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I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's going to happen or who I'm going to meet, where I'm going to wind up. Just the other night, I was sleeping under a bridge, and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift, and I don't intend on wasting it. You never know what hand you're going to get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you to make each day count. So that, Dominic, was Jack Dawson as played by Leonardo DiCaprio in James Cameron's 1997 film, Titanic. And you will, of course, remember that Jack has just saved Rose, as played by Kate Winslet, from jumping off the ship in a suicidal fit of depression. And his reward is to be invited up to first class from Steerage to meet all the people in first class. Evil Cal, the sinisterly camp, feel and say, of Rose. Yes. I think actually what Titanic gets really well, the film, is that Steerage is actually brilliant because in due course, Jack will tell Rose, Do you want to see a real party?

And they go down to Steerage and she has a tremendous time. There's Irish dancing and jollity and fiddles and all kinds of things. But actually, Steerage was brilliant, wasn't it? It was. It wasn't a nightmarish place of rats. It was It was probably the best time that lots of people on this ship had ever had until, obviously, it all went wrong.

Well, I would imagine, first of all, that a lot of people listening to this podcast will be having the best time they've ever had because they'll have just heard your Leonardo DiCaprio impersonation Yeah, king of the world. And that, of course, you've had to live with that comparison for years, haven't you, Tom?

Well, I'm always been compared with Hollywood stars.

Yeah, of course. But the difference between you is that you don't... I mean, you're a happily married man. You didn't kick Sadie out she turned 25. No. If you're Leonardo DiCaprio, you would have done.

Yeah, but Jack Dawson wouldn't, the character.

Of course, yeah.

I wasn't being Leonardo DiCaprio there. I was being Jack Dawson.

So it was nuanced.

Yeah, absolutely. Who in the long run will, of course, a heroic act of self-sacrifice because he won't get on the door with robes. Anyway, listen, we're not talking about the film yet, although we will be in due course.

Just on third class, sorry, Tom, I spiraled off there.

Slightly.

In my elaborate comparison between you and Leo. Third Third class on the Titanic, as you rightly say, it was not just, as we will discover, the best time that a lot of these people had ever known. This is in my capacity as a white star.Propagandist.Publicity man. But also, It's the best third class in history. There's no doubt about that. All people who've written about the Titanic-Until that point, right?

Yes.

There have never been better third class provisions. So what you were buying, you will be in a cabin of either two or four people. It's very unusual It's unusual to have two birth rooms in third class. It's pretty much the first time this has ever happened. Normally, they would cram people in, but you have a lot more privacy. Single women and families are put separately from couples or single men. Cabins all have wash basins.

And they're ventilated, aren't they, by the fans made in Belfast?

Exactly. There are showers and there are baths. Now, if you travel on a Cunada, on a Cunada ship, often they locked the third class bathrooms, but not on Titanic.

Dominic, that's why you want to white star it, not Qnard it, right?

Correct. If Qnard are interested in sponsorship arrangements, they know where we are. Because white stars don't exist now, Tom. So this is a foolish pitch.

You're shilling for an extinct company.

In the last episode, when we did first and second class, you said, Well, second class have many of the same smoking room type things that they have in first class. But they have smoking rooms and bars in third class as well. They a nice big, airy dining saloon. To give it a comparison, if you were traveling on a rival ship, say, the Aquitania, there would be twice as many people packed into a smaller space on the Aquitania than it would on Titanic.

Well, I'm thinking of Dickens' comment when he went over first class on the first Cunard liner, and he was complaining about what is it? It'd be easier to get a giraffe into whatever it was than to get his luggage into the cabin.

That's right, yeah.

Presumably, these third class cabins are larger than he would have had going first class.

Yeah, I would imagine so.

It is a measure of the relative degree of luxury that is being offered across all three classes.

Yeah. Now, interestingly, like the other two classes, The third class is not full. Again, this is an industry which is struggling with overcapacity. There are 712, according to some accounts, third class passengers, the majority of whom embarked to Southampton, but I had 100 of them came on in France and 100 of them in Ireland.

