Love the maritime myths and legends, including diverse job titles. On sailing ships, Trimmers also had to look after the lamps, to trim the wicks, so that they didn't smoke. So, you could instantly tell if a bold matelot wasn't doing his job. Another term I only found out about the other day was Idler. Today, if someone could be called an Idler, we'd think he/she was work-shy or lazy. But to be an Idler on a ship was simply to be a hand who had done a shift and was then idle. Occasionally, all hands were needed, including the Idlers, the ones who'd finished their shift. So when you heard the term, come on you idlers, it wasn't aimed at a lazy bunch at all. I love these little curiosities so much I bought a book on them, called Brevertons Nautical Curiosities - A Book of the Sea.
Lighten up a bit TNLS, the comment may have been in poor taste but nothing discourteous was meant by the remark about the lost ones........It was just a remark to lighten the mood albeit in poor taste perhaps.
I've got someone on the list too. A great uncle, my dad is going find out his surname, he was a 'stoker' in the engine room, I just know his name was Billy at the moment, and he was buried in Nova Scotia.
That graph at least shows that chivalry was alive and well in those days. Although around two thirds of steerage children perished, the survivors did nevertheless outnumber (percentage wise) men of all classes.
Blimey, seeing all those names listed, so many that they can't even fit into two posts, let alone one, really shows the scale of what happened. It's awful really, such a tragedy and completely avoidable too, which is perhaps one of the saddest things about it.
The only film ever likely to be a near accurate account was A Night to Remember made in the late 1950's. It was taken from the book of the same name written by Walter Lord who gathered testimonials from the then many living survivors and is an excellent read. The James Cameron film completely distorts and exaggerates the event and I expect the ITV production will follow on from there. The centenary will be a huge event and I would expect there to be a lot of activity around Soutampton docks over April 12-15th.
I'm looking forward to having a look round the new Sea City museum at the civic centre when it opens. Looks good from the outside and about time the city made better use of its heritage. Shame something couldn't have been built on the waterfront, but as its still a bit of a mess from Town Quay to Ocean village, I guess the city centre makes sense. I believe everyone who pays Soton Council Tax will get the opportunity to get free tickets too.
Great post. I am very proud of this City's merchant navy past.... and present, lucky enough to work in it today. Love Southampton.
There was a very interesting programme about the Titanic a while back. It put forward the theory that, while in dry dock alongside it's sister Olympic, the two ships were swapped somehow. This was (if true) because Capt Smith, who had more than a few accidents in his time, crashed the Olympic, into a navy warship, a year or so before the Titanic sank. Some sort of insurance fiddle possibly. An undeniable fact is, that the ship that left Belfast had a fire raging in one of it's bunkers that was still alight, when the it arrived in Southampton. We joke about H&S these days, but we don't know how well off we are really.
I heard that story about a fire before actually, Meowth, although hadn't heard about the Olympic and Titanic possibly being swapped. As for the ITV programme, it was a bit too rushed IMO.
I appreciated that, as it happens, I had an Uncle who was a steward on the ship, but missed the boat when it sailed and was lucky to avoid the disaster, he spent the rest of his career on a sister ship, Britannic, but never really got over it, there are many people in Southampton who were affected in some way and I hate people who derogate attempts to remember what happened. Apologies if you misunderstood my intentions but I draw your attention to the remark at the bottom of my post.
Tbh it looked utter bollocks from the trailers. Given the trailers are ment to show the best parts it wasn't looking good.
There have been plenty of conspiracy theorist trading loads of absolute garbage about what happened, underwater research has discounted virtually every "fact". I have my free ticket to the Sea City Museum and will be in awe what is on display. http://www.seacitymuseum.co.uk/
same old tired story of posh people being snooty, americans being brash, irish people being the victims and they even managed to magic some Italians on board as crew. So the usual "period drama" stereotypes given another airing. Clearly, the lives of over 700 southampton crew couldn't possible be interesting when up against a one posh young lady fancing a young rich american chap.
Incidentally the Britannic was also involved in it's own disaster http://www.titanicandco.com/britannic.html My uncle wasn't on board then either!
To be fair, the other episodes are from different perspectives and so there may be a greater focuses on the crew in one of the later ones.
Nice post, thanks. My son joins a cruise ship as an Engineer Cadet for his first trip on 29 April in Soton (after attending the Coventry game, and joining the pitch invasion of course !). We will be paying our respects at the memorial at East Park prior to the Pompey game. None of the engineers survived that night, and I often reflect on their plight.