Titanic’s home remembers victims

BELFAST – The city that built the Titanic was to unveil a memorial garden to its victims on Sunday, 100 years to the day since the doomed ocean liner sank beneath the waves.

Thousands were expected to attend a commemorative service at Belfast City Hall, among them politicians and relatives of those who died in the icy Atlantic waters on April 15, 1912.

The garden contains a nine-metre wide plinth bearing five bronze plaques engraved with the names of more than 1,500 victims of the disaster.

It is the first time the names of everyone who died has been recorded on one monument. Many existing memorials failed to include the Titanic crew or its musicians.

There is no distinction between first-class passengers and others, with names simply listed in alphabetical order.

“We’ve gone for a color scheme built around blue, white, silver and green, reflecting water and ice,” landscape architect Joy Hutchinson said of the garden.

“It is to try to encourage a sense of peace and contemplation.”

US oceanographer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985, is in the Northern Irish capital and delivered a memorial lecture at the new Titanic Belfast visitor attraction on Saturday.

He spoke about the next 100 years, of preserving the wreck and making it available to all via communications technology, beaming live images from the depths.

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I see the Titanic becoming an underwater museum,” he said. “We hope to come live on the anniversary of the discovery, September 1.”

He advocated painting the hull with preservative to prevent corrosion and hold the ship together.

Sediment is protecting the bow and he opposed excavating it.

“If we can hold it together, you are creating an underwater museum,” he said.

He said on visiting the site that the most striking moment was seeing where the victims landed on the sea bed and the empty shoes. The leather is the only part that has not perished.

“Hundreds of bodies rained down, a showering of bodies,” he said.

“It was quite an emotional jarring. Suddenly the human beings in this surfaced and we realized the ground spoke, the Titanic spoke, and we heard it loud and clear.”

Recalling the death toll, the scientist said: “We are not celebrating this hundredth anniversary.”

He described one alarming moment exploring the wreck.

“We are four decks down and the robot turns and light comes on — talk about having a heart attack,” he said.

The team realized the light from their submarine was being reflected back at them in a chandelier.

On Saturday night, a commemoration at Belfast’s Waterfront hall brought together stars from music and film. There was also a Requiem for the Lost Souls at St Anne’s Church of Ireland Cathedral.

Out in the Atlantic, a cruise ship has traced the doomed liner’s route across the ocean, starting in Southampton, England, and calling at Cherbourg in France and Cobh in Ireland.

The MS Balmoral was to pause over the site of the wreck and hold a memorial service. Wreaths were to be thrown into the sea.

Around 50 people on board the 12-night Titanic Memorial Cruise have a direct family connection to the sinking.

Patricia Watts, 81, a retired teacher from Bristol, southwest England, is on the cruise.

Her grandfather, George MacKie, 34, from Southampton, was a second class steward on board the Titanic.

“When we get to the wreck site there will be some sadness, but I think also some sense of release,” she said.

“I shall feel a sense of accomplishment that I have achieved what I set out to do. I think the service will be a very memorable occasion, slightly sad, but also for a lot of people it will be the event of the cruise.”

Meanwhile in Lichfield, central England, more than 1,500 candles were laid Saturday at the foot of the statue of Edward Smith, the Titanic’s captain.

Around 300 people attended a short memorial service in the city’s Beacon Park, where the statue has stood since 1914. Smith was from Stoke-on-Trent in the Lichfield diocese.