Talk Titanic

I really do love travelling by bus, the interesting people makes up for the usual sausage roll remnants on the floor and the occasional rolling pop bottle which nobody wants to pick up, it becomes quite musical after a while.I imagine many a budding Mozart will have composed his masterpiece on such journeys.

Met an old fella struggling into his seat at the back of the bus, he sat opposite me, he smiled through a sigh. I asked him if he came into town for shopping every day. His wife had suffered a brain haemorrage seven years earlier and was left disabled in a wheelchair, she`d been in a coma for 6 months, he looked as if he`d been through the mill. It turned out that Mr. C had lived in Frank Street Benwell, where my husband was born and we started exchanging the surnames that we remembered, memories of the old outdoor toilets, woodworm and pitch darkness when sitting on the throne. He laughed when he remembered one night on returning from the pub, a little the worse for drink, he`d stumbled into the outdoor toilet, it was the middle of winter, the toilet bowl shattered, floods of water cascaded out, he couldn`t unloose the catch (sneck) on the door and was soaked.

Mr. C went on to talk of old neighbours, one old lady had taken care of a relative`s belongings after she died, a bag among the possessions had boarding pass, tickets and things left from the Titanic, she had survived the sinking. I asked what happened to it, he said regretfully, they had thrown it all in the bin.....what!!!!!
It wasn`t of interest to them back then. What a character, I really enjoyed my journey, he thanked me for an interesting chat.

Later that night, switched on Tv The Last Mystery of the Titanic is showing on Discovery Knowledge, the camera follows into the boat deck level, staircase and down to E deck. I ponder at where the old lady was in all of this.