Millvina - Life after disaster (From Daily Echo)

Millvina - Life after disaster

9:00am Sunday 14th December 2008 in

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“We were rescued by another ship called the Carpathia the following morning. My poor mother was worried sick about Vere (her older brother) and my father. Imagine her joy when she was reunited on the Carpathia with her little boy,” Millvina recalled.

“It seems that another passenger had found him on the deck of the Titanic, scooped him up and put him into a lifeboat – which one nobody ever knew. My mother never found out who that kind person was – but he or she certainly saved my brother’s life.

“Sadly, my father didn’t make it. We never knew what happened to him but he perished along with all those other poor people that night. My mother had a lot to think about on the way to New York.

“Her whole life’s course had changed overnight. She couldn’t possibly go to Kansas on her own with two small children. Who would look after her? How would she live? She decided that the best thing to do was to come back to England.

“However, when we arrived in New York the Red Cross sent us all to St Luke’s Hospital in order to recuperate. My mother’s health had suffered both physically and mentally. It had been such a terrible ordeal that we were there for six weeks.”

That Vere was saved is in itself something of a miracle. His appearance on the Carpathia must have seemed more like a biblical resurrection when so many mothers were in mourning for a child. On board the Carpathia, Ettie had no way of knowing this. All she knew was that she had lost her husband, the father of her children, and that the immediate future lay in ruins.

Every possession she had was at the bottom of the Atlantic. There was only one possible thing to do now. Go home.

On the journey home aboard the White Star Liner Adriatic Millvina experienced her first taste of celebrity. A number of photographs were taken of her and the story appeared in the Daily Mirror on May 12, 1912.

Journalists were later to establish that Millvina was actually the youngest passenger to survive the Titanic disaster which, of course, made her a very newsworthy and appealing subject.

Millvina recalled: “Instead of going back to London my mother decided to return to her parents in the New Forest. So, for my early years, I grew up in that lovely place, Bartley Farm. The American Red Cross gave the family $200 and they received $815 from other American charities.

“In addition, the English Titanic Relief Fund gave my mother £40 and a pension of 23 shillings per week to take care of Vere and I. This helped to pay for our schooling. I went to the Gregg School for girls in Cumberland Place, Southampton, while Vere went to the King Edward VI grammar school. So, in an odd way, I owe a lot of my good education to the Titanic.”

After the Titanic “I was a highly strung child. I’ve always thought it was because of my mother breastfeeding me on the Titanic and being a mass of nerves. I suppose it did affect me in those early years without my knowing why.

“I was generally a good girl at school and didn’t really get into much trouble and I was quite bright. I would burst into floods of tears if I got into trouble because it didn’t happen that often!

“By this time the Titanic was an awful memory for most people and nobody really talked about it. My mother never mentioned it at home and at school, even though the teachers would have known I had been on it, they didn’t treat me differently in any way.

“People were much tougher about those types of things and just got on with life. I certainly never brought it up in conversation with my friends. However, on the odd occasion I was brought up short by my connection with it. To my disgust, people would sometimes point at me in the street as I went by and say, ‘there goes Girlie Dean – she was on the Titanic!’ “As for my mother, it was a subject which was closed for ever. Life had to go on and in those days people tended to put things behind them and look forward. She never forgot though.

“I remember many years after the disaster my mother and I opened an old trunk that had been locked for years, and inside was the blanket and other clothes that Vere and I wore when we arrived back in England after the disaster, but the moths had got to them and they just crumbled away.”

Then, in 1985, an event occurred which was to change her solitude and privacy forever: the wreck of the Titanic was discovered.

Interest in the Titanic exploded once again all over the world and, naturally, the media turned to the handful of remaining survivors for soundbites and reminiscences.

Some survivors regarded this revival of ‘Titanic Mania’ as extreme bad taste while others embraced the opportunities it afforded them to meet new people, talk about the disaster, give lectures, open exhibitions and travel abroad.

The last time the press had taken so much interest in Millvina was on the deck of the Adriatic in 1912 when she had slept on and off through the event.

Now, at the age of 73 she was ready to enjoy new challenges and experiences. Once again the Titanic was going to change her life and things were never going to be the same again.

How to get your copy
This exciting and unique account of the Titanic’s last survivor is available from local bookshops or by post from the publisher, post-free at £14.95. Titanic – The Last Survivor is a hardback with colour and black-and-white images. Kingfisher Productions, Felmersham, Mills Road, Osmington Mills, Weymouth, Dorset DT3 6HE. Alternatively you can purchase via the Internet on a secure site at railwayvideo.com/maritime.htm.