Jane gave a moving portrayal of Violet Jessop’s a remarkable life spent at sea, working as a stewardess for the White Star Line and Royal Mail Line.
She spent over 30 years at sea from age 21, rising from 2nd class to Ist class stewardess, earning only £3 10s a month caring for a small group of female passengers. On leaving Southampton, the Titanic, on its fateful 1912 maiden voyage was involved in a near collision, which was a possible omen of what was to come. When the first alarms were raised Violet thought it was a lifeboat drill. She reports passengers being very calm and waiting patiently to be helped into lifeboats. A baby was thrust into her arms which she looked after on the lifeboat and who was thankfully eventually reunited with its mother. She watched mesmerised as the boat sank, one deck at a time, slowly disappearing beneath the waves.. She could hear shouts for help from all around as there was not enough lifeboats (only 20) to accommodate all the passengers. Jane conveyed the dread and fear of the passengers waiting to be saved by the rescue ship RMS Carpathia. Just over 700 passengers survived and over 1,500 died. After the tragedy of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, new regulations were introduced requiring the number of lifeboats to be sufficient for all passengers. Violet continued her life at sea in order to support her family. She trained as a nurse and worked on a hospital ship in WW1. This ship was attacked and lifeboats were launched. She reports the gruesome sight of seeing floating limbs of the dead in the sea. She was sent to Malta to recover. Violet retired in 1950 and enjoyed 20 years of retirement. Only three chapters in the book Titanic Survivor concern her experiences on the Titanic but Jane wove a truly tense and dramatic account of an adventurous life at sea, a remarkable one for a woman at that time.
Titanic Survivor by Maxtone-Graham-Graham (2007)
Lois Coulthart
November 2024