KEY POINTS:
Our family records began around the year 1674 with the birth of my great-great-great-great
great-great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Hart in Birmingham, England.
He, too, was a journalist, before being beheaded for continually re-hashing the same columns, a crime that back then was on a par with heresy and witchcraft. It didn't
help that the column he continually re-hashed was entitled Witchcraft, Heresy and You, a guide to a life in the occult.
Fortunately, before he was beheaded he managed to father a child. Many onlookers saw this as taking a few liberties with the any-last-requests tradition, but if you put yourself in Thomas' shoes it's hard to think of a better one. Anyway, 2 1/2 minutes later he was dead and the seed that would be responsible for carrying on our family line was safe inside a buxom, mead-carrying wench who just happened to be standing by at the time.
Nine months later to the day in the seaside town of Whitby, Hank Hart was born with seawater running through his veins.
This was a very rare condition, with symptoms that included eyes that stung continuously, a salty upper lip and hardening of the arteries.
The condition couldn't even be treated with leeches as they found the blood too salty, leaving the sufferer no option but to drink gallons of fresh water, tequila, and lemons. With fresh water in short supply, sufferers often had no choice but to drink just the tequila and lemons in vast quantities, a treatment that was often worse than the cause, for the sufferer and their family and friends.
Most sufferers were alcoholics by the time they were 5.
Nobody knows whether it was the seawater running through his veins or just the need for adventure, but Hank heard the calling of a life at sea.
By the time he was 27, Hank Hart cut his teeth on the high seas as an eel fisherman, and it wasn't long before he had his own quota, a boat and a crew.
Around this time in Britain there was much talk about discovering the New World and an advertisement in the local gazette asked for suitable applicants to captain a ship called the Endeavour to the South Pacific.
Uncle Hank applied, but he didn't have his boat-masters' certificate, and his saltwater condition, and alcoholism meant he failed the medical. The job was given to another Whitby local, none other than Captain James Cook.
Uncle Hank did eventually secure a place on the ship as a crew member, and his presence on Endeavour would later prove very influential indeed.
He was taken on as a mid-ship disabled seaman of the lowest order and his main job on this treacherous voyage into the unknown was to be in charge of the GPS - goats, pigs and spuds.
A life at sea in the 18th century was a tough one and flogging was common, especially after lights out, but Uncle Hank was caught only twice, so he quickly moved up the ranks to mid-ship disabled seaman of the next order.
Now he was actually allowed above deck and his seaman skills immediately caught the eye of the great Captain Cook.
Uncle Hank's condition gave him the ability to drink seawater, and as it quite literally ran through his veins he could distinguish between the high-salinity water found in the middle of the ocean and the lower salinity saltwater closer to land.
By tasting the saltwater Uncle Hank could quite literally navigate the ship towards, or away from, land masses. This system was later fine-tuned somewhat to include Captain Cook drinking Uncle Hank's urine from a schooner so he could, to a degree, make his own navigational decisions.
This navigational tool proved invaluable for Captain Cook, and although none of them are prepared to go on the record and say it, most historians now believe that much of the credit for Captain Cook's nautical achievements should go to my Uncle Hank.
Many have even argued that the modern GPS navigational tool was named after Hank's amazing abilities and his first job on the ship, tending the goats, pigs and spuds.
On a less positive note, many experts also believe that Captain Cook's eventual demise at the hands of the Hawaiian locals might have been instigated by an intoxicated Uncle Hank throwing an empty tequila bottle at their tribal chief just as Cook stepped ashore to greet them.
This is pure speculation and once again none of the so-called experts are prepared to put their reputations on the line and state it as a fact.
What can't be disputed however is the important role, that Uncle Hank and subsequent generations of Harts played in New Zealand's brief but colourful history.
