April 14th....Lectures

After Breakfast we walked to the lecture theatre at the Civic Centre to hear and see a series of stimulating talks which were fresh and well researched..

Photo by Ian Huntly

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The introduction was given by Tracey Clarke and she handed over to Una Reilly who by time scale related the building of the Titanic and her sister ships in the shipyards of Harland and Woolf.

Photo by Ian Huntly

Una is the co-founder of the Belfast Titanic Society so spent time to promote the coming commemorative rebuilding programme in Belfast Docks..John Creamer has recently returned from Belfast where he visited the Nomadic which is being renovated. Una and John were very enthuastic about the Belfast Connection so our group are now considering a visit..

Geoff Watts gave a very full talk about the "Monuments, Memorials and Memories from the Tourist Information Centres angle. We used his lecture to find some of the memorials we didn't know existed...

Photo by John Creamer

We were now especially impressed by the talk given by the girls from Southampton University who have found a subject which could be added to their studies. Their appraisal gave us a new aspect to the story and and has triggered off a desire to look deeper into what they have found. They examined the compensation and funding of "loved ones" left behind.

Photo by John Creamer

Genevieve Bailey from "Genevieves Jaunts" gave an emotion-filled lecture on what she knew of the disaster and how it affected Southampton.

Shiela Jemima, co-author of "Titanic Voices" then gave a lecture incorporating sound clips of people who had lost relatives, people who were saved and people who were otherwise involved. In the absence of Millvina Dean who is recovering from a fall, it was nice to hear her voice during Sheila talk relating her involvement...

Photo by Ian Huntly

The Civic Centre museum was next on the agenda and there we met up with other BTS delegates some of whom had come for the day. We saw Sid Sedunary who had been to the Civic Centre.

Some of the group went further into town to the Bargate Market which this day was Maritime in every way and they met up with Stu Williamson and his wife who were selling his wonderful paintings..

Photo by John Creamer

In the evening for our own Gala Dinner we requested taxis to take us all to the Dolphin and had a very good meal of quality steaks and all the trimmings. On our table was Bob and Ann Burr, Bobs grandfather was lost on the Titanic.

Photo by Ian Huntly

Photo by Ian Huntly

We caught taxis back to the hotel and chatted the remainder of the evening over coffees and tea.