US Edition
Children can be morbid, can’t they? I speak for myself, of course, and my youthful fascination with the Titanic.
It was among the real-life “mysteries” in a book bought by my mother. The Loch Ness Monster and Turin Shroud were gripping, sure – but it was the mystery of how this “unsinkable” liner had sunk that hooked me. I devoured accounts of that awful night on April 15, 1912, when 1,500 people died, and lay in bed trying to imagine the terror of the final moments, before they went to their watery graves.
So it was with a heavy heart that I read about a plan to disturb that watery grave and extract the ship’s Marconi wireless system, on which its final distress signals were sent. The would-be salvagers are RMS Titanic Inc, a US company backed by private equity. For three decades, they’ve had a monopoly on raising thousands of items from the ship’s debris field – hats, handbags and jewellery.
Now, they insist that the secrets hidden inside the Titanic itself must be uncovered before they are lost in the crumbling wreck forever. Or was it that the secrets inside the ship must be uncovered from the crumbling wreck before RMS Titanic Inc is lost forever? I forget...
The company – which has faced financial difficulties – argues that the wireless would be a teaching tool. “Surely we owe it to the future to protect and preserve these items,” said president Bretton Hunchak, who seems happy to flout a new UK-US treaty designed to protect the wreck from scavengers.
He has a point. It would be criminal if the Titanic’s story was allowed to slip beneath the waves for good. But it won’t. You only have to visit the magnificent Titanic Experience in Belfast, which overlooks the shipyard where she was built, to understand that it’s far from lost – and can be told without disturbing the dead.
Ever since the wreck was found in 1985, it has become a vehicle for profit. Even those who seek to protect it are not immune: director James Cameron has opposed any tampering with the disintegrating ship – but given that his Hollywoodisation of the story grossed over $2 billion, he can well afford to be magnanimous. His romanticised version has a lot to answer for in turning our heads away from the true tragedy of it all – and I say that as someone who had a Leonardo di Caprio poster on her bedroom wall.
Simply, we have forgotten that 4,000m below the Atlantic lies a grave site, not a cash cow. Don’t believe me? In 1996, RMS Titanic Inc offered people the chance to watch a piece of the wreck being recovered – for $5,000 a head. It failed when the rope snapped and the piece plunged back to the sea bed. And if the firm succeeds in recovering the wireless, it will likely be displayed in the Luxor casino in Las Vegas – just another opportunity for gawping tourists to take selfies.
There have been accusations of grave-robbing and little wonder. Titanic survivors and their families have long made a small but important distinction between artefacts recovered from the debris bed and inside the wreck itself. “When I think of all the people down there, one of them my father, I want them to rest in peace,” said Millvina Dean, who died in 2009 aged 97.
She was the last survivor. Now it is up to the rest of us to ensure those 1,500 lost souls are allowed to do just that.
The Titanic is a watery grave for 1,500 people. It should be left in peace