It is striking, isn't it? Because the whole reason, in a way, for building this ship and making sure that it's three inches longer than the Olympic, that this is the largest thing that has ever floated on the face of the oceans. The hyperbole is what this maiden voyage is all about, and yet still it hasn't filled. I mean, that is really striking.

No, but I guess it's the assumption that it will fill over time.

I suppose. But you'd think that it's the maiden voyage. People would want be a part of something so historic.

They would. But why are you going? I mean, we'll come to this, why are people traveling to the United States? So as you said a couple of episodes ago, the truth is people do not go on holiday. And most people do not travel for work. A very small number of people would.

Well, one person, of course, who does is Isme.

Isme, of course.

He, apparently, is the person who had traveled more across the Atlantic than any other person in history.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Amazing stat.

But most people are traveling to emigrate. That's why you'd go. You're not going to go to visit a friend or maybe once in a lifetime. But it's not like taking a transatlantic flight, something you would conceivably do multiple times.

I think if you're going and then you have the chance to go on the largest ship that has ever been launched, you might think, Oh, that'd be brilliant. I'll be part of this record-breaking ship. Of course. Just striking that all three classes, they're not full.

Yeah. Well, I suppose because the demand is necessarily limited. Let's talk about the people who do go, Tom. Of those third-class passengers, the largest number are, what did we say there were, 712. Our largest number, 118 of them are British, 113 Irish.

But there are more Scandinavians in total, aren't there, than British? There are.

So 104, Swedish, 55, Finns, 25, Norwegians, and 7, Danes. But then there are also groups. So 79 people from Lebanon, 33 Bulgarians, 22 Belgians, 12 Armen, 8 Chinese, and so on and so forth.

So the Chinese are apparently a fireman.

Yeah, by and large. So here is where we get to the immigration story. So at about this point, a million people a year are coming into the United States. So the peak, I think, was 1907, 1.125 million people. And we'll get into why people are making this choice. One reason is actually because of people like me, Tom, paid propagandists working for White Star. So they will have agents all over the world who are producing advertisements, who are writing poems, who are painting pictures, who are doing all that about the beauties, the benefits, the bounties of the United States, and how much of a better life you can have. The biggest group of Scandinavianians, a lot of them are from poor rural villages. A lot of Scandinavian is very, very poor, the turn of the 20th century. So these are your classic people that you will see in-In Fargo? Yeah, Willa Cather novels and things. They're going to Minnesota, they're going to the Midwest, they're going to become farmers. They're going to have very similar lives to the ones they have in Scandinavia, just much richer out on the Prairies. There are remarkably few in that group.

Some people may have expected there'd be a lot of people Eastern European Jews. There are very few, and the reason actually is prejudice. Whites are discourage Eastern Europeans from traveling from Southampton.

But they do provide kosher food, interestingly.

In case they do travel. But there's a prejudice against Eastern European Jews. It is believed, and I quote, They're untied in rudeness, rudeness, and other marks of semi-civilization make them unpopular on board. There are a few Jewish passengers, but not that many. There are about 20 Croats. There's a guy called Nicola Lulich, who is basically a chaperone, an interpreter. So often these people will travel in a group, or they will club together. And one person who is experienced, this is Nicola Lulitch in this case.

So he's come back from America?

Yes, he's crossed a couple of times.

So he's learned English, and he can handle language and things.

Poor fellow. He has been to Minnesota, like me. Because I immigrated, of course, to Minnesota, Tom, as you recall. Yes, you did.

I do remember that. Yes.

20 years ago. Actually, I wasn't really immigrating. I was going to do research. Actually, Croatian emigration to the United States is a really big thing at the turn of the 20th century.

I mean, who knew that? I didn't know that. It's fascinating.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating, some of these groups. Here's a really interesting one, the Lebanese. So all these Lebanese people in the Titanic.

Well, I did know about them because there's quite a lot of pogroms going on against Christians in this area of what is the Ottoman Empire, and actually in Syria as well.

Exactly. So this is what's happening. I love this side of the Titanic story, not because I love pogroms against Christians in the Ottoman Empire, but because I I love the way that the Titanic operates as this window into all kinds of aspects of international life in the early 20th century.

Yeah, it does.

