Distant shores Survivor’s remarkable memories of the Titanic

On the night of April 14, 1912, little Frankie Goldsmith climbed into his bunk bed with his mind full of possibilities of what could lie ahead.

He and his parents were taking the first steps to a new life. Four days earlier they had boarded the maiden voyage of an ocean liner by the name of Titanic and now found themselves heading to New York.

The nine-year-old, born and raised in Strood, had enjoyed an exciting day - running around the decks with children he had befriended and enjoying the sea air as the celebrated vessel cut through the water.

One of his family’s travel companions, teenager Alfred Rush, had celebrated his 17th birthday that day and as the ship crossed the Atlantic, thoughts were turning to arriving in the Big Apple before travelling on to Detroit.

His parents, Frank Snr, 33, from Hadlow, and Emily, 31, who had grown up in Milton Regis, near Sittingbourne, had received numerous letters from Emily’s parents and siblings who had emigrated to the US city two years before. They had spoken of the job opportunities and lifestyle.

Frank Snr, an engineer’s turner, had found work hard to come by in Kent.

The decision for the family had been sealed when Frankie’s younger brother, Albert, had died from diphtheria at the end of the previous year. He was just six.

The family wanted a new start. The US offered a world of potential.

They would be joined on the trip by the young Alfred who was travelling to unite with his brother who had emigrated to Detroit several years earlier. His parents were keen to see him escape economic hardship at his home in Surrey and flourish. They were friends with young Frank’s mother and she happily agreed to chaperone him on the voyage.

In addition, they were joined by Thomas Theobald, 34. Born and raised in Ashford, he had moved to Strood and befriended the Goldsmiths. He too was travelling to Detroit - to join his wife who had already made the journey.

Before the dawn broke only two of the happy band of travellers would still be alive.

They had joined the Titanic in Southampton on April 10. All purchased third-class tickets with the Goldsmith family’s passage to the US costing the three of them the equivalent of £2,400.

Their cabin was basic but relatively comfortable for the time. There were two bunk beds divided by a small sink which the young family had to themselves.

And it was there, at around 1.30am on April 15, little Frank Goldsmith was awoken by his mother telling him he needed to get dressed.

The Titanic, a ship hailed as “unsinkable” by its operators the White Star Line, had struck an iceberg some 375 miles south-east of Newfoundland on North America’s eastern coast.

As his grandson recalled: “He’d gone to sleep at the normal time, about 8.30-9pm and he said what woke him up was his mother dressing him.

“His parents said what woke them up was not the crunching of the iceberg but the silence in their cabin. Because it was near the stern you could usually hear all the motors and turbines running.”

Speaking many years later, Frank recalled those unforgettable moments.

“Shortly after I had all my clothes on, except my overcoat, there came a rap at our cabin door,” he said. “The ship’s doctor walked in and said do we have life-jackets - which of course we did - they were on the ceiling of our cabin.

“He said you’d better put them on because you may have to go out on the lifeboat.

“So my mother climbed on the bunk and brought down three one for me, one for her and one for Dad.”

As his father darted out of the cabin to find Alfred and Thomas, young Frankie grabbed a bag of fruit sweets which friends from Strood had bought him to help combat any sea sickness he may suffer on the journey. He stuffed them in his pocket.

Once all were together they left the cabin, climbed a stairway and emerged on the promenade deck. It was already becoming clear the boat was doomed.

It was there his family would part for the very last time. Frankie explained: “There was a gateway and only the women and children were permitted through.

“The gate was open and the ladies and children were walking through and this crewman reached through and pulled young Alfred Rush’s arm to pull him through, but he jerked his arm out of the man’s hands and said ‘No, I’m staying here with the men’. Because when you were 17 you were no longer a kid - you were a man.

“So he stayed there with my dad and Mr Theobald.

“Dad put his arm around me and hugged me. He leaned over and kissed mother and said ‘Well, so long, I’ll see you in a little while’.”

It would be the last time he ever saw his father.

Thomas Theobald, realising the severity of the situation, slipped his wedding ring off and passed it to Frankie’s mother. He urged her that if they didn’t reach New York she was to hand it to his wife, Annie, in Detroit.

Added Frank: “Then we climbed a ladder straight up the side of the deck on the port side.

“Mother and I continued to work our way forward. Between the third and fourth funnel was where they had this huge sheet of canvas and behind it was where they had been firing the rockets up to alert people to the fact the ship was sinking. The canvas was put up so the sparks from the rocket wouldn’t catch on anyone’s clothes.

“As we walked on past we stumbled over the debris of previous launchings and finally we got up and saw the lifeboat.”

The lifeboat they found was not a conventional rescue boat but known as one of four ‘collapsible’ craft. Boat-shaped, they were rafts of kapok - a cotton-like substance - and cork with heavy canvas sides that could be raised to form a vessel.

“They had to help us across into it,” Frank recalled.

“Then shortly afterwards they began to lower it.”

His mother would later recall glimpsing her husband, Alfred and Mr Theobald for the final time as the lifeboat passed the three of them on its way to the water’s surface. So dazed, they just waved.

Frank added: “On the way down the collapsible got caught on the plates of the ship and as they continued to lower it, the lifeboat began to tilt. Those ladies on that side forced their hands against the side of the ship to release it and that happened three times before we finally hit the water.

“God only knows where they got the strength to do that because we had about 40 people in that little boat which was about its maximum capacity.

“The crewman at the back was steering with an oar - it wasn’t a regular lifeboat so it didn’t have a rudder.

“We were headed towards the back of the ship and were rowed behind it and out to a point where we could look back at it. “This was then 2.05am.

“We hadn’t been there long when all of a sudden there came this last explosion - the last boiler we think, which extinguished all the lights and mother reached over and grabbed me around the neck and forced my head to her chest. And the women all began to cry and I could hear all this going on, but I wanted to know what was happening.

“Then the ladies started to say ‘It’s going to float, it’s going to float’ and mother released me and I could look back. You could still see the Titanic but you could see only the back, half way between the mast and the last funnel with the propeller straight up in the air and it hung there for, as a kid, it seemed five minutes. Then it gave a slight whoosh and down it went.