When he died, the White Star Line sent a bill for his uniform
There can be few better places to consider the irony of the phrase ‘the good old days’ than Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I went last week to visit the grave of my grandfather, a 21-year-old violinist in the band of the White Star liner Titanic. More than 120 passengers and crew are buried here, 40 of them still unidentified as we approach the centenary of Titanic’s sinking.
The body of Jock Hume, my grandfather, was one of 190 recovered by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett and brought back to Halifax (more than a thousand bodies were never found). The corpses of first-class passengers — including that of the American millionaire Jacob Astor — were unloaded from the ship in coffins and driven to the mortuary in horse-drawn hearses. Those of the crew and of steerage passengers had been thrown on to ice in the hold for the sea journey, and were carried off in handcarts on arrival.
The day the Mackay-Bennett docked, Jock’s father in Dumfries received a 5s 4d bill for his son’s uniform. Jock’s pay was stopped the moment the ship went down at 2.20 a.m., and the wages owed to him were insufficient to cover the cost of the brass buttons on his bandsman’s tunic. When the family asked if his body could be brought home, they were told that ‘normal cargo rates’ would apply.
Early last year, with a growing sense of my own mortality, I began compiling a ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ ring binder for my children and grandchildren, sketching out a family tree whose branches were bowed with farm-labourers from Dumfries and builders from St Helens. But the project came to an abrupt halt when I started looking at the circumstances of my mother’s birth, six months after the Titanic had foundered.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in