Studies. Nick shares his review of Michael Palin’s Erebus: The Story of a Ship below.

Have you ever yearned to be an explorer? The first half of this fascinating, enthralling book will make you hungry for adventure, as you join Captain James Clark Ross and his crew on a pioneering voyage of discovery to Antarctica. The second half will appal and mesmerise you, as many of these same sailors become stranded at the opposite end of the Earth and succumb to the Arctic ice.

This is the remarkable true story of two nineteenth century ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, which together explored the extremities of the globe. The expedition to Antarctica in the early 1840s was a triumph. Captain Ross travelled further south than had ever been documented, mapping the Great Ice Barrier that now bears his name, and making great discoveries about this unknown continent and the few birds, animals and plants that lived there. Ross and his fellow sailors returned to heroes’ welcomes in 1843.

Two years later, the same ships – this time under the command of Sir John Franklin – were deployed in an expedition to seek out the Northwest Passage, the much sought-after trade route around the top of the North American content that would provide a quicker, cheaper means of travelling from Europe to Asia. But this proved to be a terribly ill-fated voyage. Erebus and Terror found themselves completely icebound in the frozen Arctic Ocean, and the crews were unable to free themselves. No one knows for certain what happened to the men, but it seems that they were stuck in the ice for up to three years before hunger and madness forced them to abandon their ships.

Michael Palin does a superb job of recreating their ordeal in grim – and at times grisly – detail. If you’re looking for a book that combines fascinating history with all the page-turning appeal of a tightly-plotted thriller, then I can highly recommend Erebus: The Story of a Ship.