The RMS Titanic hit an iceberg twenty minutes to midnight on April 14 1912, four hours later only 705 survived out of 2224 passengers on board. While there are many heartbreaking tales of those who perished on the Titanic, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of tragedy haunting the families of that fated voyage.
Many of the crew members died on board the Titanic. Captain Edward Smith, who was the man in charge of the largest ship in the world, went down with the vessel. He is famously known for his last words to his crew: ’be British.” His only child, Helen, was fourteen when her father died. She would grow up to marry and have twins: Simon and Priscilla. Her son died in World War Two, and her daughter died of polio. Smith’s widow was hit by a taxi in 1931.
At the helm of the ship when she hit the iceberg was quartermaster Richard Hichens. Second Officer Charles Lightoller, who survived the sinking, was quoted by his granddaughter as saying that Hichens had turned the wrong way when commanded to turn away from the iceberg. Hichens was in charge of one of the lifeboats that escaped from the Titanic. BY 1933, he had been separated by his wife and children. On December 1, 1933 Hichens attempted to kill a man and was put in prison for four years . Surviving many suicide attempts in prison, he died within three years of his release on a cargo ship.
Fred Fleet was the lookout that spotted the iceberg that would destroy the Titanic. It was Fleet’s claim that the lack of binoculars had made spotting the iceberg impossible. He was in charge of a lifeboat, and therefore survived the sinking. He would spend 24 more years at sea and actively served in both wars. After the death of his wife, Fleet hung himself. Feet’s beginning was as tragic as his end. He was abandoned first by his father and then his mother, and spent years in foster homes.
The chief architect, Thomas Andrews, was on board the Titanic and went down with her even though he was offered a place in one of the life boats. It was Andrews who was to give Captain Edward Smith the terrible news that it was impossible for the Titanic to stay afloat when she hit the iceberg. Andrews was also credited by one of the stewardesses, Mary Sloan, was persuaded by Andrews to get into a lifeboat. He was last seen throwing the deck chairs over the side of the ship to support those in the water keep afloat. Anderson left a two year old daughter Elizabeth Law-Barbour Andrews, when he perished with the Titanic. Into adulthood, she remained unmarried. She became the first female to obtain a pilot’s licence in Northern Ireland. Elizabeth Andrews was killed instantly in a car accident in 1973.
The Allison family-mother father and two year old daughter, who traveled first class, were lost when they couldn’t find their son. Ironically the eleven month old boy was the only one to survive when his nanny, Loraine Kramer, took him to the deck of the ship, as instructed by the crew. Hudson Trevor lived with his uncle until he was 18, and then tragically died of food poisoning.
Clinging to an overturned lifeboat, Col. Archibald Gracie IV, an amateur historian of the American Civil War was a survivor of the Titanic. After assisting with freeing many of the lifeboats so that others could survive, Gracie was plunged into the freezing water himself, he survived by holding on to an overturned collapsible lifeboat. While attempting to write about the incident, he died eight months later of complications of diabetes, enhanced by his ordeal on the Titanic. In keeping with the haunting tragedies of people on board the Titanic, Gracie had lost his 12 year old daughter, Constance Julie Gracie, in 1903. She was crushed to death in a Paris elevator at the Hôtel de la Trémoïlle.
More research needs to be done on this curse of the Titanic. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
They met on a train heading to Montreal. He was 25 and she was 21, by the end of the year they were married. It sounds like a beautiful romance, sadly enough it would end in tragedy.
The RMS Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. When the passengers were asked to get on deck with their lifejackets, Hudson went to get his children. Each child had their own nanny. Hudson found his daughter, but Hudson Trevor had already been taken by his nanny onto the deck for evacuation. Returning to Bessie, he attempted to evacuate his wife and daughter onto a life raft. Hudson put her on lifeboat 6, but she refused to leave the ship without her baby boy.
Only 705 people survived the disaster, the youngest being a nine month old baby. The lifeboats could have held almost 500 more lives. The first ship sent out to retrieve the bodies, The CS Mackay-Bennett, found so many, that they ran out of embalming fluid. They decided to retrieve the bodies of the first class passengers with the justification that their bodies might be needed to settle large legal disputes regarding inheritance and estates. A total of 205 bodies were recovered and gathered in the Mayflower Curling Rink in Halifax.
