COOK’S BIRTHPLACE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18576, 26 September 1928, Page 11

COOK’S BIRTHPLACE.

To th« Editor. Dear Sir, —It is rather a peculiar thing, but nevertheless true, that when people ask me what part of England I come from, and I say, from the same place where Captain Cook sailed from, they say, “Where is that?” In your London letter of August 9, it says, “ Captain Cook served in a haberdasher’s shop at Staines.” It should be Staithes, a small fishing village about twelve miles north of Whitby. I have been in the same shop, which had never been altered—not the last time I saw it. twenty years ago. Whitby is a very ancient town. The Whitby Monastery ■was founded in A.D. 657, where lived Caedmon, the first recognised poet. When I was a boy, it was a busy town, with jet-turning and shipbuilding, but both now are only a thing in memory. It was here that his ship, the Discovery, was built, in which he sailed the southern seas.—l am, etc., -WHITBYITE.