As you say, the Ottoman Empire is in a bit of a mess at the beginning of the 20th century. There's lots of intercommunal violence and whatnot. The people who travel to America are often Christians from Armenia or from what's now Lebanon. Richard Davenport-Heinz, in his book, Titanic Lies, has a brilliant section on all this. There are 20 people from one particular village called Hardin, a upland mountain village. Where Tom, I'm pleased to read, there was a temple to the God Mercury, supposedly erected in the time of the Emperor Hadrian.

Yeah, that's right.

Who knew that Hadrian would feature in a Titanic podcast.

Yeah, I'm thrilled to get him in.

So these are what we would call Maronite Christians. They had previously worked cultivating mulberry trees, so silk. But silk prices have been falling for the last 10 or 20 years or so. So they are not merely being persecuted, but they are increasingly poor, struggling to scratch out a living. And they are all going to a place called Wilkes Bar in Pennsylvania, which, as American listeners will know, is famous for its coal mines. And they are going to become coal miners. It's nicknamed Diamond City, which makes it sound like Las Vegas. It's not like that at all.

Again, good spin.

Very good spin.

This is part of a process that is ongoing, that minorities in the Middle East are emigrating still to this day. Christians, Ezeidis, whoever.

Yeah, exactly. To the US. There's the Lebanese guys. Then there are this group, I mentioned, 12 Armenians. These are an interesting group. They are from a particular place called the Kekhi district. Again, very, very mountainous. Davenport-heinz says, A place where small farmers eked out a bare existence while fending off Kurdish brigands, avaricious semi-feudal Muslim landowners, and extortionate Turkish officials.

Well, and this is a terrible time. Obviously, I mean, midway in what will ultimately become a genocidal program against the Armen.

Exactly. This is the point at which the young Turks, the Nationalist group, who have seized the political momentum inside the Ottoman Empire, they are pushing for what they see as a modern European-style turkification of the Empire, and particularly of districts where Turkish speakers, and let's say, Armeniaian speakers live side by side. Tens of thousands of Armeniaians have already been killed by the time the Titanic sails. In a place called Kegi, lots of people are keen to get out. The United States It becomes like the promised land. So these guys, there are 12 of them, they are coming from an extremely poor, rural corner of the Ottoman Empire. For them, third class on the Titanic is It's unbelievable. It's better than a palace. It's like something that they've never imagined. These are not people who are reading magazines about millionaire, Plutocrats and things. Their minds are blown by the public rooms, by the two birth cabins, by all of this stuff. Extraordinary.

There's a peculiarly tragic quality about the Armen on the Titanic because had they stayed where they were, the program of genocide is massing. It will begin in what, 1915, go through to early 1920s, million and a half killed. And they think they've escaped, but they haven't.

Yeah, of course not.

And all this luxury, all this relative luxury, and then they die as well. I mean, it's really very somber quality to the irony there, very bitter.

Because these people have not generally left any written sources, it's hard to get a sense of what they were What they were thinking. I mean, these are not people who are using the Marconi equipment to send messages and things. Yeah.

And also they die. Yeah.

Now, they must have noticed commonalities between all the different groups. So there's a whole... It's a Tower of Babel quality to it, I imagine. Lots of different groups all speaking their own language. Their experiences are probably pretty similar. So they will have been seen off with feasts and church services and things like that or religious services. Some of them are going to stay in America. Some of them are probably planning to come back home after a few years, subgening as it's called. A lot of them are going to be remitting money back home. And there are lots of villages, so Croatia is a really good example. There are lots of villages that are increasingly dependent on remittances from people who have gone to the United States.

And Greeks as well, I think, aren't there?

Greeks, exactly.

I think there are lots of Sparta, actually.

They are from Sparta, aren't they? When they get to America, they will move into this very the Godfather part, too. There's migrant networks, Somebody, a big guy, what do they call the padrone? A padrone will find you work as a shoeshine boy, as a flower seller.

But these are the guy who speak English. Yeah. Who are familiar with all the paperwork that you need and the networks, shadowy networks in New York or wherever.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. These are the networks you see in all the immigrant stories, in films and so on. So that's what awaits them when they get there. Before we get to the break, let's just finish off with some of the other passengers. So, of course, there are the British and Irish families. There's one that really stuck. I know you said to me that this was one that stuck with you, too.

