I recently visited Titanic: The Exhibition, as I've always been fascinated by its story- fuelled by an image of the ship actually sinking, which I found as a kid, in my dad's The Greatest Disasters Of The 20th Century book.
My fascination continued after watching A Night To Remember, with Kenneth More in the starring role (incidentally, a theatre local to me is named after him).
It's a classic example of how "less is more." Yes, the 1997 version is spectacular, what with all of the special effects now at filmmakers' disposal, plus the extra knowledge we've gleaned about the ship since the other film's 1958 release. But the latter, told from the perspective of the Titanic's Second Officer, Charles Lightoller, is just as good.
This exhibition was not that easy to find- some signposting from Canada Water station would have been a bonus.
With a bit of help from Google Maps we found our venue. It was a lovely crisp January day, with sun sparkling off the water.
The Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time, and first class was considered the pinnacle of luxury; with high-class restaurants and cafes, sumptuous cabins, libraries, a gymnasium and a swimming pool.
This lump of metal is "what the Titanic would have been like." (There was too much in the way of this in the exhibition, rather than actual pieces salvaged from the ship.) The Titanic was made of steel plating, and its rivets were a mixture of steel and iron. Many consider weaknesses in the rivets to be a key contributing factor in the sinking of the ship.
I declined the audio guide as I prefer to read rather than listen, so was quite annoyed at the lack of wording next to many of the large images. (Also, if you didn't want to download the audio tour onto your phone, then you had to pay an extra £3 for one of their audio guides- this wasn't mentioned in their advertisements!)
This large image is of the Titanic's propellers.
I kind of got to understand the meaning behind the pictures by looking at neighbouring cabinets, but the exhibition operators should rectify this.
Here is the Titanic afloat- from her creation in Belfast she travelled on to Southampton, where she set sail- on 10th April 1912- for Cherbourg (France), then Queenstown (in Ireland, now named Cobh) before travelling to New York.
Apparently, I didn't miss much. The SuperDean downloaded the audio guide onto his phone, but was hampered by the fact that it didn't allow him to fast forward- you had to take the tour at their pace. He also found the continual music irritating, and was appalled at the mispronunciation of words such as “maritime” and “bow.”
The Titanic had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors.
This is a mock-up of one of these doors. I couldn't use a flash, so the colour of these photos was compromised.
Captain Edward Smith, who went down with the ship.
The chief naval architect of Harland and Wolff (the Belfast shipyard who built the ship), Thomas Andrews, who also went down with the ship gets a mention, as does Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. He jumped onto the last lifeboat to leave and survived the tragedy.
A scene of the first class lounge of the Olympic (launched in 1911). This ship was the first of three Olympic-class ocean liners built by the same shipyard for the White Star Line, the Britannic (1915) being the third. The actual window or door (I can't make out which) to the far left is featured below.
This looked really elegant, despite the fact that it's very old and the glass was cracked in places.
The impressive ocean liner.
The bulk of the exhibition consisted of pictures I'd seen before, mementoes like general White Star Line brochures and tickets and items such as "tools and decks of cards such as those used by the men building the ship," as opposed to actual artefacts.
The actual telescope used by William McMaster Murdoch, First Officer of the RMS Titanic. Incidentally, RMS stands for Royal Mail Steamer, although it later came to mean Royal Mail Ship.
This section also showed Murdoch's letters from the Titanic.
A model of the ship, and apologies for the lack of quality due to flash photography being disallowed.
On one side the outside of the ship is cut away, so you can see what life inside for the crew and different classes was like, rather like a dolls' house. I thought this was very beautifully executed.
Map showing where the Titanic sank...
I believe this deck chair is from the Olympic...
The ship was huge- 882' 9" (269m) long and 92' 6" (28.2m) wide, so passengers enjoyed a stroll along her deck.
The ship had been called unsinkable.
Kate Florence Phillips was gifted this lovely necklace by her married lover, Henry Samuel Morley. They'd left with the intention of marrying in San Francisco and starting a new life (which would have meant Morley becoming a bigamist!).
She was wearing the necklace when the Titanic sank. She survived, but he couldn't swim and drowned in the tragedy.
She went on to have a daughter seven months later (although reports dictate that she was not a good mother to the child).
Named "Love Of The Sea," the necklace would go on to become the inspiration for the "Heart Of The Ocean" necklace worn by Rose in the 1997 film Titanic.
I was disappointed that the forward Grand Staircase was simply (yet another) large image. Their advertisements were misleading- they'd photographed it in such a way that it looked real.
This is a fragment of wood that came from Titanic's Aft Grand Staircase, which was smaller than the above staircase, with a less ornate clock.
This chair was like what would have sat in the second class dining room. I was quite surprised at how little there were in terms of artefacts retrieved from the Titanic itself- there was a lot of reference to stuff that simply resembled what would have been on board the ship; whether it was from the Olympic or just the White Star Line in general.
Aforementioned dining room. It was nice to see this, as the first and third classes always get a mention, but the second class is often overlooked and literally squeezed out of descriptions and memoirs.
Titanic passenger Elin Gerda Lindell's wedding ring. She was a Swedish third class passenger who made it to lifeboat Collapsible A, but she died in the aftermath of the sinking.
