YEAR 9 ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION TEXT

[Pages:2]DEPARTMENT FOR CURRICULUM, LIFELONG LEARNING AND EMPLOYABILITY Directorate for Learning and Assessment Programmes Educational Assessment Unit

Annual Examinations for Secondary Schools 2019

YEAR 9

ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION TEXT

Track 3

Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions on the main paper.

A student has found a 94-year-old message in a bottle from a teenager who sailed the world taking part in thrilling adventures and was looking for a fellow traveller.

5 Grant Peters, 26, from Toronto, discovered the glass container partially-buried in a sand dune on Post Office Bay, on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands. Inside was a scroll of paper - weathered and aged but luckily, still readable.

10 It was dated August 1, 1924 and said: `Hugh Craggs, Yacht St George RTYC. Will any finder please enclose message bearing date, name of finder, of ship, destination, do a rebury and send a postcard to Hugh Craggs 50 Ruskin Ave Manor Park London E12.'

15 Keen to find out more about the mystery sender, after seeing it in May, Grant asked for help on discussion forum Reddit. Here, the amazing life of Hugh Craggs was revealed - tales of his remarkable voyages and searches for pirate treasure.

In 1922, 18-year-old Hugh and his three brothers lived in East London with his mother Imogen, following the death of his father John, an inspector with Scotland 20 Yard who was also a published poet. Hugh, an assistant in the hosiery business, longed for a more thrilling life and tried to join Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. Sadly he wasn't chosen but then he saw an advert for a steward on an expedition to be led by Dr Cyril Lockhart Cottle, and funded by Sir Jeremiah Colman of the famous mustard family. They were to set sail from London on a 90-tonne 25 schooner called Malaya. Hugh wired Dr Cottle for a meeting and through his enthusiasm he secured a place, beating 2,000 other applicants.

In a newspaper interview just before they left, Hugh said: `I've been longing to go on a trip of adventure for years. It's come at last. `We are to be away for about three years. I expect to find all the things I've read about. Wild beasts, we're looking for 30 wild animals, fights with natives, we're ready for anything. 'The prime purpose of the expedition was to search for new species of porpoises and dolphins. Sadly they would do this `by harpooning them'.

The trip to the Galapagos, off the coast of Ecuador, where Hugh decided to leave his letter, was to last more than three years. Young Hugh had found his calling and

English ? Comprehension Text ? Year 9 ? Track 3 ? 2019

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35 wouldn't return to Britain - instead he would disembark in Colon, Panama, in February 1926 and then move to Cristobal in 1929.

This is where Hugh became a banker and met his wife, who he had one daughter with. Yet Hugh's adventurous spirit couldn't be tamed, and as revealed in the 1935 book `Rough and Tumble' by Bob Roberts, he longed to find the ?300million Lima Treasure. 40 This was supposedly an incredible hoard of gold and jewels stolen by an English ship's captain and said to be buried in a cave on Cocos.

Yet the treasure escaped Hugh and it appears that he and his wife moved to New York in 1932, then around Florida, the West Indies and on to Central and South America. In 1983 Hugh's beloved wife died. Eight years later after moving to Arizona, he 45 passed away too.

One of his grandsons recounted more amazing stories of his grandad: `During the war he organised an effort to raise funds in Colon to purchase a Spitfire for England. He also was the first to kayak through the Panama Canal.'

Grant was astonished by all the information he managed to uncover, and said: `Hugh 50 had an amazing life. It's been a privilege to find out about it, what an adventure.'

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English ? Comprehension Text ? Year 9 ? Track 3 ? 2019

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