Oh, I know. The Goldsmiths. Sadie, when we went to Belfast to see the Titanic Museum, and we stayed in the hotel, which was the Harland & Wolf offices, You can stay there. It's an incredible hotel. I mean, if you're any interested in the subject, go and stay there. I'm now shilling for them. But she was reading Richard Dabenbult-Heinz's book, Titanic Lives, and came across this story. So it's a family of Methodists called the Goldsmiths.

In Kent, aren't they? Near Rochester?

They're from Rochester. Yeah. And so they are moving out to Detroit. And it's Frank Goldsmith, his wife, Emily, and their young son, Frankie. And they want a clean start because their younger son had died of diphtheria in 1911, so just a few months before they get on board the Titanic. And he's interesting because he is an example of someone who gets persuaded by the marketing. So he was anxious about putting his family through going on third class, but he reads up about it and thinks, actually, it's going to be fine, and he's not wrong. I mean, it is fine. When he's going, he has a family contact in America who wants his younger brother. This is a guy called Rush, and he wants his younger brother, Alfred, to come out with them. The Goldsmiths say, yes, we will take young Alfred Rush with us. Alfred Rush is 15, but he celebrates his 16th birthday on Sunday, the 15th of April, which is the last day of the Titanic. He gets given a pair of long trousers. The long trousers, of course, are a signifier of adulthood, of manhood. He puts them on, thereby marking himself out as someone who is no longer a child.

Listeners will be able to imagine what the consequence of that is and the way in which this birthday present will effectively kill him.

Yeah, heartbreaking. He looked young for his years Tom. He looked young.

This is why he was so proud of...

Yeah. The little boy is nine years old, Frankie Goldsmith. He is very excited and he's been guzzling seasickness tablets like the sweets. He's high on seasickness tablets.

Necking them furiously.

He's very excited. He lived because we have his stories and he describes.

Mommy, at last we're on the Atlantic. It was his cheerful cry.

It's actually a lovely story, destroyed by that sinister impression of his- It's not sinister.

No, it's full of boyish joy. And listeners will have noted the particular timbre I gave it of a boy who is high on seasickness pills. Really? Yeah.

So yes, just before we go to the break. So most of these people have never been on a ship before. They've never seen a ship, an ocean-going vessel before.

And they've never had a holiday before. Lots of them. No.

Because they are miners, they are farm laborers, they are stone masons, dressmakers, servants, salesmen. They are people who do not get transatlantic liners as a matter of course. As you say, Tom, they've probably, most of them, never had a week's holiday.

And they've probably, I mean, lots of them would never have had as much food as regularly as they get on the Titanic.

It is like a holiday for them. You described the DiCaprio thing and the party. They are playing cards. There are people skipping. They've brought accordions. Lots of people with mouth organs. They travel with their music and they are making Making music.

Well, the research that went into that film is really good. Obviously, they take dramatic license, but it's not wrong, that portrait.

The other thing, actually, just before we go to the break, the food which seems quite drab, probably, to us, they're having porridge, toast and marmelade, herring, boiled potatoes.Delicious.Yeah, love it. But to them, it's warm, filling, nutritious, and probably quite exotic because they won't have had... People living in will not have had Quaker Oats porridge or toast and marmelade or whatever.

Or I imagine herring.

I mean, they're basically living like Paddington Bear. I think all the accounts we have, nobody ever who thrives says... It was awful. It was so unequal, and I felt so downtrodden. They think it is absolutely tremendous.

So Dominic, as an enthusiast for-Yeah, White Star. For White Star, I mean, you would say it is a great ship. It deserves all the acclamation that it gets.

It does. I think it's got a very bad and cruel press over the years to have.

For a reason that we will come to after the break, it's out on the Atlantic, what then happens. So we will be looking We'll be looking at that when we come back. Hello, welcome back to the Rest is History. We are on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Dominic, it leaves Queens town.

Yes.

Very near Cork, which in 1920 will be renamed Cove. Although for an English person, confusingly spelled because it's with a B-H rather than with B-E. Sea, and it steams out on the 12th of April out into the Atlantic.

