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strict observance of the great traditions of

1:53

the sea towards women and children reflects

1:56

nothing but honor upon our civilization.

2:00

I hope it may modify some

2:02

of the young unmarried lady teachers

2:04

who are so bitter in their

2:07

sex antagonism and think men so

2:09

base and vile. I

2:12

cannot help feeling proud of our race

2:14

and its traditions as proved

2:16

by this event. Boatloads

2:18

of women and children tossing on

2:20

the sea safe and sound and

2:23

the rest silence, honor

2:26

to their memory. In

2:29

spite of all the inequalities and artificialities

2:31

of our modern life, at

2:33

the bottom, tested to its

2:35

foundations, our civilization

2:38

is humane, Christian

2:40

and absolutely democratic. How

2:44

differently imperial Rome or ancient

2:46

Greece would have settled the

2:48

problem. The swells

2:50

and potentates would have gone off

2:53

with their concubines and pet slaves

2:55

and soldier guards and

2:57

whoever could bribe the crew would have had

2:59

the preference and the rest could go to

3:01

hell. Such

3:03

ethics could neither build titanics

3:06

with science nor

3:08

lose them with honor. So that

3:12

of course was Winston Churchill and he

3:14

was writing a letter, to

3:16

his wife Clementine, after

3:18

he'd been reading about the loss of

3:21

the Titanic on the 15th of April

3:23

1912. And it's very Churchill

3:25

isn't it? To have a go at

3:28

unmarried lady teachers. At

3:30

the beginning. Yes, so I hope any feminists

3:33

out there listening to that. Well

3:35

fill themselves, put in their place. But also to congratulate

3:38

Britain and the Anglo-Saxon race as

3:40

he would have called it on

3:42

their splendid performance in the

3:45

Titanic drama. So the fact that Britain's

3:47

most expensive and largest ship has sunk

3:49

the bottom of the ocean is a

3:51

tremendous afflictions. But rather, but also to

3:53

offer some thoughts about history, profound

3:55

historical lessons. So Churchill says Tom that

3:58

the men, the men of the world, are the most expensive. 10

4:00

of Imperial Rome or Ancient Greece, the

4:02

swells and potentates would have gone

4:04

off with their concubines, their slaves, their soldiers, their

4:06

eunuchs and whatnot, and the rest could go to

4:08

hell. That's probably true, isn't

4:10

it? He's not wrong. Well, I

4:13

think it's an insane argument to have. The

4:17

Romans had built it. I think

4:19

rather than try and answer that question, which I

4:21

think is essentially unanswerable, or very, very complex. You

4:23

know he's right. You know he's right. That's

4:27

a fascinating example of the way in which

4:30

the moment the ship sinks,

4:32

people start projecting their political

4:34

opinions, their cultural assumptions, the

4:37

narrative that they want onto it. So in

4:39

another letter, Churchill says to Clemmie that it's

4:41

a very good story. And

4:44

that sense right from the beginning,

4:46

this is an incredible story, that

4:49

influences the way that the news is received.

4:52

Before we get onto that, how the story of

4:54

the Titanic comes to be understood. Have

4:57

we just, as it were, literally pick up from

5:00

where we left off? We've got lots of people

5:02

bobbing around in lifeboats. And the

5:04

ship that comes to their rescue, a

5:06

couple of hours too late, is the

5:08

Carpasia, isn't it? The Cunard of all

5:10

things. So Cunard, they're great rifles.

5:12

And Dominic, it's Captain. So you have gone

5:14

on record as being a big fan of

5:16

Captain Smith. Huge fan. And in fact, as

5:19

we sit here recording this, you have

5:21

as your name on the screen, Captain

5:23

Smith. And you're giving too many

5:25

insights to the listeners and to our working methods.

5:27

But we now come to another Captain. And

5:30

I will leave the listeners to decide which

5:32

of us this Captain sounds like. So

5:35

this is a man called Arthur Rostron,

5:37

who is the Captain of the Carpasia,

5:39

small Cunard carrying 743 passengers,

5:42

three days out of New York, heading

5:44

for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean ports beyond

5:46

that. And one of the

5:49

officers on the ship says of Rostron, I had

5:51

the greatest respect for him as a seamen, a

5:53

disciplinarian, and as a man who could take a

5:55

decision quickly. He was not the

5:57

burly type of jolly Old sea dog,

5:59

Dominic. Far from it. He

6:01

was a sin. And why? rebuild? The

6:04

shop features piercing blue eyes and

6:06

rapid at our movements but some

6:08

I hear. The. Something there is

6:10

that sir. Everybody remembers Captain Swiss but nobody's

6:13

ever had the manifest for this is what

6:15

the rest is, history it's about And of

6:17

course Captain Smith is the only one of

6:19

those two cats as his play by the

6:21

same person who played say it and King

6:24

of Roman. It's a safe to list as

6:26

it can indeed draw their own conclusions from

6:28

the fed and and tennis or like a

6:30

dynamic this going on that right So busted

6:32

as the cats in the cup atheists we

6:34

said last handed me the his wireless operator.

6:37

Was. Just going to bed elicits a his by

6:39

itself is going had find some because he's

6:41

missing for knowledge months of a message that

6:43

he sent me. He is as you will

6:46

see his i misspoke. In the last episode

6:48

I said he had their transmissions. From

6:52

caught going to Titanic.

6:55

Basically. Saying and i are you

6:57

getting on have some cats Bob's

6:59

say He then sends a message

7:02

to see Titanic saying. What's.

7:04

Going on. I'm on the way and they say

7:06

com a wants to struck an iceberg i your

7:08

fc right surprise cats and Russian because. He

7:11

basically says right get everything ready they

7:13

get than three and a half hours

7:15

that firing rockets to say help is

7:17

coming on, the got all the lifeboats

7:19

ready and all that kind of cynical

7:21

that crew ready to hold these guys

7:23

up. Actually, They.

7:26

Perform splendidly. Then they tremendously are

7:28

they actually see the iceberg which

7:30

I hadn't realized. Get a double

7:32

to stice, pay their spouses and

7:34

they, yeah, double taste. Looking

7:37

very menacing. Hundred C Hi yeah yeah

7:39

as they bring this of i was

7:41

on board Boston says. The.

7:43

Thing that strikes and is they are silence.

7:46

There's. No noise, no hurry. They

7:48

came suddenly tumbling out of a

7:50

simmering Saturday. I. mean they

7:52

are broken that traumatize that they're frozen

7:55

i mean that incredibly cold and among

7:57

the traumatize is is may yes who

7:59

is not saying a word. He's given

8:01

a sedative isn't he? And he basically stays hidden

8:03

in the ship's doctor's cabin.

8:06

The billionaires, widows, so

8:08

Astor, Thayer, Widener, they're given cabins.

8:12

By a nudge they're put in the dining rooms

8:14

and doctors are kind of going round, sort of

8:16

sorting them out, giving them, I don't know, brandy

8:18

or whatever they would do. And the

8:21

terrible stories of mothers with very small

8:23

babies having to use napkins as mappies

8:26

or diapers as Americans we call it. But

8:30

at least they're alive Dominic. What about

8:32

the dead? So maybe a little bit of a survey

8:34

of the dead. We don't know

8:36

exactly how many people died because

8:39

we don't know exactly how many people are on the ship. So

8:42

the official US estimate is 1,517 people.

