Titanic - The Story of a maritime tragedy
Written by John Richard Hodges
‘Titanic’ – the very name conjures up thoughts of tragedy and disaster, but also of great courage and pride.
In April 1912 ‘Titanic’ was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, pride of the ‘White Star Line’. Her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York ended when she struck an iceberg, resulting in the loss of over 1,533 lives.
‘Titanic’ by John Hodges, retells this moving and dramatic story as seen through the eyes of a teenage stowaway.
The story although fictitious could very well be true, as possibly there were stowaways on board for that fateful voyage to eternity.
The author takes us on the voyage itself, with a tour of the great ship and the chance to meet many of the characters and personalities who were to play their different roles that fateful night of April 14th 1912, when ‘Titanic’ struck the iceberg and into the early morning of April 15th. The largest ocean liner ever built disappeared below the surface of the freezing North Atlantic taking most of her crew and her passengers, including women, men and children with her.
The ‘foreword’ was written by Ellen Mary Walker whose parents had been on board the great liner for her maiden voyage.
Ellen Mary Walker –
I have been asked to write a foreword for John, and accepted with pleasure. We both share a fascination and interest for Titanic and of course I have a very personal interest because my parents were on board.
My father was Henry Samuel Morley, who owned high class confectionery shops in Worcester, Birmingham and Malvern.
My father was forty years of age and a millionaire when he decided to leave his wife and daughter and start a new life in California with my mother, Kate Florence Phillips, the pretty nineteen-year-old assistant from his shop near the railway station in Foregate Street, Worcester.
Samuel Morley.
Leaving provision for his wife and daughter, Henry and my mother, Kate, registered on Titanic under the assumed names of “Mr. and Mrs. Marshall”. My father, Henry Morley, went down with the “unsinkable” Titanic, but my mother, Kate was bundled aboard the last lifeboat to leave the stricken vessel.
Kate was picked up by the ‘Carpathia’ and taken to New York. She was later able to return to England, but in disgrace for besides eloping with her employer, she also found she was also pregnant with me.
The disaster took place on the 14th and 15th April, 1912, with myself being born just nine months later on January 11, 1913, at the home of my grandparents at 34 Waterworks Road in Worcester. My father’s family the ‘Morleys’ paid for my education in my early years.
Ellen Mary Phillips and her Mother Kate Florence Phillips.
Among my most prized possessions is a poignant reminder of Titanic, my mother’s purse which she carried on the ship, still with her cabin keys inside and the beautiful sapphire necklace my father gave to my mother, during those wonderful days aboard Titanic before she struck disaster.
Kate Phillips’ keys for her luggage in the leather purse from Titanic & Ellen Mary in 1998.
I hope you enjoy this version of the Titanic story, which I have read with much pleasure and helped with as an advisor.
Mary Ellen Walker -1998.
