THE Captain Cook Schoolroom Museum in Great Ayton will be formally opened for the summer season at 10.30 next Friday by Sir Rex Hunt, originally of Redcar, who was governor of the Falkland Islands from 1980 to 1985.

It was during his time there that the island was invaded and occupied by Argentine armed forces in April 1982. He resumed governorship when the island was recaptured by Great Britain in June 1982.

On Sunday, March 31 and April 1, there will be free entry to villagers and their children from 1-4pm. Visitors are asked to provide evidence that they live in the village, such as a bill heading or usual standard documents.

Attendants will lead a tour of the museum and answer questions. A lift is available which will also take a wheelchair.

The attendants are unpaid volunteers who provide a valuable service, but more are needed as at times they struggle to keep the museum open every afternoon from March to October, with the additional difficulty of extended opening from 11am to 4pm during July and August.

The museum committee and staff are anxious to meet anyone who would like to take up this work for as long or short a time each month as they wish.

The work is very interesting in that a wide variety of visitors are met, including overseas guests, especially Australians and New Zealanders, history and geographical societies. Generally, more than 2,000 people visit the museum each year.

Anyone interested in taking up this work and requiring further information should ring Irene Saunders on 722626 or June Imeson on 722175.

In the mid-18th century, Great Ayton provided basic literacy, numeracy and general education, along with the village community spirit, to James Cook (1728-1779) during his formative years.

Cook was perhaps the greatest English navigator of all times and did more than any other explorer to add to knowledge of many countries, their botanical features, the oceans and charting shipping routes of the world especially of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Ocean, having commanded the first vessel to sight Australia.

Local people are asked to promote such important and interesting aspects of the local heritage and to bring them to the notice of friends and relatives and encourage them to visit the museum.

The building is on the Captain Cook heritage trail along with the Birthplace Museum at Marton and the Captain Cook Memorial Museum at Whitby.

The background is that in 1704, Michael Postgate, a local landowner, founded a school in Great Ayton, near the High Green, named the Postgate School.

Those premises were taken down in 1785 and rebuilt as a two-storey house, more or less as the building stands now, from the original materials, with the school on the first-floor.

It is this building that houses the Schoolroom Museum. The building was used as a museum during the mid-late 20th century and contained some charts and details of Captain Cook's general life and especially his voyages.

In 1998, with the help of a Lottery grant, it was entirely reorganised to concentrate on Cook's early life and education in Great Ayton. It features a reconstruction of a schoolroom of the early 18th century, when teaching methods were very different from today.

There are interactive displays about Cook's family, his later achievements, the village in the mid-18th century and various exhibits on show.

Quiz sheets and peep-holes have been devised for children, and there is an education pack for school parties.

Children and adults can experience sitting next to the young James Cook having a lesson in the schoolroom and see how the village looked in the 18th century.

Visitors can also stand next to Captain Cook on board ship, learn how to use a ship's sextant, follow his amazing voyages and see how he changed the map of the world.

Cook was born in Marton in 1728, but just after his eighth birthday, the family moved to Great Ayton where his father had become employed by Thomas Skottowe, the Lord of the Manor, at Aireyholme farm about 1½ mile out of the village.

Mr Skottowe paid for James' education at the Postgate School, then a fee-paying school, which he attended between 1736 and 1740.

It was there that he received his basic education during his formative years which enabled him to study the skills of navigation, surveying and seamanship in later life.

In the mid-18th century, the population of Great Ayton was about 600, and occupations were not only farming, but also industrial, including weaving and leather tanning, and the museum has a display on these aspects.

In a typical schoolroom of the day may be seen shoes and coats worn by the children. The schoolmaster and three children sit at desks, surrounded by items such as quill pens and ink and exercise books in which they did their writing and arithmetic, and visitors see their methods of doing sums.

Other displays yield interesting information. One in particular is a scroll-like information board outlining aspects during Cook's life under the headings of War and Politics, the Economy, Culture and Society, Science and Discovery, Everyday life, and the life of James Cook. Copies of this are available to take away.

Great Ayton itself still has several visible connections with Cook.

Aireyholme Farm where he lived is still a working farm, and the 12th century All Saints' Church, where he worshipped, is still used for summer and special services. In the churchyard, the gravestone of his mother, Grace Cook, and two of his brothers may be seen.

The church and churchyard are normally open to visitors on afternoons from April to October.

The cottage to where his father and mother retired in 1755 was bought by the Victoria State Government of Australia in 1933, dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt in Melbourne where it still stands.

Two Great Ayton residents, Alan Simpson and Ivy Hynes, a voluntary attendant at the museum, were born in the cottage and lived there in the 1920s.

They were invited by Australian government to visit it in Melbourne in October 2000.

The site where the cottage stood is marked with an obelisk constructed from granite from Cape Everard, near where Lt Hicks and Cook first spotted Australia, recorded in the ship's log as April 20, 1770.

Homage is paid to Cook by a 51ft monument, erected by Robert Campion in memory of the great man in 1827 on Easby Moor, overlooking the village.

A bronze sculpture representing James as a boy of 16 before he left to work in Staithes, stands on the High Green. This, together with a bronze plaque on the outside of the museum, was designed by the internationally-renowned sculptor, Nicholas Dimbleby, in 1997.

The village celebrates Cook's birthday, October 27, each year on the nearest Wednesday to that date, starting with a parade of sail, when youngsters make boats from any floatable materials.

These boats are first judged for appearance and then raced on the River Leven at the Low Green. This is followed by a civic service in All Saints' Church, attended by civic dignitaries and organisations from towns connected with Captain Cook, and a civic lunch, after which a wreath is laid on the statue on the High Green.

Admission charges are £2 for adults, £1 for children and concessions and £4 for families.