Michael Turner on Sir Francis Drake

Michael Turner explorer and author, is the acknowledged expert on the life of Sir Francis Drake. A dedicated historian, adventurer, and author of the epic four-volume biography In the Wake of Sir Francis Drake, since 1980, he has travelled to 46 countries and overseas territories to pictorially retrace every landfall, anchorage, and footprint of Drake's voyages. His journeys are based on meticulous and painstaking research that has resulted in the discovery and verification of Drake’s previously unidentified anchorages and places ashore. He is the founder of the Drake Exploration Society.

As a Drake expert, Michael is well known to the media as both presenter and inerviewee. He has appeared in documentaries on BBC2, History Channel, Discovery Channel, Canary Islands TV, BBC Points West, Canal 13 and Panama. He has been heard on BBC Radio2, 4 and 5, Radio Wiltshire, Bristol, Devon, ABC Australia and Radio Danube. Most recently he was interviewed by a French film crew prior to their expedition to the Dominican Republic and Panama.

For Words in Watchet, Michael will give an illustrated talk on ‘Sir Francis Drake's 1585-86 voyage to the Cape Verde Islands on to the West Indies, Florida and Virginia. This voyage lies between Drake marrying Elizabeth Sydenham and his 1589 recuperation at Monksilver when he attended his father-in-law's funeral at Stogumber.