vanessarama

{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

I have decided! My 100 things are: 100 things 100 things that move or interest me

Thing One: Titanic

Ships have always been part of my life. My parents met on board ship. My dad worked most of his life on both cargo and passenger ships, meaning he was absent for large chunks of time, but also meaning that I managed to memorise his Survival at Sea booklet and from a young age could tell people how to get water at sea by sucking fish spines. I’ve only slept overnight on a ship twice but I loved it and would do it again - but the notion of going on a modern cruise ship sounds quite close to hell to me, ugh.

Of course you can’t be mildly obsessed with ships without taking some kind of interest in the Titanic. It’s not just a tragedy, or a tale about arrogance or pride or heroism, although it has all those elements. I think the Titanic’s sinking was the real end of the nineteenth century; the end of the notion that anything was possible, that Man (and it was Man then) was in total command of the natural world and the elements, that more and bigger would always be better. It was one of the first disasters that led to measurable changes in safety regulations. And above all, as Walter Lord says in the best Titanic book ever written, it was really a small town - one with people from so many different backgrounds and nationalities. The Titanic is about people.

( moar Titanic, cut to save your list )