Thirty-three year old Wallace Hartley, the band leader that fateful night on the Titanic, was playing the violin his fiancé, Maria Robinson, gave him to celebrate their engagement. It wasn’t the only Atlantic voyage he had been on; he and most of the other musicians had played on ships such as the Lusitania. The only French musician, Roger Marie Bricoux, had played on the ship that would save the survivors of the Titanic. Many historians claim that the violin- strapped to Hartley’s body, was found by one of the rescue ships sent to retrieve the dead. Historian and Biographer Steve Turner, in his book The Band Played On, claims to have seen photos of an inscription on the tailpiece from Maria to Hartley. When Hartley‘s body was returned the England, the violin was missing. Some evidence suggests that Maria might have obtained the violin- to remember her beloved. Honouring Hartley’s memory she was never to marry. The auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, who specialize in Titanic memorabilia, are in the process of authenticating the violin. While there is much secrecy around this instrument, we will undoubtedly know the truth of the violin in the near future.
The Jester was the entertainer of the monarchy: the one who could say what others feared saying. A foil for the aristocracy, he would carry a false scepter in his hands called a bauble that was covered in bells or a face of the jester. His hat usually featured two long points that ended in bells- a symbol of the ass that he was supposed to personify.
He is the wildcard in many games- the symbol of unknown in the Tarot deck.
The Italian version of the jester is called Arlecchino, a smart servant with a slapstick that attempts to get the lovers together. He is from the Commedia dell’arteR or professional improvisers, who travel around the Italian countryside. His costume is a patchwork of multicolored diamonds, a symbol of his humble hand-me-down beginning. He is the father of the ‘Harlequin Romance;’ love stories that sustain the hope that passionate love still exists. He can certainly be seen in the form of the well meaning Friar and nurse, who attempt to get the tragic Romeo and Juliet together. It hopefully will shock few to know that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were taken from the Italian Commedia.
Richard Tarlton, a contemporary of Shakespeare and a favourite of Elizabeth I, died 1588. He was known as a jester, pamphlet writer, playwright and a clown. He was the first to study people through observation with the intention of recreating them on stage. He basked in the ability to parley with the hecklers of the audience. It is possible that Hamlet’s “Alas poor Yorick” speech might have been Shakespeare’s nod to the famous Tarlton who died possibly ten years earlier.
I happened to overhear a conversation between two of my drama students- they were supposed to present T.S. Eliot’s work in English that day, and they thought his poems were both boring and unintelligible. I interjected, and suggested that they look at him from a modern cultural standpoint-how have his poems affected and continue to influence modern culture? They seemed less than amused until I suggested that they look at modern music that might use, or be inspired by, his poetry. At the end of the class they told me they were going to spend lunchtime researching my suggestions; their curiosity was piqued, and so was mine.
Eliot penned a book of light verse entitled, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in 1930. Fifty-one years later, Andrew Lloyd Webber would compose and produce a musical based on these verses entitled, Cats. He claimed Eliot’s verse was a childhood favourite. It still is Broadway’s second longest running show in history.
As for literature, Stephen King seems to be highly influenced by him. His Dark Tower Series makes reference to The Wasteland, and his movie, The Stand, begins with the quote, “This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but with a whimper.”
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is rich with Eliot references, from Colonel Kurtz who quotes The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, to the American photojournalist who is stranded in Kurtz’s camp and quotes The Hollow Men. In 2005 renaissance creator Chris Marker made a 19 minute multimedia piece for the Museum of Modern Art entitled, Owls At Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men, which was influenced by T.S. Eliot.
And if the inundation of Eliot’s influence on modern music, literature, and film isn’t enough to establish his importance on modern culture one need only look to the modern world of computer games. The Halo 3 Soundtrack has a reversed version of The Hollow Men. Even the youth of today are exposed to Eliot-whether they like it- or not.
Brushed With Mystery 