Not a re-enactment
It is not the way most 15-year-olds would choose to spend the Easter holidays. But by the time David Free found himself at Southampton docks on Sunday morning wearing a paisley cravat, an Edwardian tailcoat and a look of cheerful resignation, he had made his peace with the idea of spending half-term cheek-by-jowl on a cruise ship with the world’s biggest Titanic enthusiasts.
“The kids weren’t keen when I booked it three years ago – we think they’re three of only seven children on board – but they’ve come round,” admitted his mum, Jaki, 41, who was dressed in a spectacular blue hat and a floor-length striped skirt suit: a splendidreplica of the “boarding dress” worn by Kate Winslet when she stepped aboard James Cameron’s Titanic in the 1997 film.
Her outfit, and most of the garb being sported by David, her two other children (aged five and 10), her husband and his parents, were made especially for what all of the family were referring to as a “trip of a lifetime”.
David said he was happy to be among the 1,309 people embarking on the 12-night Titanic memorial cruise – and not just because it meant he got an extra week off school. “I’m interested in the history, the heritage,” he said. His dad, 37-year-old telecoms engineer Graham, insisted there was nothing ghoulish about a cruise company charging passengers up to 7,995 to commemorate a tragedy which killed more than 1,500 people. “We’re not here to mock,” he said. “We’re here to remember those who suffered.”
About 800 of those boarding MS Balmoral had a “personal connection” tothe Titanic, according to the Reverend Canon Huw Mosford, who had been appointed on-board chaplain. In the early hours of 15 April, when the ship reaches the exact spot in the Atlantic where the Titanic hit the iceberg 100 years ago to the day, he will give a special memorial service for those who drowned in the disaster.
People from 28 different countries will be on board to retrace the liner’s route – up to that crucial point when it all went wrong, at least. “We’re hoping we’ll get to New York. I keep telling people this is a memorial cruise, not a re-enactment,” said Marie Shipley, a chipper 63-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia.
Some of her friends thought the idea was “somewhat morbid”, she admitted, but “nothing is morbid to us”. Her husband, Mike, piped up to explain that he had been in the “cemetery and funeral business” most of his life.
There was no shortage of gallows humour in the check-in queue. “Did you hear what the captain is called?” said a very excited Californian bookseller called Sue Conklin, wearing a black TITANIC T-shirt. “Captain BamBERG! Ice berg, Bamberg. Isn’t that just hilarious?” Like many passengers, she was keen to show off her Titanic devotion. “My claim to fame is that I have 51 Titanic jigsaw puzzles,” she said.
Nearby, Heather Hutchinson, 25, an Australian cruising with her 74-year-old grandfather, proudly discussed her 150-strong Titanic book collection. “We’ve watched the film 14 times if that helps,” said Michelle Lines, another antipodean, from Queensland.
There was a whiff of competitiveness in the air as passengers tried to out-Titanic each other. Evan Perelekos, 24, claimed to have been a Titanorak since he was four. “That’s 20 years of research leading up to this day,” said the casino manager, wearing a bowler hat and wire-rimmed glasses.
“It’s made me who I am today. When I was a kid, I remember being horrified to see how established the class system was on board. I have based my life upon the basis that I would never treat anyone as if they were in third class. Even as a child, if I found myself making fun of someone, I would say to myself, ‘do you understand what you are doing?’ “
It’s all because of the Titanic that he now works in hospitality, he explained. “I always wanted to look after people.”
Perelekos’s travelling companion, 25-year-old nurse Megan Zubok, admitted she was mostly in it for “the style, the girly stuff. I love how even the women in third class managed to put together fantastic outfits.” Zubok was resplendent in a long velvet coat borrowed from her mother and an extravagant feathered hat.
Joy-Simone Lun, 72, waiting to board with her husband David, 70, had not dressed up. The couple from Perth, western Australia, had decided to take the trip to remember Joy-Simone’s grandfather, whom they suspect may have drowned when the Titanic sank.
“There was a man in the engine room who had my maiden name, Cotton, and he was never accounted for. My grandfather disappeared without a trace sometime before 1912 and we think he could well have ended up working on the ship,” she said.
The cruise’s operators, Miles Morgan Travel, have gone to great lengths to recreate the pre-iceberg Titanic vibe. There will be dancing classes to teach passengers how to get down 1912-style, and each meal features at least one “Titanic dish of the day”. Some of these sound more appetising than others. Sunday’s special was “cabbage au gratin”, a budget treat palmed off on third class passengers 100 years ago.
Happily, those in the cheap berths this time around do not have to slum it quite like those on the doomed ship. In 1912, 700 third class passengers had to share two bathtubs; now all cabins are en suite.
There is another crucial difference between the memorial voyage and the original, 100 years ago, Miles Morgan said: MS Balmoral has “more than sufficient” lifeboats for everyone on board.
Source: The Guardian