8:44

The official British estimate is 1,503 people.

8:46

Somewhere in between those

8:51

two figures seems reasonable. And

8:53

700 of those are members of the

8:55

crew. Yes, that's right. The biggest loss

8:57

of life in maritime

8:59

history other than in

9:02

battle to that point. And

9:05

in Britain, it's a greater

9:08

loss of life than the British had lost

9:10

in any of the battles

9:12

of the Burgh War, which was the last big

9:14

war they had fought. And

9:17

actually, Richard Davenport behind in

9:19

his book Titanic Lives has really

9:22

dug into the stats about

9:24

why you live and why you die. And it is

9:26

pretty clear that you

9:28

live if you're a woman and you die if

9:31

you're a man. That's much more important than class.

9:33

But there is a slight class. Oh, there is

9:35

an absolutely a class dimension. But

9:38

if you're a third class

9:40

woman, you are far more

9:43

likely to be a Jesus 5 than

9:45

a first class man. But

9:47

having said that, out of 324 first class passengers,

9:49

201 survive. Yes. Out of 277 second class passengers, 118 survive.

9:52

Out of 708 third class,

9:58

181 survive. Yeah,

10:00

and I think a lot of this, the general sense is

10:03

that a lot of this is determined by access to the

10:05

boat deck. So first class

10:07

passengers the closer, they have more

10:09

stewards assigned to them per person, stewards who are getting

10:11

them to the decks. Of course,

10:13

we described in the last episode how the gates are

10:16

left closed, blocking third class passengers from getting

10:18

up. But not deliberately, just to reiterate

10:20

that. Not deliberately, but for about half an hour or so, I

10:22

think. So they're open to about 12.30 aren't they? Yes,

10:25

so actually longer than half an hour, in other words,

10:27

it's about 45 minutes. If

10:29

you're a large family, you're more likely to die,

10:32

because large families... Are not going to

10:34

break up. Yeah. And just to give

10:36

the gender figures, Dominic, 74.3% of female passengers

10:38

survive, 52.3% of children survive, 20% of men survive. Yeah,

10:44

so that gives you a sense. And of course, basically

10:46

what you want to be is a first class woman,

10:48

because 97% of them live. In

10:51

third class, it's dropped to 47%. But

10:54

that, as we said, is probably because of distance.

10:56

And another thing that's really interesting

10:58

is why the figures are not

11:00

better for second class passengers. Because

11:03

they actually have easier access to the deck

11:06

than third class passengers. And Richard Devon-Porhine suggests

11:08

that actually, there may be an

11:11

element of second class passengers. So these are

11:13

people who are never featured in

11:15

the film and popular accounts. These

11:17

are your clergymen, your shopkeepers.

11:21

They are the people who

11:23

are most likely to be

11:25

conformist, obedient, to hang

11:27

back, to be anxious about doing

11:29

the wrong thing. Yeah, and

11:31

so that probably is what dooms so many of them. They

11:35

are by definition not pushy. Yeah,

11:37

not pushy. Exactly. Okay, so shall

11:39

we look at how the news reaches the world?

11:41

Because there are all kinds of places across the

11:43

Atlantic, both sides, that have a particular stake in

11:45

it. So New York, obviously, which

11:47

is the destination. Washington, the center

11:49

of American power. Yeah. London,

11:52

Belfast, Liverpool, Southampton. How does

11:54

the news reach them? So the

11:57

first hint of the disaster reaches

11:59

the Marconi. outpost in Newfoundland, Cape

12:01

Race, and then it is transported

12:04

to a steamship headquarters in Montreal

12:07

and that gives it to a

12:09

Montreal newspaper and that newspaper has an

12:11

agreement with the New York Times. So

12:13

at two o'clock in the morning, a journalist

12:15

in New York Times telephones the

12:18

American Vice President of the International Mercantile

12:20

Marine said the holding company, the umbrella

12:22

company, and he says is this

12:24

true? Philip Franklin, the guy's name

12:26

is the Vice President of IMM and

12:29

for the rest of Monday, actually the

12:32

guy from IMM is really

12:34

bullish. He says

12:36

it's indestructible, maybe there's been a mishap

12:38

but it's unsinkable, they are

12:40

telling people all day don't

12:43

worry no cause for alarm and

12:45

it's actually not until the Monday evening,

12:48

so of course all this has happened

12:50

on Sunday, Sunday night, early hours of

12:52

Monday, it's not until Monday evening that

12:55

they have confirmation that the ship has sunk

12:58

and that hundreds of people

13:01

have been killed and they are just so not good

13:03

for the ship right

13:05

now, and the news spreads through

13:07

the United States quite quickly. President Taft

13:09

in Washington when he finds out that Archie

13:12

Butt is not among the survivors, he is

13:15

floods of tears, no one to

13:17

laugh at his golf jokes or cheer him up

13:19

when people call him fatty or to eat those

13:21

terrible lunches with him, pickles and

13:23

mustard or something. Anyway, he

13:26

has all flags that have mastered in

13:28

the United States, official flags. He does,

13:31

yes. Reflecting the scale of the

13:33

loss of life and in Britain it comes

13:35

to Poldew, doesn't it? The Marconi station in

13:38

Cornwall which you can still visit to this

13:40

day. And so it's in

13:42

the London evening papers Monday night, Titanic

13:45

sinking but at this

13:47

point it's only in the

13:49

next few days that the extent of

13:51

the disaster becomes apparent

13:54

because at first a

13:56

lot of the papers, Britain is a country at that

13:58

point with you know very very very successful

14:01

regional newspapers in places like Liverpool,

14:03

Belfast, Southampton that will be deeply

14:05

affected. And the early editions of

14:07

those papers say everybody has been

14:09

saved, very few people have died,

14:11

and they give people kind of false hope. Now

14:14

Tom, you will know we have Arrested

14:17

History Club, don't we? We do. And

14:19

that community manager James is a very

14:21

big fan of H.H. Asquith. He

14:24

loves Asquith. Indeed, his nickname is Asquith. He was

14:26

Prime Minister at the time. He's got a T-shirt

14:28

with Asquith's face on it, Tom, would

14:30

you please? Asquith lets himself down, doesn't he,

14:32

by weeping over breakfast. You think that's

14:35

poor? You think that's unchartelian? I think

14:37

it's unmanly, yeah. The complete lack of a

14:39

stiff upper lip. Unmanly. So

14:41

he does, because by Friday the British

14:44

newspaper said reports the cup haves has arrived

14:46

with the survivors, and so they now know pretty

14:48

much exactly who has survived and who hasn't. And

14:51

Asquith and his wife Margo cry at breakfast

14:54

reading the papers, and then that evening

14:57

Asquith has moved into a new house on

15:00

the banks of Thames, and his children

15:02

all turn up that evening for a housewarming

15:04

party. And they do what people

15:07

I think should always do at housewarming parties, which

15:09

is they read out incredibly moving and traumatic stories

15:11

about the Titanic from the papers to each other,

15:14

and all cry. Yeah, sob over the bold

15:17

eggs. Yes. But I mean, I

15:19

suppose the place that is most affected is Southampton, isn't

15:21

it? Because lots of the crew have come from there.

