Titanic

Two blog posts in two days. For a woman who you're lucky to get a post out of once a month this is a great achievement! So what's brought on this rash of posts? Well tonight I'm going to a friends hens night and we will be dining only 1/2 a mile away from the great ships berth.

I happen to live in Southampton, yep, the place where the doomed liner set sail from. Despite this link, Southampton has been relatively quiet when it comes to this association, despite the tragic loss of life felt by it's community. Finally after 100 years there is a museum worthy of the legend that is the Titanic, a multi-million pound interactive endeavour that was opened on the 10th April, the day the Titanic left Southampton. Prior to this the only museum about the Titanic Southampton had was in an ancient woolshed across from the Isle of Wight ferry terminal. Not really up to James Cameron standard, me thinks!

Where is all this Titanic talk leading you ask? Well I read/saw something a few years back that has stuck in my mind, I can't remember the source, but the idea has been growing recently to become a new book. Apparently the wives of the White Star vessel's crew were left with nothing on the deaths of their husbands forcing many into the world's oldest profession. This to me has the making of a story, something outside the myth of the Titanic, but inextricably linked. 100 years ago Southampton lost many souls to the sea, but the legacy lives on stronger than ever as the new Seacity Museum reminds us of chivalry and heroism in the most tragic of circumstances. X M