It is.

It's following the route that all the ships in this period take. Yes. So there's nothing unusual about it. No. Nothing unexpected. In fact, the only thing that is unusual is that the sea is very, very calm, incredibly clement.

Everything is going tremendously well. They had gone to Cherbourg first. Then, as you say, they went into Cove. They picked up the last passengers. They now have 1,320 passengers. When you add the crew, that's 2,235 people. They have all the baggage they want. We haven't talked at all about all the mad stuff they have that they're taking as well. A short story by Joseph Conrad, Ostrich plumes, a Renault car, 50,000 pounds worth of diamonds from Antwerp, a rare copy of the rubyat of Omar Khayyam, Tom. But they're not carrying... You mentioned the one man who's not aboard, and the conspiracy theories, Pierre Pont Morgan. He's not there because he's supervising the transfer of his art collection to France to escape David Lloyd George's punitive taxation. That's what he thinks anyway. He's worried that David Lloyd George is going to steal all his art. So he's not on board, but everybody else And as you say, everything is going tremendously. So Friday the 12th and Saturday the 13th, they make very good time, 500 miles on the 12th, 546 miles on the 13th. And this is the point in the voyage where, I guess, Leo and Kate are carrying on, people are playing cards.

And they're enjoying the beautiful flat sea. So what you see in the film, the King of the World, all that thing. It is beautiful weather. Everyone says this.

They say it's not like we're at sea at It's a hotel. It's so calm, all of that stuff. So we get to Sunday, the 14th. Now, the captain, who we haven't really talked about at all since we introduced him in the second episode.

Where we had a slight disagreement, didn't we, about his nautical qualities?

Yeah, you were very cruel.

No, I just said that he's had three near crashes or near crashes before setting out on this voyage. I'm just putting that on the record.

That is the life of a captain, Tom.

It's not all- No, it's not. He hadn't had any crashes at all. And then just before this voyage, he's We had three.

Listen, we're never going to agree on this. We're never going to agree. I like a sea dog. I like a sea dog. I like a guy who with a salt and pepper nautical beard. You look down on such people.

No, I don't. I like him, but I- It's very clear what's going on. We've got to be honest.

You should love this thing. At 10:30 that morning, he leads everybody. He puts on that church service, a Christian service, Tom, in the first class dining saloon. So that's very nice.

What's that him about, Dose in Peril on the Sea? Those in Peril on the Sea. I I wonder if they song that. They do in the film, I think. Do they? Yeah, I think they do.

Now, they were meant to have, interestingly, a lifeboat drill on Sunday mornings. That is standard on a white star liner. Again, this is something that white star do, but it's not demanded by law.

It's not required, is it? No. Yeah. English regulations don't require it.

They do it out of the kindness and the concern for health and safety for which they're famous.

Health and safety gone mad.

But they say, let's have them. Captains don't tend to like to have them because they're just a massive faff and a hassle. And whenever there's a big breeze, which there is on that Sunday morning, they will take the opportunity to cancel them.

Yes. And it's starting to get a bit colder, isn't it? Yes. Suddenly, there's a slight icy quality to the weather.

Oh, there is. Yeah. Because that morning, a lot of people are sitting out on deck chairs and things reading and whatnot, and the kids playing on deck. But actually, after lunch, they have their Sunday lunch, a roast dinner and stuff, and they go back out, and it is a bit cold, and a lot of them retreat inside to the library. People are reading, they're playing cards and things.

Go to the gym.Yeah, exactly.

Now, one other thing that people are doing a lot of, which we haven't mentioned at all, is that we talked about technology and the obsession with speed and stuff in the early episodes. The first-class passengers all have telephones, so they're ringing their stewards all the time and calling for oysters or whatever.

Where's my Picasso?

There is also a Marconi system on the ship.

That's because you can send Marconi grams.

You can indeed. Marconi, the great radio pioneer, He has invented this machine where basically by generating radio waves and sparks and stuff, you can communicate with the outside world. And as a result of that, you have basically newspapers on the ship. They're printing newspapers.

Yeah. So every morning, they put them out.

