Titanic survivor's Gest of honour (From Daily Echo)

Titanic survivor's Gest of honour

11:10am Saturday 18th October 2008

Comments (18)   Have your say »

By Jon Reeve »

• Play Video

HE must surely be the ultimate surprise guest.

When the last remaining survivor of the Titanic revealed she was selling her treasured possessions from the tragedy, Millvina Dean could have had little idea how quickly offers of help would pour in from across the globe.

Yesterday she received a shock visit from I’m a Celebrity... star and stage producer David Gest, who arrived in Hampshire armed with a £3,000 cheque for the 96-year-old.

After reading the Daily Echo story online that Millvina was auctioning her Titanic possessions to help her stay in her New Forest care home, Liza Minelli’s ex-husband phoned the paper to help arrange a meeting yesterday.

He says he wants to enlist superstar friends like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Steven Seagal to help her cause.

David drove down to Hampshire from his London home yesterday with best friend Matt Willis – the former Busted pop star who won the reality TV show in 2006.

Having been touched by Millvina’s energy and spirit when he handed his gift to the pensioner at her private nursing home near Ashurst, David decided he wants to do more to help.

“I want to be like that when I’m 96,” he told the Daily Echo.

“So I thought I’d maybe get some of my celebrity friends, I’ll put together some items and you can auction them off.

“I’ll see if I could get some things from Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and some other people, and call Steven Seagal and I’ll call Matt Willis and we’ll put together some items for your paper and see if we can raise a bunch of funds.”

Despite his generous donation, Millvina said she must still auction off the items, including rare prints of Titanic.

Millvina was just two months old when Titanic sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton in April 1912, killing 1,500 people. She said she was delighted to meet David.

“Thank you very much, that’s extremely generous of you,” she told him.

The pair and Matt chatted for 15 minutes about her life and the massive interest her story has created around the world.

David said: “It was a historic event and she is the last survivor of something everybody knows about. Young kids, senior citizens, everybody knows about the Titanic and what happened.

“Living in the UK, I thought as an honorary Englishman I could do something good.

“She’s a sweetheart, so why should she at 96 have to worry about £3,000 and paying her rent?

“If that money can help her get to sleep at night then I’m just going to have to earn a bit more money to make it up.

“If it helps her then at least that way I can say I did something good today, and maybe I’ll get to heaven a little bit sooner.”

n The auction of Titanic memorabilia, including Millvina’s mementoes, takes place in Devizes, Wiltshire, at 1pm today.