I have had this book on my shelf for at least 13 year (ie since it was published) how it is only now living in Southampton and with the centenary of the Titanic disaster fast approaching that I have got around to reading it.
Southampton's relationship with the Titanic is a strange one, perhaps no more strange that the global obsession with Titanic, just more intense. We are busy building a new museum dedicated to the Titanic - hopefully the it will be ready for the all important April anniversay - the council promise it will be open on time, however the builders haven't promised it will be finished. It is a shame that this one ship can eclipse the rest of Southampton's history (not even just its maritime history) - surely tourists should be more interested in the city's link to the Mayflower a vessel famous for go one better than Titanic and getting all the way to America, or the Flying Boats which opened the way to mass airtravel, or the Spitfire - but it is clear that they aren't.
Walter Lord does in places reflect on the nature of the obsession with the Titanic and how the story so fixed in our minds came into existence. There is a lot of myth busting in this book - repeatedly he shows that while we can not be sure exactly what did happen the one thing we are sure did not happen was what you saw in the films (even the films that have come after this book). It brings to mind the Greenbelt event by Ikon "you know the one about the Titanic - it was made up!"
The book, writing shortly after she was found, is also interesting in the exploration of the various attempts to find the Titanic and the schemes to raise her, what drove these mad ideas to often gain a level of credibility. And I found another connection, one of the great schemer Douglas Woolley was from Baldock where I was living when I first got this book - a fact I didn't know at the time.
A book that was worth the wait...
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