QUIET family man Frederick Fleet, who was familiar sight as he sold the Daily Echo in Southamp-ton, died 40 years ago today.

Many people who brought their newspaper from him before catching their bus in Pound Tree Road on their way home from work knew little about Frederick but this ex-seamen was at the centre of the most infamous maritime disaster in history.

His is a poignant story as it was Frederick, then aged 25, who was the lookout on that fateful night when the Southampton passenger liner Titanic struck an iceberg during her maiden voyage from the docks to New York in 1912.

A total of 549 crew members from Southampton lost their lives in the disaster along with 1,000 men, women and children as the White Star liner slipped below the icy waters of the Atlantic, her massive hull gouged open by the iceberg.

Frederick originally came from Liverpool but settled in Southampton where he eventually married and had a daughter and two grandchildren.

It is said that Frederick was the first to see the iceberg through the darkness and raised the alarm. Maritime historians who studied the events of that momentous night have said there is nothing to suggest he did not do everything he could and that the Southampton seamen was a most conscientious lookout who could not be blamed in anyway.

After returning home from America Frederick survived for another 53 years, going back to his life at sea and serving with Cunard and Union-Castle lines until his retirement when he took up selling the Daily Echo.

During his life Frederick was devoted to his wife who he was married to for 48 years and according to his family he once told his daughter: "When your mother goes, I will not be far behind.'' In 1965 his wife died and 12 days later Frederick, after a last visit to his family, went out into his back garden and committed suicide by hanging himself.

His family arranged his funeral at Southampton's Hollybrook cemetery, and although they could not afford a headstone, his grave was regularly tended by them.

For more than 30 years Frederick's grave was unmarked and then the British Titanic Society and the American Titanic Historical Society erected a headstone that featured an engraving of Titanic.

At about that time in 1998 an anonymous letter appeared in the Daily Echo.

It said: "Frederick had a family who loved him, has two grandchildren who remember him and still think about him, two great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

"He was a person who, during his lifetime, sought no publicity concerning his experience on Titanic and his living relatives have respected his wishes. He will never be forgotten by us.