A marine tragedy of Titanic proportions
.. but don’t believe everything you saw in the film
After the business was conducted, president Barclay Sinclair introduced the speaker, John Walker, who is a member of the club.
Mr Walker, now retired after working for 44 years as a service engineer in the forklift business, has lived in East Kilbride for 39 years.
He is keen member of EK Speakers Club – and is one of its past presidents.
John launched (forgive the pun) into a talk about that doomed ship – The Titanic.
The most famous sister ships which were built were the White Star Line’s RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic.
All were built at Harland and Wolff in Belfast and the Titanic was the second in the trio which were intended to work the Southampton-New York “shuttle” service.
The sister ships were planned to be near identical.
However, the Titanic benefited from the Olympic in as much she got a Grand staircase put in, a bigger first-class restaurant and a larger ballroom.
And yet only 10 baths (one of which was exclusively for the captain) in the whole ship. Why?
Well, the trip would only take a week and hygiene at that time dictated that you only had a bath once a week so bathe before you sail and no need to bathe en route.
Most of us, young or old, often rely on our knowledge of history from the TV and films. It has, however, been shown over and over again that Hollywood always bend the truth to suit a more dramatic storyline.
For example, Braveheart and U-571 (Americans finding the Enigma coding machines. It was actually the Poles and the British).
The film Titanic was no exception. First she left Belfast to go to Cherbourg then back to Queenstown in Ireland to pick up more passengers then, and only then, did she set sail for the USA.
Another of the biggest myths was the officer James Murdoch, who was depicted with a gun and forcing the steerage passengers back below and locking the gates, separating them from first class. He, in fact, opened the gates.
So defaming was this, that the film director was forced to go to Dumfries and apologise to the surviving family.
‘The ship was going too fast and went into an iceberg!’
In fact, evidence shows that, possibly even before the Titanic left Belfast, there was a fire in number five coal bunker (smouldering slowly).
As it neared Nova Scotia, it became clear that they had to speed up or they would not have enough coal to get to New York (these bunkers held some 500 tonnes).
And if that had happened, the White Star Line would have folded.
The two freezing look-outs in the crow’s nest did not even have binoculars (as only warranted officers were allowed them) to see the approaching iceberg. The liner only scuffed and scraped the iceberg but that was enough to damage the weakened wall of the outer skin and the bunker wall which had now been weakened by the fire.
Also, the fire doors down in the boiler room were all open to allow more air in, as burning requires oxygen, but it also allowed the ingress of water which then put the fires out – so no power, no motion, no lights!
It was also shown at the inquest that despite ordering Superior Steel, they got a steel which when it hit the extreme cold of the North Atlantic became weak and brittle.
There was an accusation that there was not enough lifeboats but in 1912 there were no legal requirements to have any. Of the 64 which it ended up with, when found afterwards, one only had seven first-class passengers in it, one was empty and if everybody literally had ‘budged up’ there was technically a seat for everybody.
Of the 2228 travelling, only 755 were saved and had she sailed three days earlier, as was scheduled, there would have been 3331 on board.
He mentioned several other anomalies which didn’t surface at the time.
A trivial one was when the band of 10 musicians tried to board the ship, one of the crew’s union threatened them not to play. The owner offered the men a week’s free passage to New York and as passengers they then got on board. Did they play “Abide With Me” as she sank? No.
The last tune that they played was “An Ode to Paris” in the ballroom. Anyway, why would they play a Christian hymn when the great majority of the passengers, certainly in first class, were, in fact, Jewish and other religions?
This was a tragic marine disaster which is etched into history. Indeed, the last known person who was in board died in 2016. However, its legacy was to help in changing the safety on board of future shipping.
The vote of thanks was given by Jim Dunlop. An ex-naval man himself, he said that it not only had been informative but also interesting, illuminating the flaws in the truth as per film and TV versions of what happened.
Without John’s reveals, we might never have known.
East Kilbride Probus Club’s AGM is scheduled for Wednesday, April 5.
Another of the biggest myths was the officer James Murdoch, who was depicted with a gun andforcingthesteeragepassengersbackbelow and locking the gates, separating them from first class. He, in fact, opened the gates