15:23

Yes. I can't remember who it is, compares

15:25

it to a mining community where

15:27

there's been some terrible tragedy and lots of

15:29

lives have been lost underground or something. Yeah.

15:32

The scale of the disaster, it reaches

15:34

across the entire city. It does indeed.

15:37

Yes, Southampton, a classic example

15:39

of one of these places where the newspapers

15:41

have reported that everybody's alive, the Southern Daily

15:43

Echo. For some hours,

15:45

great anxiety prevailed. But fortunately, more reassuring

15:47

tidings reached us this afternoon when all

15:50

passengers were reported to be safe. And

15:52

then the next day they say, actually,

15:55

that wasn't correct. Yeah,

15:57

corrections. When we said that.

16:00

And the vast majority of the crew live

16:02

in Southampton, and about 700 of

16:04

them have died. So

16:07

there's an example of one school

16:09

in Southampton, 125 children lose

16:11

either a brother, a father, or

16:16

an uncle. The whole

16:18

city is

16:21

plunged into grief and mourning.

16:24

Same story actually in Liverpool. So a

16:26

lot of those men have actually come

16:28

originally from Liverpool. They'd moved

16:30

to Southampton when White Star had moved. So

16:32

Liverpool too is a city that has lost

16:34

hundreds of people and there's basically an entire

16:37

city in mourning. And the name of Liverpool

16:39

is on the ship. So people

16:41

who've seen the film will remember it's

16:44

on the end of the ship as it prepares to

16:46

plunge down. So there's a sense of humiliation there as

16:48

well. And there is also a sense of humiliation in

16:50

Belfast, which had built it. And

16:54

the fact that this unsinkable ship,

16:56

the pride of the Harland and

16:58

Woolf shipyards built by

17:01

Ulster Protestants has sunk.

17:03

It's felt as a kind of political

17:05

humiliation, isn't it, for Protestantism in Ulster?

17:07

I think it is because Harland and

17:09

Woolf and shipyards, they weren't

17:11

just a symbol of the city, but they're a symbol of

17:14

a kind of industrial ethic that the

17:16

people of that city believed they had. See,

17:18

they believed in that episode that we did

17:20

about number two in this series. The

17:23

people of Belfast, the Protestant people of

17:25

Belfast believed we are different from our

17:27

neighbours. We work harder,

17:29

we are more industrious, we are more, you know,

17:31

all of this kind of stuff, which, you know,

17:33

people will raise their eyebrows at now, I guess.

17:37

And at a time when they are sort

17:39

of being ripped apart by the

17:41

great rutcheons about Home Rule and the

17:43

sectarian violence and stuff for this to

17:45

happen at this moment, makes it all

17:48

the more powerful. Again, the sense of

17:50

a metaphor. Yeah. Absolutely.

17:53

Very difficult to resist that kind of

17:55

conclusion, isn't it? Totally. Because the moment

17:58

it sinks, people are... stirred

18:00

by the story in all kinds of ways. Often

18:02

in kind of quite mad ways, because there are

18:04

people who kind of lay claim to the fact

18:07

that they've lost relatives on

18:09

the ship and they haven't at all. And all

18:11

this, I mean... Yeah. You

18:13

see this guy? Joseph Marrington of Philadelphia. What a

18:16

Barack story he has. He

18:18

keeps a vigil for two days. He said, I'm

18:20

looking for information about my friend William

18:22

Lambert of Greensboro, Pennsylvania. He

18:24

was my closest friend on Earth, as dear to me

18:27

as a brother. He saved my life. Several

18:29

years ago in the jungles of Ecuador,

18:31

when we were searching for rubber. Well,

18:33

unless of course, he'd won a ticket in

18:36

a card game in Southampton at the last

18:38

minute. Oh, right. Like, yeah. I

18:40

mean, you never know. But this by Marrington,

18:42

just to be clear, this person he's looking

18:44

for doesn't exist. I know. He's never

18:47

been to Ecuador looking for rubber. It's just all a

18:49

mad fantasy. And that obviously happens all the time with

18:51

disasters and things, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. And of

18:53

course, the other thing that happens in disasters is that

18:55

people look around for someone to blame. Yeah. Captain

18:59

Smith. Blameless. He's gone down with his

19:01

ship. Blameless. Be

19:03

British. Isn't that what he said? So

19:06

he's not around. He's dead. Yeah.

19:09

But Bruce Ismay is

19:11

alive. So he's the guy in

19:13

charge of the whole shebang. And

19:15

in a terrible state, it's fair to say,

19:17

isn't it Tom? I mean,

19:19

he's sitting in that cabin shaking. Saying

19:22

he should have gone down with the ship. Yeah. So

19:24

Jack Thayer, who we've quoted before, visits Ismay

19:26

and his cabin, found him seated in

19:28

his pyjamas on his bunk, staring straight ahead, shaking like

19:30

a leaf. Thayer says to him, you did the right

19:33

thing. Yeah. You should have

19:35

got on that boat. And Ismay was always grateful

19:37

to the Thayer's for that and corresponded with Thayer's

19:39

widowed mother for many years to come after that.

19:42

Yeah. But obviously Ismay has... It's

19:45

a terrible blow to his professional reputation.

19:48

It's also a terrible blow to his moral reputation.

19:50

And on top of that, I mean, he

19:52

knows that it's a terrible blow to the

19:54

reputation and financial standing of the company that

19:56

he's responsible for. So in every way, he

19:58

knows that things are bad. But when he arrives

20:00

in New York, it's a shock to him, I think, to

20:02

find out just how bad it is. Oh. He

20:06

becomes Public Enemy Number One, doesn't he?

20:08

He is accused of being a coward. They're

20:11

all the stories that he insisted that they

20:13

break the speed records. Yeah, which we've already

20:15

said before. It's not true. Which

20:17

you will see in the film. Yeah. So

20:20

the picture of Ismay that you see in the James Cameron film

20:22

is pretty much the picture that

20:25

was presented to Americans particularly

20:28

in 1912, 1913, that he is the author

20:30

of his own

20:34

misfortunes, that he has effectively killed all these

20:36

people, that he is such a weasel that

20:38

he wouldn't stay there like a man. I

20:40

don't think there's been a single film or

20:42

TV series where he's not a weasel. So

20:45

the Julian Fellow's one as well, the TV

20:47

series. He's even worse in that one. And

20:50

the fact that he is British in

20:53

New York obviously turbocharges it

20:55

as well. Meanwhile, back in

20:57

Britain, as

20:59

you said, the attitude is kind of

21:01

hurrah. We've come tremendously well out

21:03

of the sinking of our largest ship, isn't

21:05

it? It's very weird. Lord Beecher, the cabinet

21:08

minister, in all our minds there has been

21:10

a thrill of heroism and self-sacrifice. They

21:12

were ordinary common or garden members of

21:14

the Anglo-Saxon race. It makes one proud

21:16

to think that there were so many

21:19

men ready to face death quietly and

21:21

a self-sacrificing spirit making way for the

21:23

women and children. And then he says

21:25

unbelievably, not only does it make us

21:27

proud of our race, it makes us sure

21:29

there is a great destiny reserved in the

21:31

world still for the Anglo-Saxon race. Well, and

21:34

he's not unusual in saying that. I mean,

21:36

there's a lot of commentary in the press

21:38

comparing Anglo-Saxon so far with the excitable

21:41

gibberings of less than three.

