General Chat

Jan as promised - in the beginning I read several books. however three have stuck with me. A survivor Lawrence Beesley he was English and a teacher wrote very quickly in the summer of 1912 'The Loss of the SS Titanic'.
Another survivor was Col. Archibald Gracie an Amercian who died at year end of 1912 and his book was published posthumously in 1913 'The Truth about the Titanic'. From memory I believe that both these men were on the ship until the end - one certainly, if not both, went down in the sea only to pop up like a cork from a bottle. At least they were there and experienced the tragedy.

I cannot recall the exact heading but it was an account of the Board of Trade's Public Enquiry into the loss of RMS Titanic. Lord Mersey summing up stated that the ship was travelling too fast amongst ice floes but did not attach any blame to the White Star Line. There appeared to be lots of whitewash and over the years have come stories of crew survivors being told what to say. You have to make up your own mind whether this is true or false

A Mr Harbinson was appointed to represent the 3rd class passengers who perished and basically he says there was no discrimination etc. He appeared by the length of his statement to be on the side of the shipping co rather than that of the pasengers.


I borrowed all three books through ordering from my local library.

Forget any films re Titanic especially the last one but for the truth get 'A night to remember'. When this was made, survivors were still alive and as a result this film is as true as it gets.

Hope this is of help.

Thanks very much Chris for all the info. It's a really interesting subject, and I can't get out of my mind all the people who died and were affected by it. I'm going to go to the library and borrow the books you have mentioned.
Thanks again - you've been a big help.

Jan

Glad to help. Some mysteries will never be solved.

This is something I have never wanted to watch either on film or tv - watching people struggling for their lives and of course the women, children and 1st class passengers first. It would make me boil.

Vera