The Atlantic Daily Bulletin.

Yeah. Incredible. There's a transmitter station at the Pole Do in Cornwall, which I've been to see.

That's right. Yes. So the Marconi, they have a little wireless station with three cabins, and there are two Marconi men who are Marconi employees called Jack Phillips and Harold Bright who are working on the ship. And they make money for their employers for Marconi by sending passengers messages. And of course, Tom, going back to that point you made before about the capacity on the ship. Because it's the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

Everyone is sending.

People are queuing up to send messages.

It's Instagram stuff, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Look where I am.

Imagine this. You've just got a message from the Titanic, and I'm in the middle of the Atlantic. That's what it is. And the apparatus breaks down on Friday night and Saturday morning. There's a huge backlog of work. So by this point, Sunday, they still have a huge backlog of Marconi messages, and they are absolutely knackered. I think that's really important in explaining what happens next.

It is, isn't it? Because, of course, they're not just sending messages from the ship to dry land. They are also getting messages that have come from ships that have gone to dry land that are then being sent back out. Among these messages is the fact that the cold weather is generating iceberg action.

Iceberg action, exactly. So the first inkling they had of this, and by the way, this is not that unusual. So this is not something that will have people quaking their boots and running up and down, wailing and weeping. This is standard. There's ice in the North Atlantic.

But it is unusual, isn't it? That it's been quite a mild winter, and so quite a lot of ice has broken off.

It has, yes.

And you've got these great chunks that are floating around.

Yes, there's so much of it. And the ice bogs are very large. So on Friday, they had a message from a ship called La Touraine saying, There is ice. Watch out. Be careful. And as you say, Tom, they've had a very mild winter. There are very large blocks of ice floating south because they are so large, they take longer to melt. So they come further south and there's more of them. And you get to Sunday morning and there are a couple more warnings. So there's one from a Cunada called the coronia, and there's one from a Dutch style of the Nordam saying, watch out, there's ice.

And so what does Captain Smith do when he receives these notifications?

Well, this is fascinating. So we know that he saw the warning because what they are doing is they are handing over the messages on a very piecemeal basis. And this is one of the criticisms that was later made, that actually, if you'd seen all the warnings together and they'd been collated, you'd have said, oh, This is quite serious. We should watch out. But because different people are being handed the warnings every few hours in among a whole load of other messages and instructions and requests and all these kinds of things, they get put down and overlooked. So Smith definitely sees the Nordam one, and then he's given another one when he's going for lunch on Sunday from a wide star liner, actually. Yeah.

And that is the one that he gives to Ismael, isn't it? Yes. Who then reads it, folds it up, puts it in his pocket and shows it to some people, some of the first-class passengers, but nothing particularly happens.

No.

And then in the evening, Smith wants it back, doesn't he, to show to the crew. But as far as we know, he never actually showed it to them. I know you're a big Smith fan, but it does seem- Well, I think here's what they're thinking.

I think they're thinking, okay, there's a bit of ice, but they're not thinking this is a life-threatening situation. I think they're thinking, Okay, I'll make a note of that. But I suppose your excuse, if you're in the business, I mean, obviously, at some point, there's no point making excuses because they made a terrible haulage of it and loads of people died. But if you are making excuses, you say, Well, they've got loads of competing requests. I mean, they just don't take it terribly seriously, do they, Tom?

Well, also, just to say, because this is obviously quite important for what's going to happen, the Titanic is built to be able to ram into an iceberg and It will not just carry on. It will not cause damage.

And not just the Titanic, like lots of ships.

Yeah, well, all of them. And so this is, I gather, standard, even with icebergs, that you just keep going at a steady pace. One thing to absolutely emphasize, and this is something the film does get wrong, in which Isme is shown urging Smith to go as fast as he possibly can so that they can reach New York before the scheduled arrival time, because it will then get the Titanic in the papers. This is not true. No. This did not happen. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Ismey was pushing for the Titanic to go too fast. And in fact, it was not going at full speed.

No, because white star liners are not famous for their speed. Their point to them is they're luxurious.

I mean, Ismey in the inquiry afterwards was absolutely explicit. He said the Titanic did not have all her boilers on. So it's not going at an insane speed. No.