21:44

I know, that's absolutely. They say, all the

21:46

newspapers say, well, thank goodness the people on

21:48

the ship went Italian or Chinese. It would

21:50

have been a very different story. Yeah.

21:54

Yeah. And so it's basically

21:56

a tremendous success. Yes, which Stempor Heinz

21:58

says basically it takes its place alongside.

22:00

the defeat of the Spanish Armata. And

22:02

Nelson's victory of Trafalgar is a great

22:05

British naval triumph. Well, you've

22:07

said how Lytole, the senior officer to survive,

22:09

goes on to take part in the Dunkirk

22:11

evacuation. Yeah, which is of course a defeat.

22:13

I mean, I suppose it's a kind of

22:15

disaster that gets transmuted into a success. I

22:17

think so. Yes. I mean, obviously,

22:20

people have often said this about the British Empire,

22:22

haven't they? That there was

22:24

a strange sort of reverse alchemy

22:26

at work in British Imperial fantasies,

22:29

perhaps born out of anxiety,

22:33

you know, conscience, who knows,

22:36

where people loved heroic

22:38

failures. I mean, General Gordon,

22:40

you know, our episodes about General Gordon, the

22:42

retreat from Kabul. Yeah, this

22:44

is one of those. Right. But the

22:47

emphasis has to be on heroic. Yes.

22:49

So hence all the transmutation

22:51

of things that actually happened into myth

22:53

very early on. So the band playing

22:55

on and the women and children first

22:57

and Captain Smith, the British,

22:59

all that kind of thing. See, they

23:02

make gigantic sand models on Bournemouth Beach.

23:05

Britannia Mourns, Captain Smith at

23:07

Baby. Yeah. Women and

23:09

children first to the heroes of the Titanic.

23:11

These are the names of these great sand

23:14

sculptures that are made in the following weeks.

23:16

And there is a kind of

23:18

sense of sort of morbid, sentimental

23:21

celebration. Yeah. Which again, I mean, we've

23:23

looked at Isma' reputation in America. I

23:26

mean, this is terrible for him in

23:28

Britain as well, because he

23:31

has brought shame on Britain by getting

23:33

into the boat with his in his slippers

23:35

by not dying. Yes. As of course, has

23:37

Dufteup as well. Yeah. So the

23:40

pair of them are seen to have failed the

23:42

British race. Yes, exactly. So

23:45

there's a big memorial service, isn't there? On

23:47

the 19th of April in London, at St.

23:49

Paul's. Thousands of people go

23:51

and actually have to be turned away.

23:53

I mean, it sounds very moving.

23:56

There are people fainting. The

23:59

music is kind of... of rock of ages, eternal

24:01

father, strong to save, all the kind of

24:03

classic kind of nautical hymns.

24:06

But already, Dominic, people

24:08

are starting to project

24:11

quite profoundly moral metaphors

24:13

onto it. So in

24:15

your notes, you've got the heading, Woke Bishop.

24:20

I feel you would read that out. And

24:22

this Woke Bishop is specifically Edward Talbot, the

24:24

Bishop of Winchester, and he goes to Southampton,

24:27

the place where so many people have died,

24:30

on the 21st of April. And he gets

24:32

into this thing that will be very, very

24:34

popular. In fact, it's still popular to this

24:36

day, the idea that it is an emblem

24:38

of hubris. He believed God meant

24:40

that the cruel and wanton waste of money, which

24:42

was needed on every hand for the help of

24:44

the needy, that this is a rebuke, the sinking

24:46

of the ship with all its furnishings and fittings,

24:49

that this is a sign of God's

24:51

anger with the wealth and pride and

24:53

arrogance that the Titanic he sees as

24:56

representing. And that is something I think

24:58

that has been a kind of enduring

25:00

concept, isn't it? Oh, definitely. Definitely.

25:03

For our Restist History subscribers, we

25:05

did a recent live stream about

25:08

disasters in history, didn't we, going all the way back

25:10

to Sodom and Gomorrah. The idea,

25:13

disasters, I think, either stand for

25:15

themselves, nothing but themselves, or

25:17

they often come to stand for a critique

25:20

of hubris, of

25:22

political extravagance, of

25:25

inequality, negligence, all these kinds of

25:27

things. And right away, Titanic, is

25:30

that with knobs on. And what's fascinating about

25:32

it is that because Americans

25:35

and British are both implicated in it

25:37

pretty much equally, therefore

25:39

the perspective that is cast on the

25:42

disaster on either side of the Atlantic

25:44

is very kind of revelatory about broader

25:46

political and cultural attitudes. Yeah. In America,

25:49

a Senate subcommittee is set

25:51

up under William Alden Smith, Republican Senator

25:53

from Michigan. And this

25:55

is a great age of populism in the

25:57

United States. And it is an exercise in

25:59

pure, populism. The

26:01

evils of big business, the evils

26:04

of plutocracy, British

26:06

aristocrats in particular.

26:09

Richard Daffan-Potterhine, who I think is fair to

26:11

say, writes his book Titanic Lives very much

26:13

as a dark comedy. Yes, he's

26:15

very scathing about William Walden Smith. He

26:17

was all rush and humbug, he says,

26:20

prone to sum up situations on scant

26:22

facts. He hunted clues to

26:25

Ismae's accomplices with all the salivating

26:27

doggedness and random sideways lunges of

26:29

a young basset town tracking hairs.

26:31

The most famous exchanger where he

26:33

asked the witness what was the

26:35

iceberg made of? The iceberg? Ice,

26:37

I suppose, which kind of sums up

26:40

the level of the investigation. However, we

26:42

must not pass ourselves on the backs,

26:44

must we? Really? What? Well,

26:47

so the British report on the

26:50

disaster, by contrast, sent here so

26:52

light it sounded like a pause.

26:55

Well, the British report actually, I think

26:58

it's fair to say the British report does go very easy

27:01

on White Star, on Captain Smith

27:04

in particular, on the officers. But

27:07

actually, his findings are pretty much right, aren't

27:09

they? I mean, substantiated, haven't they? Yeah. It

27:11

says, you know, the neglected

27:14

the ice warnings, they

27:16

should have reduced speed. They weren't

27:18

however going faster than any other ship would

27:20

have been going. They definitely weren't

27:22

going because Ismae had told Smith to

27:26

get to New York early. So

27:28

that's absolutely definitively debunked. Yeah,

27:30

that's inquiry, which is Lord Mersey. I think

27:32

it correctly identifies all the things that went

27:34

wrong. Not enough lightboats, not a proper procedure,

27:36

all that stuff. But it

27:38

says, I think, fairly, this is

27:40

not unusual culpability and negligence on the

27:42

part of White Star or the crew.

