Titanically Morbid
Is it just me, or are many of the 1300 people who have paid hundreds of pounds to go on the Titanic "memorial cruise" a bit, well, mental? For a start, the logic of such a trip seems a little...illogical: "You know that big boat that hit an iceberg in the north Atlantic and sank? Well, what I think would be a REALLY good idea is to get another boat, with thousands of people on board, and take it at exactly the same time of year to the same bit of the north Atlantic." And, presumably, hope it doesn't sink.
OK, perhaps I'm being a little flippant. I understand that, if you had ancestors who had travelled on that fateful sailing 100 years ago, it might be deeply moving to follow that same route, and to see some of what they saw, a sort of much-magnified version of what I feel each time I go to Valley Parade, look across to where the old wooden stand used to be, and shudder at the thought of family members watching that dreadful fire engulf both it and its spectators. But that is where my empathy ends. To be "recreating" the journey, even 100 years on, and, worse, marketing it to tourists as "the voyage of a lifetime" and flogging tickets for £5K (I kid you not) seems at best mawkish and at worst cynically opportunistic, not to say disrespectful. Where many on board see it as an act of commemoration, others seem to think it's a marvellous lark: a chance to dress up in chronologically incorrect costume and gawk at a remote bit of sea where hundreds perished. When interviewed by the BBC, one excited chap enthused that the trip had been a birthday present and was "a dream come true". Let's look at that statement: a dream come true, to relive a journey where years ago hundreds of people froze to death or drowned, terrified and desperately awaiting a rescue that never came while the too-few lifeboats abandoned them, in the middle of nowhere. Good.
It gets worse. In further news reports, over-excited passengers show off their Titanic-branded t-shirts (there's an "all I got is this lousy..." joke to be made here, but I simply cannot bring myself to make it.) Still more passengers turn up in costume - as ill-fated victims of the disaster, perhaps, in authentic period dress? Er, no. As Rose and Jack from 1997 blockbuster "Titanic". Some people feel this is, um, a little tasteless.
In making it primarily a tourist "experience", the "memorial cruise" is open to anyone from deluded film fan to morbid disaster enthusiast to reflective descendant, provided they have £5K to hand.
We have an enduring, macabre fascination when it comes to the Titanic. Psychiatrists can probably explain the many reasons for this. It is, ultimately, a tragic story, though, sadly, a true one, not a fictional one. I visited the excellent exhibition at the O2 last year and was struck by many things, not least that a disproportionate number of the dead were Irish - poor, ordinary people travelling third class in search of a better life which they never found. It is so desperately cruel, and we are, morbidly, drawn to such things, wanting to know what happened, how, why, and to whom, and, often, who was to blame.
But somehow, whether the intentions are good, bad, or (most likely) a mixture of the two, the notion of a cruise, commemorative or not, just jars with me. 15th April is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and the death of over 1500 of its passengers; it is a frightening reminder that we are not invincible, of the catalogue of mistakes, the mixture of poor planning and arrogance, that resulted in such a huge death toll - the ship design that meant it tipped, the shameful lack of lifeboats, because people thought they would never be needed. It is right that its legacies and memories endure to this day, and that its anniversary should be marked, its heroes honoured and its victims remembered, and it is not my place to say how this should be done most appropriately. And yet I can't help feeling this dress-up, carnival jollity is inappropriate.
15th April is the anniversary of another tragedy - Hillsborough. Again, what was meant to be joyous occasion resulting in devestating loss of life; again preventable, with hindsight; again, design and bad planning were both significant factors, and again, yes, there was probably "blame" to be dished out in abundance. 96 people died that day (far fewer, I realise, than Titanic, and I am not attempting to compare the two.) This year will be the 23rd anniversary. There would, of course, be an outcry were there any attempt to "relive" in any way the experiences from that day, thousands paying a premium price to turn up in the 88/89 strip or dressing up as Chris Eccleston's charater in the TV adaptation - memorial services inside the fated ground is as far as it goes, and though there are many (to some extent me included) who have researched that disaster to the point of obsession just as there are with Titanic, I would hope that in 100 years time it will be marked in appropriately reflective and sombre fashion.
The Titanic memorial cruise should now be somewhere in the mid Atlantic, but has been delayed, apparently, by bad weather. There's an irony in there somewhere. Its "lucky" passengers may well be seeking some sort of refund on those extortionate tickets they snapped up before the sold out two years ago, whereas those who didn't manage to go can still get "memorabilia" or "limited edition commemorative book" online from the tour operators. In the meantime, I genuinely wish well all those taking part in the memorial service on Saturday, and hope that relatives and morbid history geeks alike will find it a moving experience. I hope that the 1514 victims - rich and poor alike, male and female - will be remembered and the heroes deservedly commemorated, along with the 96 who died at Hillsborough. And I hope people will remember that a certain Jack and Rose were, in fact, fictional.