Another criticism that some people made was they said, Well, why didn't you really reduce your speed? Why didn't you slow down as you knew you were approaching an ice field, an ice zone. And the answer is not that Smith was too proud or that he was under pressure or there was this hubris, Edwardian hubris. It's actually that that is not the done thing to do. A good seaman does not reduce speed going into an ice zone. That was the established procedure. You continue going as you are. And as you say, Tom, if you hit an iceberg, it is very annoying, but it's very unlikely, they think, to involve a massive loss of life. And there's an example of a ship, the Crompritz Wilhelm, a German ship, had rammed an iceberg and crumpled its bow in 1907 and had just carried on merrily to port.

But just one consideration that might perhaps have given Smith pause for thought is the fact that... We're now the night of Sunday, the 14th of April, and it's the fifth night of the voyage, and the conditions are unbelievably calm. So it's a very, very flat sea, absolutely clear sky, blaze of stars. And because the conditions are so flat, that means it is actually very difficult to spot icebergs because there is no swell giving away their presence.

Yeah, I think that is really important because they don't see it until the last-Possibly that might have been a consideration. Yeah. So as you say, we get to Sunday evening. It's very cold and everybody's gone indoors now. Some listeners may remember our podcast, which we talked about Tom Brown's School Days. I'm delighted to say that the author of that book, Thomas Hughes, makes an indirect appearance here because his son-in-law is on the Titanic, the Reverend Ernest Carter. He's a vicar. Well, you would be a vicar if you were a great deputy of Tom Brown's School Days, wouldn't you?

Yeah, I think you probably would. Dr.

Arnold and all that stuff. So he has a him singing service in the second class cabins. It's like a rest his history live show, Tom. He asks people, What hymns would you like? And they shout out hymns, and he's able to tell them who wrote the hym, the history behind its composition.

Brilliant. I mean, if you have to have a last night, that's the entertainment you want, isn't it?

Definitely. Oh, definitely.

That would be your last thought as you died of hypothermia. At least I had a brilliant night with him.

What a wonderful night of him history. People are singing, people are playing cards, people are just quietly reading, all of that stuff.

And everyone is... I mean, those who survive do remember it as being a brilliant evening. So a young Jack Thayer, who is only 17. I went onto the boat deck, it was déserted, and only the wind whistled through the stays and blackish smoke poured out of the three forward funnels. Because It was actually the four tunnels, we should say the fourth one is a fake.

Yes, for symmetry.

It was the a night that made one feel glad to be alive.

That's very poignant, Tom. Because they are getting more messages now. 7:30, a message from the Lane and Lines, California, 9:40, a message from the Steamship, Misaba. A lot of these messages are just being dumped on a table in the bridge because they're all tired and overworked, and it's a Sunday evening. Yes, exactly. Actually, those later messages, those officers who survived said, Well, I didn't see them. I remember vaguely seeing as somebody had put a piece of paper with the word 'ice' down on the notice board or on the table, but I don't really recall a conversation about it.

So Captain Smith, meanwhile, is dining with the Widners, isn't he? He is. So the young bibliophile, his dad.

That's right. And that's not negligence on his part. I mean, that's expected of the captain.

That is demanded. It is, because making sure that the wealthiest passengers are happy is a crucial part of his job. So the person who effectively is in charge of the ship, the officer in watch, is a man called William Murdoch, who has replaced the junior officer to him, Charles Lytola, on watch. He is from Scotland. He's a very competent officer. He is described by someone who knew him as being canny and dependable. He's 39, I think, so just before his 40th birthday. He's the first officer, so he's a man of great experience. He has no authority from Smith to reduce speed, even though the ship has entered a zone where there are icebergs, and so he doesn't. The ship plows on, it's making 22 knots, and light who survives, remembers it was pitch dark and dead cold, not a cloud in the sky, and the sea like glass. And again, he says, he's an experienced officer as well, he had never seen such clear conditions. So this is incredible. Incredibly significant for what is going to happen.

These conditions might make people think, well, it must be easy to see an iceberg. But as you say, it's...

I mean, that's the whole reason why it's so significant.