27:45

What they are doing is standard

27:48

practice throughout the industry, as

27:50

it were. And that is the issue, rather

27:53

than individual fault. The

27:55

issue is the general culture and the

27:57

fact that effectively, this was

27:59

going to happen. It's incredibly bad luck

28:01

that it's happened to Titanic, but

28:03

it was clearly at some point if it hadn't

28:06

happened to Titanic, it would have happened to somebody

28:08

else, especially that issue not having enough lifeboats. I

28:10

mean, that's bonkers. Yeah. And

28:12

so lessons are drawn from that, aren't they?

28:14

And new regulations brought in. And so it

28:16

becomes an obligation on ships to carry enough

28:18

lifeboats for all passengers and crew. Yeah. Seaman

28:21

have to be trained to handle them. All

28:23

kinds of regulations are brought in. They

28:26

set up an international ice patrol. Yeah. To

28:28

monitor icebergs and the shipping lanes that moved

28:30

south of the ice-incumbered seas. The

28:33

idea that it was just an accident that happened, that

28:35

it was always going to happen. Yeah. People

28:39

are not content with that conclusion. I think it's

28:41

fair to say. No, no, no. They want meaning,

28:43

don't they? They crave meaning. So I think we

28:45

should take a break at this point. And when

28:47

we come back, let's have

28:49

a look in the last segment of this series that

28:52

we've been doing on Titanic, to look at how the

28:54

understanding of it has evolved over the decades and the

28:56

way that the story has been told and

28:59

retold. They

29:08

said, I got away in a boat and humbled me

29:10

at the inquiry. I tell you, I sank

29:12

as far that night as any hero. As

29:15

I sat shivering on the dark

29:17

water, I turned to ice to

29:19

hear my costly life go thundering

29:22

down in a pandemonium of prams,

29:24

pianos, sideboards, winches, boilers

29:26

bursting and shredded ragtime. Now

29:29

I hide in a lonely house behind the sea,

29:32

where the tide leaves broken toys and hat-boxes

29:34

silently at my door. The

29:37

showers of April, flowers of May mean nothing to

29:39

me, nor the late light of June,

29:41

when my gardener describes to strangers how the

29:44

old man stays in bed on seaward

29:46

mornings after nights of wind, takes

29:48

his cocaine and will see no one. Then

29:51

it is I drown again, with all

29:53

those dim, lost faces I never understood.

29:56

My poor soul screams out in the

29:58

starlight, heart breaks loose and rolls

30:00

down like a stone, include

30:02

me in your lamentations." That's

30:06

Derek Mahon, wonderful poem

30:09

after Titanic, ventriloquizing Bruce

30:11

Ismay, who is essentially

30:13

left a broken man by

30:16

the aftermath of the Titanic

30:18

and ends up a retiree on the

30:20

Irish coast. And he

30:23

really is the archetype of one of those

30:25

survivors of the Titanic, you know, whose survival

30:27

is a kind of form of death. So

30:30

he's publicly humiliated. He

30:33

is criticized as a coward on

30:35

both sides of the Atlantic. So

30:37

Ben Hecht, at this point as

30:39

a journalist, will go on to

30:41

become a very distinguished screenwriter, writes

30:43

the screenplays for Scarface and Notorious

30:45

and other kind of big films.

30:48

He writes a poem comparing your

30:50

hero, Captain Smith, Dominic and Ismay, to

30:53

hold your place in the ghastly face of death

30:55

on the sea at night as a seamen's job,

30:57

but to flee with the mob is an owner's

30:59

noble right. See, I think that's too harsh, Tom.

31:01

I think that's much too harsh. It

31:03

is too harsh. And Lord Mersey's inquiry

31:05

would agree with you that actually, you

31:08

know, he was cleared. We quoted in the previous episode

31:10

that if he had not gotten to the boat when

31:12

he was given the chance, he would have been dead.

31:15

And what's the point? Yeah. But

31:17

he, you know, he goes into a deep depression, partly,

31:19

I'm sure, because of the public obloquy. But

31:21

also, you know, he's lost this ship.

31:25

Everything he is was invested in that ship

31:27

and it's gone. And not least because he

31:29

inherited the business. From his father. Exactly. Yeah.

31:32

So a year or so on from the sinking

31:34

Titanic in June 1913, he has stood down from

31:36

the chairmanship of White Star,

31:39

effectively retires. He arranges

31:41

a kind of life of organized routine.

31:44

He goes golfing in Scotland. As

31:46

I said, he spends his summers on the coast

31:48

of Ireland and he never

31:50

talks about it. And No one

31:53

in his family ever talks about it. Although A

31:55

friend of his says that obviously, you know, it's

31:57

always there in his mind. He

32:00

lives in the thirties and. Grandchildren.

32:03

Come to stay with him. And

32:05

they are aware of a kind of

32:07

silence. that presale save for the house

32:09

is not just not talking about satanic,

32:12

is basically not talking about anything and

32:14

there isn't a case and were one

32:16

of his grandchildren asks him. He.

32:18

The have you ever been in the shipwreck

32:21

and this kind of very long embarrass silence

32:23

and them as another one who's been reading

32:25

a newspaper in say proud of his ability

32:27

to read newspaper and tells his may that

32:29

he had read in the newspaper how that

32:32

be the train crash and two hundred and

32:34

fifty six people had died and his may

32:36

retorts to this had you though two hundred

32:38

fifty six people died. Were you there did

32:41

you Kept them. So. Censored

32:43

in his mind is going over and over

32:45

again. Death: So he dies in my to

32:48

said seven gets buried in Putney Well Cemetery.

32:50

And on his tomb there

32:53

are carvings of ships. And

32:55

there is a a biblical quote from

32:57

James Three Four. Behold also

33:00

the ships which say they be so

33:02

great and a driven a fierce winds

33:04

yet a turned about with a very

33:06

small helm with a so ever with

33:08

given a list us. Which. Is.

33:11

Tragic. Which. Though they be

33:13

so great said some. You know that

33:15

poem that you read as have a

33:17

wonderful claim that their man from guess

33:20

where his father and his grandfather worked

33:22

In certain it's a word to Holland

33:24

and Wolf today. Yeah. So

33:26

you see why he would be torn. I think

33:28

that poems, bloods, people do that boom and

33:30

equivalent of a levels in Ireland. leaving cert. It's

33:33

like a standard sprite text they do

33:35

for a powerful stuff before we move

33:37

on they from his may and the

33:40

moves that is articulated in that poem

33:42

of a kind of living death. There

33:44

is another figure who suffer similar obliquely

33:46

hadn't possesses must be me a so

33:48

know who we mentioned as travelling on

33:50

second class the Japanese civil servant death

33:53

who'd been in Russia studying the Russian

33:55

rarely system of this game bats Japan

33:57

vi the Atlantic and. He

34:00

reminisces about the sinking. He says that

34:02

he is standing on the deck thinking

34:04

how he would never see his wife

34:06

and children again but determined to behave

34:08

like of Japanese gentlemen so he says.

