Rotary Club of Shrewsbury GUEST SPEAKER – Bob Fowke
Bob Fowke with Rotary Club of Shrewsbury President John Siviter At the Rotary Club of Shrewsbury luncheon on 28 October 2015 our speaker was Bob Fowke. Bob, a writer from Bishops Castle, took us on a voyage of discovery to establish the identity of the real ancient mariner portrayed in that gothic blockbuster poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. The poem includes the story of an albatross which, after leading to safety the sailors trapped by the Antarctic ice, was shot dead by the ancient mariner. The idea for the poem, discussed by Coleridge with William Wordsworth as they walked the Quantock Hills above Watchet, Somerset, came from a 1726 book by Captain George Shelvocke. Folke’s research into that book led him to a sailor, Simon Hatley, who is said to have shot an albatross by bow and arrow. Hatley was lost at sea, only to be picked up by a Spanish ship, and then caught up in the Spanish Inquisition. Bob Fowke went to Madrid to search the Inquisition official records and found mention of Simon Hatley whom he later discovered came from Woodstock in Oxfordshire. Further research by Bob uncovered the amazing fact that on another voyage, Hatley, our new found ancient mariner, was on the very same ship as Alexander Selkirk, the marooned sailor whose story inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, and William Dampier, the adventurer whose story inspired Jonathon Swift to write Gulliver’s Travels. Summary report by Rtn David Pritchard.