I loved the cabin depictions- this room with bunk beds is third class accomodation.
The third class plate was recovered by a Spanish fishing boat. The spoons are from the White Star Line.
First class saucer from Titanic's à la Carte restaurant, taken ashore by a steward.
Walking through to first class...
This was one of only a couple of truly interactive parts within the exhibition!
White Star Line first class place settings. There was another table of silverware, but my photo came out too blurry to use.
I have read a first class menu from the ship before- it included Oysters à la Rousse, which means oysters Russian style, and there's vodka in the recipe. I'd give it a go!
First class bedroom.
The bed was set out to look like a lady was unpacking and laying out her clothes, or dressing for dinner (mind you, they tended to have servants for that sort of thing...)
Opulent first class living room...
Want, want WANT these shoes...💜
A closer look at the dressing table, and it's complete with a Heart Of The Ocean necklace, as worn by Rose deWitt Bukater in James Cameron's epic 1997 blockbuster film Titanic.
First class lamps from the Olympic.
Letter written by Swedish first class passenger Erik Lind, on April 10th 1912. Allegedly, he jumped into the water aiming for lifeboat Collapsible D. His body was never found.
The envelope is a White Star Line Envelope.
These doors are like those found in second class...
Second class passenger list and second class crockery.
A list of all who died on board the ship- crew, first class, second class and third class- is on show right at the end of the exhibition.
First class passenger Kate Odell's hair pins and sewing kit. The Odell family is featured in the photograph. They disembarked at Queenstown.
A first class gentleman's silk evening attire.
The SuperDean overheard someone say, 'Ooh, is that someone's pyjamas?'😆
Stokers in the engine room...
An actual lump of coal retrieved from the wreck.
I read a less-than-impressed review, where someone had doubted its authenticity, and said it looked like a bit of painted plastic!😆
Jacob Alfred Johansson's medallions and diary. Finnish, he was a first class passenger who died when the ship sank.
The Titanic had been designed to survive flooding in up to four of her sixteen watertight compartments. The trouble was, five were breached when the iceberg hit the starboard side.
This cabinet showed a photograph taken 36 hours after the collision. Was it the iceberg? Apparently that was spotted; identifiable by the red paint left scarring its icy side.
This iceberg mock-up was fun, and as cold as you'd expect to the touch (which was welcome considering how overheated this whole place seemed.)
The Titanic hit the iceberg on 14th April 1912, at 11.40 pm ship's time.
The Titanic sank in the early hours of 15th April- by 1 am the bow became submerged, and by 2.20 am it began its descent to the bottom of the ocean. To this day it remains the deadliest peacetime sinking of a cruise ship or superliner.
This computer generated mini-movie gave us a visual account of the sinking actually taking place.
This nightdress is what a second class survivor was wearing as she left the ship...
The radio room, with its high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter. The nearest ship was the SS Californian, but she turned her radio off and failed to respond to the Titanic's messages, or the distress flares set off from her deck.
After the disaster it became regulation for passenger ships to man their radios at all times.
Members of the band, who played on for as long as they possibly could, to try and calm the passengers on board the doomed vessel. All perished in the disaster.
The Titanic only carried 20 lifeboats, capable of carrying 1,178 people, and four of these were collapsible and proved hard to launch at the crucial moment. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died. After the disaster recommendations were made by both the British and American enquiry boards, and stated that ships should carry enough lifeboats for all aboard.
Margaret Brown- whom history would christen "The Unsinkable Molly Brown-" was a first class passenger on the ship. She is famous for unsuccessfully encouraging the crew of Lifeboat no.6 to go back to the field of debris to look for survivors. Of "new money," she was an American socialite and philanthropist. She died 20 years after the disaster.
Survivors in lifeboats, rowing to the safety of the RMS Carpathia.
The exhibition was not bad, but it could have been so much better- I would have liked to have seen photos of the ship actually sinking (ghoulish, moi😉) I know they exist- I saw one in the Greatest Disasters of the 20th Century book I mentioned earlier.
I always find footage of what the ship is like now fascinating.
My nan (born in 1903) remembered running home from school as a little girl, and seeing newspapers carrying headlines of the Titanic sinking.
This is what a bench on the deck of the Titanic would have looked like.
It was ridiculously warm inside the exhibition, and when I sat down on a bench (not this one!) to have a sip of water an overzealous security guard immediately told me off. What's that all about? It was hardly as if I was standing scoffing a three course meal directly over an exhibit, so methinks a little relaxation of such strict rules should be applied.
The experience wasn't all bad- models of the ship were good, although the lack of a flash made it hard to get a decent picture.
It wasn't until 1985 that the wreck of the ship was discovered, and it was confirmed that the ship had indeed cracked into two pieces before sinking.
I was wearing my Le Coeur de la Mer necklace, along with matching earrings and bracelet (the whole set cost a few quid off eBay.)💙
With certain discounts the SuperDean and I ended up paying the equivalent of £9 each. Had we had to pay the full price of nearly £20 per person plus a booking fee- and if we'd wanted to use their audio guides that would have been another £3 on top- we would have been furious, as the exhibition was okay but not all that. I gave it a 3* TripAdvisor review.
TTFN
The Miss Elaineous
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