34:10

I tried to pair myself for the

34:12

last moment with no agitation making up

34:14

my mind not to leave anything disgraceful

34:16

as a Japanese subjects where he is

34:18

then cold by a say that to

34:21

get into lifeboats thirteen exactly is is

34:23

may was since late in there is

34:25

a spare place them in a women

34:27

and children if you don't take it.

34:29

You. Will die pointlessly and so he gets

34:31

in. And he says eyes

34:33

and gets New York and he

34:36

crosses American. goes back to Japan

34:38

and there he is ostracized. He.

34:41

Loses his job oh my word because he's

34:43

basically mean he said person in japan he

34:45

those about russian railway so they get ultimately

34:47

the give it back to him but his.

34:50

His family I humiliated in

34:52

the saved. For. Decades and

34:54

decades and was funny thing about the

34:57

So I kind of fake the new

34:59

of the story and had always assumed

35:01

that it was a Japanese expressions of

35:03

you know of morality of public sable

35:05

that side to say, but some apparently

35:08

not. So Margaret Mal, who's a German

35:10

historian, has sent essentially Japan. She says

35:12

as soon as failure to act as

35:14

the Anglo Saxon nations evidently expected they

35:16

meant to act caused embarrassment in Japan,

35:19

but more because of the Japanese, his

35:21

acceptance Western values and because of their

35:23

own traditions. So it's kind of fascinating. Oh

35:26

says no because that's what a Japanese

35:28

person seduce. Yeah, that's what a Japanese

35:30

person states if we imitating the Anglo

35:32

Saxons. Basically, yeah, that condemning him in

35:34

the way that the Anglo Saxon Pass

35:36

condemning his me. So. fascinating right

35:38

as and sting i mean the

35:40

one thing that comes outs of

35:42

what happens afterwards is how many

35:44

of the survivors are utterly traumatized

35:46

by survivor's guilt yeah says not

35:48

just a traumatic experience but for

35:51

so many people they have thinking

35:53

afterwards why did i live when

35:55

so many die why did i

35:57

live with my husband died said

35:59

sonic call We started one

36:01

of the episodes, didn't we, with the story of her

36:04

and her husband, the grocer from

36:06

Hampshire. She

36:08

has basically been forced into a boat against

36:10

her will. Her husband dies. She

36:12

dies two years later, and she

36:15

never, ever recovers. Richard

36:17

Davenport Hines has a list of people

36:19

who take their own lives in

36:22

years or the decades afterwards. We

36:24

quoted a few times Jack Thayer, who was then a boy,

36:27

wasn't he? He goes on to

36:29

become a Philadelphia banker. He kills himself in 1945. The

36:33

lookout, Frederick Fleet, he killed himself in 1965. It's

36:37

remarkable, I mean, maybe, you know,

36:39

if you were being very cynical, you would say, well,

36:41

statistically, there would be a number of suicides. But it

36:43

is remarkable how many there are. And I think there

36:46

is a pattern. So particularly

36:49

women who have

36:51

children who

36:53

lose their husbands seem to have been

36:56

particularly traumatized and

36:58

devastated. So another example, you

37:00

mentioned Charlotte Collier. Another

37:02

example is Juliet LaRoche, who

37:04

is the French wife of Joseph LaRoche, the

37:07

Haitian. Yeah, the guy from the Caribbean, yeah.

37:09

So he has been left and her and

37:11

her two daughters have gone on the boat.

37:13

They arrive in New York. They do not

37:16

go on to Haiti because he's dead. They

37:18

don't have any reason to go there. She

37:20

doesn't speak any English, so she can't

37:23

make sense of what's going on in New York. So

37:25

she goes back to France. And

37:28

she, of course, was pregnant. And when she

37:30

gets back to France, she delivers a boy

37:32

and calls him Joseph. But

37:34

she apparently never mentions her

37:36

husband again. She never

37:39

talks about her experience on that

37:41

night. And she micromanages

37:43

the lives of her daughters, never

37:45

letting them out of her sight.

37:48

And there is a photo of her with her husband and

37:50

the two daughters just before they set out. And

37:53

the younger daughter, who was only two

37:56

at the time, very small, but the

37:58

three-year-old girl, have faces. kind

38:00

of ablaze with happiness and joy and it's

38:02

like it cuts through you like a knife

38:05

through your heart to see that

38:07

photograph and know what is coming. And

38:10

amazingly the youngest of those

38:12

daughters lives until 1998 so

38:14

that's a year after the

38:16

James Cameron films come out, she's still

38:18

alive. I mean it's amazing

38:21

and I think you do have the sense there that all

38:23

of these people are characters in a story that

38:26

they don't really control anymore because their

38:28

fates, whether they die or survive, are

38:31

objects of such passionate public

38:34

curiosity that the

38:36

story that they are part of is

38:39

no longer theirs. So amazingly the first

38:41

film about the Titanic, it's called Save

38:43

Them Titanic, appears four weeks after

38:47

the Titanic's gone down so in May 1912. And

38:50

the star was on the Titanic.

38:52

Yes, unbelievable. And she placed herself in

38:54

the dress that she had worn in

38:56

her life boat, Dorothy Gibson. I

38:59

mean that is mind-boggling isn't it, that within four

39:01

weeks she's reenacting it

39:03

for the cameras, presumably profiting

39:05

from it. So the Walter

39:07

Lorde book, the very famous book, A

39:09

Night to Remember, which has became

39:12

the definitive account probably for

39:14

the best part of 50 years really didn't

39:16

it? And that was based on survivors

39:19

letters and things wasn't it? He interviewed

39:22

lots of survivors although interestingly he didn't

39:24

take any notes, he just said he

39:26

remembered what they had said, wrote it

39:28

down. Yeah and I mean let's get

39:30

to it Tom because you've

39:33

been itching to talk about the James

39:35

Cameron film. Well so I mean this

39:37

is the great cinematic analysis of it,

39:39

the great cinematic retelling of the story.

39:42

It's the one that kind of looms

39:44

over the popular understanding of

39:46

the entire narrative. So let's

39:48

just stick with it is May who

39:50

we've been talking about. We've said how

39:53

he always gets represented as an absolute

39:55

rotter and he's one of

39:57

the few purely contemptible figures in

39:59

the film. He's awful in the film, isn't

40:01

he? He is. So even Cal, the

40:04

sinisterly camp. Yeah,

40:06

he's Billy Zane, isn't he? Billy Zane. I mean,

40:08

he has kind of redeeming moments. He tries to

40:11

save Rose, but Ismael is

40:13

hopeless. So he is shown as urging

40:15

the Titanic on faster and faster. And

40:17

there's a kind of classic exchange where

40:19

they're all at table. And Leonardo's character

40:21

is there as well. And

40:24

Molly Brown, you know, who's a real

40:26

figure, played by Kathy Bates in the

40:28

film. Unsinkable. Yeah. Says

40:30

to Ismael, hey, who thought of the name

40:33

Titanic? Was it you, Bruce? And Ismael says,

40:36

yes, actually, I wanted to convey sheer

40:38

size. And size means stability, luxury and above

40:40

all strength. And that's exactly how people talk,

40:42

of course. Yes. And

40:45

then Rose, played by Kate Winslet. Do

40:47

you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismael?

