Titanic: Dorset stories uncovered

But for more than a year the fate of this liner and those who sailed on her have preoccupied the West Stafford-based screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, whose four-part drama about the tragedy is the highlight of the spring TV schedules.

Speaking before the screening of the Titanic trailer, Fellowes said it showed the world before the First World War in miniature.

“So secure, calm and proud,” he said. “The Titanic was an extraordinary encapsulation of that world before the First World War… that was about to hit the iceberg from which so much change would come.”

His Titanic has been dubbed ‘Downton-on-Sea’, in affectionate homage to his blockbusting drama but there’s more than a note of truth in this because unlike most of the other movies about the disaster, including the one starring the fictional characters played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio, Fellowes’ story includes those who travelled second class, and the people who helped look after them.

“We wanted to present a rounded version of life aboard ship and emphasise its parallel with the life being lived on dry land at that time,” he said.

In the century since Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, a vast amount of personal stories have been brought to light, some told at the time and forgotten, others re-discovered.

And one of the strongest themes that has emerged is that the Titanic is everywhere... if you know where to look.

There were 28 different nationalities on board and while the only glimpse of the ship that any Dorset person would have had was as she steamed past the Needles towards Cherbourg, the county is actually peppered with addresses from where Titanic passengers departed, where they worked and spent their time, and where their relatives live now.

There is Pokesdown’s Corpus Christi Church where Neal McNamee and Eileen O’Leary got married in January 1912. The Donegal farmer’s son was doing well, working as a provisions dealer for the Bournemouth Liptons branch at 216 Old Christchurch Road but there was even greater excitement to come, for he was soon to be asked to take up a position with the company in America.

The young couple’s excitement must have been tangible as they told all their friends and eagerly handed over £16 2s for ticket number 376566 for third class passage on a ship called the Titanic. Neither survived.

Just 10 months before, another Bournemouth family, Mr Edwy Arthur West and his wife, Ada, were celebrating the birth of their second child, Barbara.

While Mr West worked as a walker at J J Allen’s premises in the town’s quadrant, his wife busied herself looking after the family. The Wests lived comfortably at Livadia, a house in Southbourne’s Paisley Road and life was about to get even better as they decided to emigrate and start a new life in Florida. Travelling second class under ticket number 34651, the family paid £27 15s for their passage and on April 9 set off from Paisley Road.

Mrs West and her daughters survived but Mr West did not. The story of how he sacrificed himself for his family was made public at an auction of Titanic effects. In her account, Ada recalled: “We were all asleep when the collision took place, but were only jolted in our berths – my husband and children not even being awakened, and it was only the hurrying of passengers outside the cabin that caused alarm. The steward bade us all get up and dress thoroughly with plenty of warm things. Arthur placed lifebelts upon the children and then carried them to the boat deck. I followed carrying my handbag. After seeing us safely into the lifeboat Arthur returned to the cabin for a thermos of hot milk, and, finding the lifeboat let down he reached it by means of a rope, gave the flask to me, and, with a farewell, returned to the deck of the ship.”

Number 76a Holdenhurst Road in Bournemouth is long gone, replaced by the buildings of Lloyds TSB but it was from that address that former Bournemouth Echo employee Alfred Earnest Pearce had travelled for his important new position as a steward of the bedchamber on the amazing new Titanic. How pleased he must have been to have been able to swap from her sister ship, Oceania, to take up the better job... the job that saw him perish in the world’s greatest maritime disaster.

But some of those aboard Titanic did live and their stories are just as moving.

Stoker George Kemish had lived in Swanage and his great-niece, Lin Dorey, who lives in Richmond Road in the town, is familiar with his account of the disaster, related to the researchers on the Titanic film A Night To Remember.

His recollection of the ship’s final seconds, says Lin, chills the blood. “When the Titanic took her final plunge there was a noise I shall never forget,” said George. “Shouting – screaming and explosions. A hundred thousands fans at a cup final could not make more noise.”

More astonishing still is the testimony of Walter Nichols of West Moors, who worked as a second class saloon steward on the doomed liner. Even as the boat began to tilt, and even as he was preparing to man his designated lifeboat, Walter noticed that: “No one seemed to be worried or excited and as I passed the gymnasium... inside were a number of passengers amusing themselves. One man was riding an exercise bicycle, one punching a bag.”

His grandson Howard Nichols, who lives in Bournemouth, has made an intense study of his grandfather’s life and now includes his story as part of his own cruise ship lecture programme. He has unearthed Walter’s extraordinary account of the Titanic’s last moments, which he described to a New York journalist.

“For one moment she was right up in the air, standing on her nose,” he said.

“That’s when the people left on board went into the water, there were 1500 to 1700 left on the ship and then most of them were thrown into the water by this explosion.

“Then a horrible shriek went up, cries for help and weird shouts.

“You can imagine what it was like, 1500 of them.

“If you’ve ever been round when they are feeding a kennel of dogs, that’s the only thing I can think of that it sounded like and that kept up for half an hour growing fainter and fainter as the minutes passed.

“There was no other sound, just the crying of people.”