OK, perhaps I'm being a little flippant. I understand that, if you had ancestors who had travelled on that fateful sailing 100 years ago, it might be deeply moving to follow that same route, and to see some of what they saw, a sort of much-magnified version of what I feel each time I go to Valley Parade, look across to where the old wooden stand used to be, and shudder at the thought of family members watching that dreadful fire engulf both it and its spectators. But that is where my empathy ends. To be "recreating" the journey, even 100 years on, and, worse, marketing it to tourists as "the voyage of a lifetime" and flogging tickets for £5K (I kid you not) seems at best mawkish and at worst cynically opportunistic, not to say disrespectful. Where many on board see it as an act of commemoration, others seem to think it's a marvellous lark: a chance to dress up in chronologically incorrect costume and gawk at a remote bit of sea where hundreds perished. When interviewed by the BBC, one excited chap enthused that the trip had been a birthday present and was "a dream come true". Let's look at that statement: a dream come true, to relive a journey where years ago hundreds of people froze to death or drowned, terrified and desperately awaiting a rescue that never came while the too-few lifeboats abandoned them, in the middle of nowhere. Good.
It gets worse. In further news reports, over-excited passengers show off their Titanic-branded t-shirts (there's an "all I got is this lousy..." joke to be made here, but I simply cannot bring myself to make it.) Still more passengers turn up in costume - as ill-fated victims of the disaster, perhaps, in authentic period dress? Er, no. As Rose and Jack from 1997 blockbuster "Titanic". Some people feel this is, um, a little tasteless.
In making it primarily a tourist "experience", the "memorial cruise" is open to anyone from deluded film fan to morbid disaster enthusiast to reflective descendant, provided they have £5K to hand.
We have an enduring, macabre fascination when it comes to the Titanic. Psychiatrists can probably explain the many reasons for this. It is, ultimately, a tragic story, though, sadly, a true one, not a fictional one. I visited the excellent exhibition at the O2 last year and was struck by many things, not least that a disproportionate number of the dead were Irish - poor, ordinary people travelling third class in search of a better life which they never found. It is so desperately cruel, and we are, morbidly, drawn to such things, wanting to know what happened, how, why, and to whom, and, often, who was to blame.
But somehow, whether the intentions are good, bad, or (most likely) a mixture of the two, the notion of a cruise, commemorative or not, just jars with me. 15th April is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and the death of over 1500 of its passengers; it is a frightening reminder that we are not invincible, of the catalogue of mistakes, the mixture of poor planning and arrogance, that resulted in such a huge death toll - the ship design that meant it tipped, the shameful lack of lifeboats, because people thought they would never be needed. It is right that its legacies and memories endure to this day, and that its anniversary should be marked, its heroes honoured and its victims remembered, and it is not my place to say how this should be done most appropriately. And yet I can't help feeling this dress-up, carnival jollity is inappropriate.
15th April is the anniversary of another tragedy - Hillsborough. Again, what was meant to be joyous occasion resulting in devestating loss of life; again preventable, with hindsight; again, design and bad planning were both significant factors, and again, yes, there was probably "blame" to be dished out in abundance. 96 people died that day (far fewer, I realise, than Titanic, and I am not attempting to compare the two.) This year will be the 23rd anniversary. There would, of course, be an outcry were there any attempt to "relive" in any way the experiences from that day, thousands paying a premium price to turn up in the 88/89 strip or dressing up as Chris Eccleston's charater in the TV adaptation - memorial services inside the fated ground is as far as it goes, and though there are many (to some extent me included) who have researched that disaster to the point of obsession just as there are with Titanic, I would hope that in 100 years time it will be marked in appropriately reflective and sombre fashion.
The Titanic memorial cruise should now be somewhere in the mid Atlantic, but has been delayed, apparently, by bad weather. There's an irony in there somewhere. Its "lucky" passengers may well be seeking some sort of refund on those extortionate tickets they snapped up before the sold out two years ago, whereas those who didn't manage to go can still get "memorabilia" or "limited edition commemorative book" online from the tour operators. In the meantime, I genuinely wish well all those taking part in the memorial service on Saturday, and hope that relatives and morbid history geeks alike will find it a moving experience. I hope that the 1514 victims - rich and poor alike, male and female - will be remembered and the heroes deservedly commemorated, along with the 96 who died at Hillsborough. And I hope people will remember that a certain Jack and Rose were, in fact, fictional.
posted by RLS at 9:32 pm
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