19c mystery, murder and adventure in the Spice Islands [audio 1st 10min]

Comedienne, writer and psychologist Pamela Stephenson earlier this year sailed a yacht round the islands of Indonesia searching for traces of her great-great-grandfather, a British Master Mariner Samuel Stephenson -- known as Salty Sam. In 1821 he set off to Java (now in Indonesia) aboard his sailing ship the Rosalie. He somehow lost his ship and was killed either by pirates or by mutineers. A survivor told the tale, which made its way into some accounts in marine papers, but the details of the loss were never really clear. Sam's son later on set off for the Far East to reclaim the 80,000 Dutch florins supposed to have been lost. But he failed and settled in New Zealand, where, a couple of generations later, Pamela was born. Her interest in this part of her family's history came when she was approached in Malta by a woman who claimed to be a descendant of the survivor. After some research, Pamela -- herself a keen sailor -- decided to find out more. She got a crew together, sailed through seas infested with modern-day pirates, and faced many hazards from tropical storms to fishermen with dynamite. Presenter Peter Curran welcomes Pamela to recount her adventures, which have been recorded in a four-part TV series entitled Murder or Mutiny, to be broadcast on Sky One in the autumn. The TV series is accompanied by a book by the same name, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.