Titanic lives/Richard Davenport-Hines
The Titanic sank 112 years and 1 month ago but it’s still an iconic event and I have often wondered why.
It must be the sheer tragedy of the greatest liner of its age sinking on its maiden voyage and/or the film which launched the career of Kate Winslet and/or the horror of rich and poor clamouring for their lives above the dark, unforgiving waters of the Atlantic as the Titanic toppled into the sea.
First inspired by THE REST IS HISTORY podcast, which quoted from Richard Davenport-Hines’ detailed account, and then by watching the film that finally I read Hines’s account.
The podcast and the book corrects some of the myths about the Titanic.
There was not some physical and actual class divide.
The three classes of travel were separated because of US immigration. The second class, modelled on the Lyons Corner House, was the most luxurious liner class of its time and the third class, though cramped, was tolerable.
Secondly, although there were not enough lifeboats, the passenger ratio was within contemporary safety regulations and besides all of them were launched with space to spare.
Yes there were mistakes: the bulkheads did not reach the ceiling, causing overflow from one stateroom to another and the liner could – and should – have ploughed through the iceberg, not skirted it causing its hulk to rip.
The captain and crew did not read the collision well, were slow to send out SOS signals and failed to warn the passengers adequately.
The film contains the fiction of the relationship between posh girl Rose (Kate Winslet) in first class and Leonardo DiCaprio in steerage.
In reality they would not have met.
Many of the richest men of their day – e.g. John Jacob Astor and Ben Guggenheim – were attracted to first class travel but observed the protocol of women and children first and accepted their fate resignedly.
The most heart-rending element of the tragedy was the separation of children and mother from husband, never to see each other again.
My other reason for reading this account was I have known the author for most of my life.
His father was a fabulously wealthy property developer which might explain why his son’s first book – on Bernard Docker – was so acclaimed.
Certainly his portraits of rags to riches the Astors (furs and property) and Guggenheims (mining) are worth reading – as is his description of financier J.P. Morgan, who cancelled his reservation, but effectively controlled White Star line owners and Harland and Woolf the shipbuilders as America’s central bank.
Could it happen again?
I doubt it as safety standards are much improved and the liner would have been alerted to iceberg danger much earlier.
One thing that has not changed is the taste for premium travel. High end cruises are still popular for rich and poor.
I also believe this account will remain definitive.