AUDIENCES were entertained with interesting facts about bodies on Dartmoor and extraordinary explorers, during recent talks given in a series at The Wharf in Tavistock.

Simon Dell addressed an appreciative audience of almost 100 people who had braved the elements to go along to the Wharf for the regular Monday lunchtime talk. His subject was 'Bodies on the Moor', the story of bodies that had been found on Dartmoor as well as the stories of those who had lost their lives in various circumstances on the moorland during the past two centuries.

Many of the individual subjects who had been found on the moor were buried in Princetown graveyard — some were poignant stories of spending last hours in the magical beauty of the moor and others of sad misunderstandings leading to suicides.

Colin Kilvington also gave an illustrated talk as part of the Wharf's Teatime Talks series recently. He included Captain Tobias Furneaux, Plymothian, navigator and explorer.

Tobias Furneaux was the first man to circumnavigate the globe in both directions — something that even his contemporary Captain Cook did not do.

It was during Furneaux's first circumnavigation that the island of Tahiti was discovered. Later, Tobias commended HMS Adventure, which accompanied Cook's ship HMS Resolution on the second of Cook's three great voyages of discovery to the South Seas to search for and dispel the myth of a great southern continent — Terra Australis Incognita .

The next talk in the series will be by Professor Gareth Williams, a prestigious researcher and prize-winning author from the University of Bristol, entitled 'Obesity: Can We Stop It?' on Monday, March 3 at 2pm. All welcome to join what promises to be a fascinating event.