It's really hard to see. Now, there are six lookouts. There are two in the crow's nest. A guy called Lee and a guy called Frederick Fleet. Frederick Fleet is an interesting person. He's in his early 20s. He's a foundling. He'd been abandoned by his mother as a baby and raised in a Dr. Bernardo's orphanage. And he had gone to sea at the age of 12 and become a deck boy. And as you say, he's looking out from the crow's nest.

Although in the film, of course, he's distracted by Leo and Kate.

Of course. Yeah. So it's about half past eleven, and he's looking out. And because it's so calm, he doesn't see the surf that you would expect at the base of an iceberg.

Yeah, which would warn that an iceberg was coming.

And at 11:40 PM, him, he sees a dark shape right ahead in the ship's path, and he rings the bell three times, object dead ahead, and he telephones the bridge, and he says, iceberg right ahead.

This is getting through to Murdoch, who's in charge, and he then makes a fatal mistake.

I mean, most people would say he should have just gone straight ahead, gone straight for it, rammed it head-on. But understandably, in some ways, maybe it's instinct, who knows?

Or maybe he thought he could clear it.

Well, he almost does clear it, I suppose. It's not a ludicrously bad call.

So he orders it to turn to starboard and to reverse the engines.

Yeah, to swing around it.

So to get thrust, to pull back, to swing round. So he's trying to swing the ship's bow to port so that it will miss the iceberg. And anyone who's, again, seen the film, it's brilliant. Even though you know what's going to happen. You still feel the tension of it. But the ship is going too fast for it to work. The side of the ship runs up against the rough edge of the iceberg. And the iceberg, it's like a tin can opener, shredding the side of the ship.

But of course, none of them know that, do they? In the next episode, when we talk about the effect that that has, we'll talk about the reactions that people have, what they think they hear, what they then see, and what they do. But maybe we should just end with this one scene, which gives you a sense of the uncertainty at that moment. So they're trying to go around the iceberg. They think they've done it, and they've just scuffed it, haven't they?

Yes, so Fleet in the Crazenest, he thinks that all is good, all is fine.

And he's not alone, I think. A lot of people think they have just veered past it. But there was a guy who was a steward called James Witter, and he was in the second-class smoking room. And he says of that last evening, It was a beautiful, clear, but very cold evening. The sea was like a sheet of glass. There you go again, Tom. While I was clearing up the second class smoke room ready for closing at midnight, all was very quiet. He describes the scene. There are about 40 people there. Normally, they're not allowed to play cards on Sundays, but the rule has been relaxed because it's the maiden voyage, the three groups of them playing cards. And he's just quietly clearing up the glasses and stuff around them. And then he says, Suddenly, there was a The ship shuddered slightly, and then everything seemed normal. And the thing is that of the 40 men who were there in that room, in that second-class room playing cards, within four hours, 9 out of 10 of them would be dead.

In our next episode, we will describe the events that follow on that disastrous brush against the iceberg and the process which culminates in the sinking of the Titanic and the death of huge numbers of the people on board that ship. If you want to hear that, you can hear it straight away by going to therestishistory. Com. If not, it will be going out very soon. We will see you then for what will be a very dramatic but very traumatic episode. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Hi, Restless History fans. If you want more Tom Holland in your life, and frankly, why wouldn't you?

I have some good news for you.

I'm Emily Dean, and I'm thrilled to say that this week Tom is a guest on my podcast Walking the Dog, where you get to hear well-known faces at their most relaxed because I talk to them over a leisurely outdoor stroll with my dog, Raymond. You can join us this week for a very special two-part in-depth chat with Tom Holland.

And yes, I'm afraid I did ask him this question. Tom, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? I think about it a huge amount. In fact, there are days where I barely stop thinking about it. My brain is occupied by the Romans. It's like Gaul.

If you want to hear more of my chat with Tom, give Walking the Dog a Listen this week.

And while you're there, you can take your pick from episodes starring the likes of Ricky Gervais, Jack Whitehall, and Jimmy Carr. What's that, Raymond?

Yes, the rest is History did do an episode all about the greatest dogs in history. No, you weren't in it. Most spoiled dog in history, maybe.