40:49

His ideas about the male occupation with

40:51

size might be of particular interest to you.

40:53

Oh, for God's sake. Yeah. And of course,

40:55

Ismael has never heard of Freud in his

40:57

own. Yeah. I mean, there

41:00

is a lot of Freudian stuff when famously

41:02

when Rose arrived in Southampton and

41:04

sees the Titanic for the first time. I

41:07

don't see what all the fuss is about. It

41:09

doesn't look any bigger than the Mauritania and then

41:11

Cal, the the Billy Sane character. You can be

41:13

blase about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic.

41:16

It's over 100 feet longer than

41:18

the Mauritania and far more

41:21

luxurious. And this whole thing about

41:23

how proud everyone is that Titanic

41:25

is three inches longer than the

41:27

Olympic. Yeah. And that

41:29

sense that the Titanic is size. I

41:32

mean, it's size really matters throughout

41:35

every retelling of the story. And it

41:37

matters to the making of the film.

41:39

It's the fact that the film is

41:41

shot on a Titanic scale, that they

41:43

have to build an entire new studio

41:46

lot to film it in Mexico, in

41:48

Mexico. Yeah. And we've

41:50

been talking throughout how the sea was very,

41:52

very calm on the night of the sinking,

41:55

and this is very, very useful for

41:57

James. Because it meant

41:59

that he could fill. the whole thing with

42:01

kind of water all around. They build this

42:04

enormous, enormous ship and the tank that

42:06

contains it, I mean, it has 17 million gallons

42:08

of water. All the

42:10

fittings are done with immense

42:12

precision, you know, all the

42:14

upholstery, the furniture, the fittings,

42:17

the plates, they're all kind of stamped with

42:19

the requisite logos. For the time, Tom, I

42:21

can remember when it was being made and

42:23

then when it came out. The expectation was

42:25

that the film would prove to Bob to

42:27

be a crash. Yeah. A kind of reenactment

42:29

of the Titanic. Yes. That this was a

42:31

colossal folly because it

42:33

was the most expensive film of

42:35

its kind ever made. The James

42:37

Cameron, who'd obviously famously done

42:39

Aliens before it, was embarking on

42:42

this vanity project of something, you

42:44

know, rather Ismay-like. Yeah. Something that

42:46

had to be bigger and better

42:48

on a bigger scale and was

42:50

heading towards the iceberg of critical

42:53

obliquity. Right. That Nemesis would punish

42:55

his hubris. Yes. But

42:57

actually, of course, it's a massive, massive, well,

42:59

it's a Titanic success. Very good. Yeah. And

43:01

within a year of its release, it's become

43:03

the biggest grossing film of all time and

43:05

actually overtakes Jurassic Park, which is another

43:08

film freighted with 90s

43:10

style metaphors. But

43:12

not everybody liked Titanic, did they?

43:14

It's regarded as a kind of

43:16

a sort of nod back to

43:18

the kind of classic days

43:21

of Hollywood to some extent, isn't it? Kenneth

43:23

Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Do you

43:25

know what he said? No. What did

43:27

he say? I know you won't like it because you love

43:29

Titanic. What

43:33

really brings on the tears in this film is

43:35

Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is

43:37

within his abilities. Not only is

43:40

it not, it's not even close. Well, how

43:42

many films has he made? Well, okay. You

43:44

want a filmmaker, Robert Altman, great American filmmaker.

43:46

Oh, Robert Altman. Who cares about Robert Altman?

43:48

Has he ever sunk a large ship in

43:50

a tank in a studio lot in Mexico?

43:52

I don't think so. The most

43:55

dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my

43:57

entire life. He said of, I mean, the truth

43:59

doesn't matter. Tom is it's very spectacular but it's

44:01

really, are you ready for this? Yeah. It's basically

44:03

a film for 15 year old girls, isn't it?

44:05

I mean, that's what people say about it. Okay,

44:08

Dominic, that is what people say about it.

44:10

That is how it is now seen. At

44:13

the time, it was not because of course there's

44:15

the romance. I mean, I don't want to gender

44:17

stereotype where I'm going to. Yeah. That girls

44:19

tend to like the romance and boys tend

44:22

to like the spectacle of large engines and

44:24

ships crashing and everything. The funnels. Yeah.

44:27

And it was a success across, you

44:30

know, everybody watched it, everybody liked it. Otherwise, it wouldn't

44:32

have become the biggest grazing film of all time. Yeah.

