TITANIC tales of tragedy and struggle for survival have been passed down four generations of the Goodall and Baker households.

With our family roots extended deep around the Southampton docklands, it’s not surprising that we both had relatives aboard the ill-fated White Star liner.

Both our fathers were born in the city and lived in the Northam district with mothers closely connected to the tragedy.

My great-grandfather Patrick Joseph Bradley perished in the 1912 sinking, while Andrea’s grandmother’s cousin Eustace Philip Snow survived.

Ironically, both were part of the 324-strong ‘Black Gang’ engine crew tending the 29 boilers that powered the ‘unsinkable’ vessel.

Bradley, a 39-year-old fireman/stoker was one of the better paid crew members, while 21-year-old Snow was a lowly-paid trimmer.

Whether or not the two men knew each other is in question, but sharing such a small environment their paths must have crossed.

Their exact whereabouts on that fateful night are unknown, although the ‘Black Gang’ worked four-hour shifts on, and eight off, due to the intense 120F degree heat.

What we do know is Snow was off duty before being deployed to one of the lifeboat stations to help lower ‘collapsible A’ before making his escape on ‘collapsible B’ after hearing the captain shout ‘every man for himself!’ He was picked up from the icy Atlantic waters by the crew of Carpathia and arrived in New York on Thursday April 18.

Meanwhile, Bradley’s body was never found. He had been a fireman/stoker for at least 16 years and was his occupation at the time of his marriage in 1896 to my great-grandmother Agnes Louisa Noyce.

At the time of his death, my grandmother Alice Goodall (nee Bradley) was just eight years old. She remained in Northam and was still living with her mother when she married my grandfather Bertram Goodall.

In fact, my own father George Goodall was living in the same household until he was two years old prior to his parents moving to Totton in 1928.

I recently took a photograph of my father and our grandson Jack on his first birthday – the same generation gap as my relative on the Titanic and me.

Unfortunately no picture of Bradley ever made its way down the generations, although my father can remember seeing one when he was growing up in Totton.

A picture of Snow, however, was retrieved from the Southampton merchant seamen archives. He bears an uncanny resemblance to Andrea’s father Max Baker.

My father’s search led him to the Southampton Maritime Museum where he found a memorial plaque to the Catholic victims of the Titanic bearing Bradley’s name. It had been rescued from a Northam church during the Second World War blitz.

Although he was born in Glasgow, Bradley had strong Irish roots that have been traced back to Belfast and ‘was known to enjoy a drink or two’.

Snow, meanwhile, was the first cousin of my wife’s grandmother Lucy Baker (nee Snow). She died in 1978 and with it the chance to find out more about Eustace.

However it is known that immediately after the disaster Eustace returned to live with his parents in Southampton, shutting himself away in his room every April 15 – the anniversary of the sinking.

Records, meanwhile, reveal a fascinating story in which he had been one of the ‘silent majority’ – 138 crew members (uncalled deponents) who had written down their account of the tragedy without ever being called upon at the British inquest.

His deposition, which was sold at auction for £3,000 in 2002, backed up fellow survivor Edward Brown (steward) who said that ‘collapsible A’ did not float away freely as reported.

Snow supported Brown’s version that it took on water, washing out most of the occupants who later drowned.

In the inquest it was said that Brown’s version had lacked collaboration and was easy to ignore.

The Snows had lived in Lower Canal Walk, widely known by locals as ‘The Ditches’. He had a reputation of being ‘a bit of a recluse’ and didn’t marry until he was 65 years old.

His bride in 1955 was Southampton-born Edith Jane Gulliver (nee Pope) and the couple lived in the New Forest until their deaths in 1966.

Although today we are left with more questions than answers, there is a sense of pride in being connected through our families’ heritage to such an epic story immortalised in block-buster movies and countless documentaries.