BROWN, old-fashioned, rusty-looking; the flask that came up for auction in Devizes three years ago had certainly seen better days.

It eventually sold for £37,500 but substantial though it was, that sum barely compares to its significance to the West family of Cornwall, whose ancestors set off for their fateful trip on the Titanic, from Paisley Road in Bournemouth’s Southbourne.

Just 10 months before the ship hit the iceberg 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 quadrant, his wife busied herself looking after their little family.

The Wests lived comfortably at Livadia, a house in Southbourne’s Paisley Road and life was good but about to get even better as the family decided to emigrate and start a new life in fruit culture, in the New World state of Florida.

Travelling second class under ticket number 34651, the family paid £27 15s for their passage and on April 10 set off from their house, Livadia.

Less than a week later they were plunged into mourning, having lost Mr West and suffered the hideous ordeal retold by Mrs West in her written account of the disaster.

“The experiences I have been through with all the other poor creatures have been enough for two life times. We were among the first to leave the ship. Arthur placed lifebelts upon the children then carried them onto the boat deck.

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.”

What the crew, and Mr West could not have known, is that two men, Japanese passenger Masabumi Hosono, 41, and Turk Neshan Krekorian, 25, had sneaked on board the rescue craft. Mrs West wrote: “There were men in our boat who had concealed themselves under the ladies skirts and had to be asked to stop lighting cigarettes as there was a danger of the dresses becoming ignited.

The steward who seemed to be in charge called out 'Pull up men – they're singing in the other boats. Give them a shout!’”

It was only later she realised that this had been done to try and mask the ‘awful cries and groans from the poor drowning creatures’.

"The noise they made drowned all the cries and we gradually drew away from the scene of the wreck."

The poignancy of the flask added to its provenance but the auction lot also included a letter written by Mr West before his death, describing his time on the doomed vessel.

He writes of an enjoyable trip with “scarcely a movement felt” and hopes that they experience a calm trip “until we reach our journey’s end”.

Following their rescue, Mrs West and her tiny daughters returned to the UK but rarely spoke of the tragedy and Barbara eventually became the custodian of the family’s archive.

She died in 2007 aged 96, the last-but-one survivor of the sinking. She instructed that details of her death be made public only after her funeral at Truro cathedral.

With its Victorian villas, some still sporting their stained glass and sash windows, Paisley Road just might be recognisable to those who left on that fateful April day.

Of Livadia there is no trace, although one resident, who asked not to be named, claimed to be astonished that a family who perished on the world’s most famous ship had lived in her street. “It’s strange to think of them going away, just like anyone would, going on holiday but ending up involved in that,” she said.