44:34

The film that replaces it in that list is the

44:36

Lord of the Rings trilogy. But you have to combine

44:38

them to get to that point, don't you? Which

44:40

we would do, Tom, naturally. But the thing

44:43

is about the Lord of the Rings, it

44:45

kind of retains a status, I think one

44:47

might say. And here I am quoting from

44:49

a brilliant podcast,

44:51

Sentimental Garbage, which

44:54

kind of looks at stuff basically that women

44:56

like that men don't. Hold on, there are

44:58

other brilliant books. Unbelievable. It's very,

45:00

very funny. Well, so Carolina Donahue, the

45:03

novelist, a cork woman. Okay,

45:05

very good. Yeah. So you live a

45:07

cork woman. And

45:10

they do a kind of great look at

45:12

this. And her argument essentially is that Lord

45:14

of the Rings retains its status because boys

45:16

make it and Titanic is condemned as kind

45:18

of romantic slash because it's a thing for

45:20

teenage girls. And they also

45:23

do great stuff about this whole thing that ship

45:25

has an enormous phallus. They

45:27

kind of turn this as it were on its head,

45:29

right? And say, no, actually, the

45:31

ship is, is Rose,

45:33

the Kate Winslet character, okay, that both of

45:35

them are escaping the patriarchal hold. So what

45:38

do you make of that? What do you

45:40

think about it? You're absolutely convinced they're not

45:42

overthinking it at all. But

45:44

it's a brilliant example of how the idea

45:46

of the Titanic as a metaphor can be

45:48

reinterpreted and reinterpreted. It can indeed. Yeah, in

45:50

very, very satisfying ways. You know, if it's

45:52

not a, if it's not a phallus, or

45:54

it's not an example of female emancipation, it's

45:57

Europe before the First World War, isn't it? Or it's the

45:59

British Empire. And in fact, in

46:01

Nazi propaganda, it often features a

46:04

kind of metaphor for Britain. It's

46:06

industrial capitalism. I mean, now

46:08

I'm guessing that it would serve as

46:10

a metaphor for everything that is kind

46:12

of destroying the world. Yeah, that idea

46:15

of not having lifeboats, but having gyms

46:17

and kind of luxury spas. Well, that's

46:19

sort of your capitalism point, I suppose,

46:21

isn't it? So I think the two

46:23

most potent of those. So

46:25

first of all, I think the fact that it's two years before the First

46:27

World War is

46:29

colossally important in

46:31

explaining why it is. I mean, it wouldn't do it

46:34

anyway. It's a great story. I mean,

46:36

when we did our live stream

46:38

about disasters for the

46:40

subscribers, context is important,

46:43

isn't it? Context really matters because some

46:45

of those disasters are unbelievably harrowing. We

46:47

did the Victoria Hall disaster in Sunderland

46:49

where hundreds of children were killed. And

46:52

most people have never heard of it. And

46:54

the reason is because it doesn't stand for anything

46:56

beyond itself, particularly. It's just a terrible accident. So

46:59

I panic because it's 1912. And because the

47:02

world is going to fall apart in 1914,

47:04

it's always bundled in

47:06

with those shots and Sarajevo that kick off

47:09

the First World War, I think. I mean,

47:11

we love a cliched metaphor on the rest

47:13

of history. This is your

47:15

absolute classic, dancing on the edge of

47:17

an abyss, the storm clouds

47:19

of war are gathering and the iceberg is

47:22

heading south. The iceberg, exactly. So there's that.

47:24

And I think that's understandable because what

47:26

is coming in the 1910s

47:28

is a colossal smash up, to use

47:30

the lingo at the time, of

47:34

European civilization to some degree. Right. And

47:36

another ocean line in the Lusitania will

47:38

famously be sung. Exactly. By a German

47:40

submarine. And then the other thing is

47:42

the woke bishop, the Bishop of Winchester,

47:45

saying it's about greed

47:48

and hubris and

47:50

it's capitalism. And

47:53

I guess that is the one that ultimately

47:55

will be the more enduring because you're absolutely

47:57

right. We now in the 21st century. Obsessed

48:00

by metaphor how? me because we. Are.

48:02

So conscious of our own civilization being

48:04

peddled by climate change and all these

48:06

kinds of things say that the idea.

48:09

Of. This great luxurious. But I see

48:11

the thing is Satanic is very

48:13

luxurious because you said. It

48:15

is ultimately and emre can sip. Brain

48:18

as the saying. Well, so dominant. You are

48:20

a man who when you hear a philosopher

48:23

talk about a stone deaf, I still have

48:25

a ticket. I proceed to

48:27

thus, exactly what is your take on

48:29

all this. Do you think it has

48:31

a profound metaphorical pest? Know. Ultimately, I

48:34

asked you to think it's a sip

48:36

that hit an iceberg. Our Maisie Some

48:38

Okay, so. Clearly, as I

48:41

said before, I think a similar

48:43

disastrous click into happened given the

48:45

extremely by modern standards lacks. Health

48:48

and Safety Regulation This one of the safety

48:50

culture. It's a small com is to

48:52

make so there are enough lifeboats. but that

48:54

said, I think actually that when you get

48:57

closer and closer into the story. What?

49:00

You're confronted with this is actually the

49:02

meaninglessness of it's. And it's the

49:04

fact that it doesn't have a meaning. I think

49:06

that is more frightening. Yeah, because I don't think

49:09

it's a metaphor when his, but I think it's

49:11

both, isn't It is ultimately out a human level.

49:13

It's. More Frightening. As the

49:16

eruption of the unforeseen yeah about thing

49:18

that can destroy your life in an

49:20

instance and you know these people the

49:23

collie as they could have bought hundred

49:25

says tickets and ocean liners. And.

49:27

It was bloody bad luck that they bought

49:30

one on a ship. that itself suffered very

49:32

bad luck because had they been on the

49:34

other ships, they all didn't have enough lifeboats

49:36

either. And. Yet they still made it

49:38

back and it was fine. And it's just it's

49:40

just that the terror. Of

49:42

chance that's my feet by. you are

49:45

a great man you love a bit

49:47

a meeting I mean I think you

49:49

could say that the confidence to go

49:52

slamming out across the ice and with

49:54

all these wealthy fittings sublimely confident that

49:56

everything will be alright. That.

49:58

The perhaps? Isis. The have of

50:01

something of the spirit that leads you

50:03

to war. If. He wanted to.

50:05

You could claim to push that. I

50:07

agree. I mean, I think it is

50:09

ultimately expressive of the fact that terrible

50:11

things happen and that there isn't really

50:13

as a kind of a framing explanation

50:15

beyond the fact that an iceberg break

50:17

off the ice sheet and at a particular

50:19

moment happened to be where it was.

50:21

But having said that, I don't deny

50:23

that with the sinking happening, it's power

50:25

as a metaphor is incredibly profound, and

50:27

that's why people keep using it. That's

50:29

why we've done the podcast. Yeah, because

50:31

if it didn't have that resonance, I

50:33

don't think. People would be interested in it

50:35

when it i think is combination of the miss

50:38

it residents of the ship. And

50:40

this Leviathan has been produced

50:42

by. The. The world's first

50:44

industrial nation. In. Collaboration with the

50:46

world's rising financial superpower, the United States

50:49

said the that side sweats, but also

50:51

for me reading the stories, it's that

50:53

the human details that will linger in

50:55

my mind. You know that kid who'd

50:58

put on his trouser and know I

51:00

know, I mean the salute across story,

51:02

but those trousers really do kill him.

51:05

Yeah. I mean on his birthday? Yeah, it has

51:07

been given for his birthday. Terrible. Anyway, I think

51:09

it's good to finish on that note. Of

51:12

a boy. Who celebrates his

51:14

birthday on the last a He's Gonna Be Alive gets

51:16

given a pair of long trousers and is so proud

51:19

of them that he receives is takes talent scout on

51:21

the set. I think we should finish with him now.

51:23

So. Thank

51:25

you for listening to I miss been a

51:28

Titanic series hasnat six episodes. Yeah, he really

51:30

couldn't have reached for another word. that's how

51:32

many to store after that I know, I

51:34

know, it's And to those of you who

51:36

have stayed with us yeah your sister live

51:38

old I'm we have hit the iceberg of

51:41

time. Of

51:43

out of got but guess what?

51:45

You. see the thing is when they got

51:47

to the answer states a new journey

51:50

lad for many of them did totally

51:52

by railroad so another journey awaits you

51:54

feel like having got off the boats

51:56

isn't get on the exciting railroad subset

51:58

self next week and that rail Oton

52:00

carries the name Martin

52:03

Luther because you

52:05

will be taking us

52:07

through the extraordinarily colorful

52:09

and world-changing life of

52:12

arguably history's most exciting,

52:16

what would he describe him as? I was about to say history's

52:18

most exciting theologian but I'm worried we won't have any listeners. Well,

52:22

he changes the world. He changes the

52:24

world. He changes Europe and we

52:26

will be making that argument next week

52:29

when we look at how the Protestant

52:31

Reformation begins in the early 16th century.

52:33

There's theological tracts, there's fighting, dogs, there's

52:36

poor behavior on all sides, the

52:38

devil is present, enormous amount of

52:40

bowel-related cometary, so all

52:43

to come. So that's next week's journey

52:45

but thank you for joining us on this

52:47

particular voyage and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.