Original subtitles

SCREAMING

Women and children only!

SCREAMING STOPS ECHOES

Two men grabbed him.

No!

Officers were there with guns.

He offered no resistance...

..and backed off back onto the ship.

Antun!

I began yelling and crying...

..as I wanted to join him on the sinking ship.

Antun!

Ahh!

LOUD ECHOING BOOM

They told me that apparently we'd struck something.

BELL RINGS

Iceberg dead ahead!

LOUD BOOM ALARM BELL RINGS

INDISTINCT SCREAMING

I didn't become alarmed.

There was no danger, they said.

I told her to come at once, we were sinking.

Can you imagine the chaos and the fear, and the terror

of finding water in your cabin,

and you're in the bowels of the ship?

It makes me panic just thinking about it.

The story of the Titanic is the human condition spread out,

pinned on a board for us to examine.

Then came the terrible cry,

"Women and children, women and children!"

Marjorie!

Two men lifted me up and put me in a boat.

Move it, move it!

It's these small decisions,

these little butterfly-effect moments

that change the outcome.

GUNSHOT ECHOES

It really was every man for himself.

SCREAMING LOUD CRASH

My heart stood still.

- ECHOING: - Everyone!

SCREAMING

Pull!

If we're going to die...

SCREAMING CONTINUES

..best to die gripping something.

It's a split-second decision.

What would you do? What would I do?

It was a terrible sight...

SCREAMING

..men swimming and sinking.

MUFFLED SCREAMING

I'd been brought up to believe in a Hell after death.

But now, I think I went through a Hell that night.

DISTANT SCREAMING

SCREAMING

INDISTINCT SHOUTING SCREAMING

I was working in the engine room.

We got the order...

The deck was full of male third-class passengers.

LOUD CREAKING SCREAMING

The last boat was getting lowered.

About this time, I met all the engineers

as they came trooping up from below.

Until that time, they had loyally stuck to their guns.

LOUD CREAKING

When the crew come up on deck,

these guys, who have worked so heroically to try

to keep Titanic afloat,

they expect that there will be a place for them in the lifeboats.

And, of course, that is not the case.

SCREAMING

British hierarchical society is always there

to shaft the underdog.

Those people who had risked their lives were not going to get

any help at all.

It was a bleak and hopeless spectacle that met their eyes.

Empty fools hanging from every davit head.

Not a hope for any of them.

LOUD CREAKING ECHOES

DISTANT SCREAMING

Titanic has enough people on board

that we're really seeing the whole range of reactions

to facing death.

From resignation, to fight and flight,

to acting out of love and empathy to help other people.

And at this point, some people choose to do things

that may look quite strange.

One fellow said, "Go to the first cabin bar room."

There was a steward filling up tumblers on a tray.

He said, "Go on, lads, drink up.

"She's goin' down."

Some people prefer to stay in their cabin and let the waters rise up.

Others go to the bar and just start drinking the place dry.

Everyone has to choose to die in their own way,

whatever that is.

I was for going down into one of the first class cabins,

but me pal Matty wouldn't let me.

Matty said to me...

.. "We'll have to jump for it."

SCREAMING

It makes me panic, just thinking about it,

because I can imagine the chaos and the fear.

It's not fair, you know,

when passengers embarked on this ship,

they were told it was unsinkable.

They probably didn't pay much mind to how many lifeboats there were,

but now that it is of the most crucial importance to them,

they see that they've been failed.

Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer,

must have been in hell.

This was their unsinkable ship.

Thomas Andrews was trying to do something,

because he is the architect of this disaster.

SHOUTING

Andrews was seen throwing steamer chairs into the water,

with the idea of actually helping those who got into the sea

to have something to support them.

It's very difficult to know what the Captain's final moments were.

During the Falklands War, I was a Captain.

The ship that was bombed, I had to abandon -

and so, I know the pressures he was under,

and I personally think that he probably stayed on the bridge

and waited to meet his fate.

But I think he would have been feeling to himself that

he'd failed in this last great appointment of his.

SCREAMING

There's something of the stiff upper lip happening here,

but inside, there must be inner turmoil.

Because survival instinct is really powerful,

and the captain is probably suppressing it as much as he can.

The social codes of conduct fighting against

that very ancient part of the brain,

the primitive part that just drives us forward biologically.

People just have that will to survive.

We've got to do something!

The adrenaline system is working overtime,

and they've almost got nothing to lose.

I wanted to jump out and try to catch one of

the empty lifeboat falls.

Jack Thayer has been on a dream holiday in Europe

with his parents.

They've got separated in the crowds,

and now, that dream has become a nightmare.

I couldn't just jump.

We might hit wreckage or a steamer chair

and be knocked unconscious.

Milton dissuaded me.

Milton Long, 29-year-old American law clerk, and Jack

had struck up a conversation many hours earlier in the dining saloon.

And now, they find themselves facing this life-or-death moment together.

So many thoughts passed through my mind.

The thought of all the good times I'd had...

..all the future pleasures I'd never enjoy.

My father...

..my mother.

I was watching myself as though from some far off place.

Sincerely pitied myself.

SHOUTING AND SCREAMING

SCREAMING STOPS

Back in the wireless room,

Jack Phillips has stuck to his post right to the end,

even when Captain Smith said it's every man for himself,

because he believes he's doing something useful.

He's spent the last few hours trying to communicate

with other wireless operators,

oblivious to everything going on around him.

And his junior, Harold Bride, is deeply loyal to

and respectful of Jack Phillips.

The sea has almost reached the wireless room,

and they have just minutes before it's filled with freezing water.

I was back in my room, getting Phillips's money for him.

And, as I looked out the door,

I saw a stoker or somebody from below decks...

I remembered in a flash the way Phillips had clung on,

how I'd had to fix that life belt in place

because he was too busy to do it.

And I felt a passion not to let that man die

a decent sailor's death.

I did my duty.

I hope I finished him, I don't know.

We left him on the floor of the wireless cabin.

He wasn't moving.

SCREAMING AND SHOUTING

I climbed on top of the officer's quarters...

..and I saw the last of Phillips.

Jack Phillips is absolutely overwhelmed by

the impossibility of this situation.

He... disappeared walking aft.

He doesn't say goodbye, he doesn't give any explanation,

there's no clap on the back to his junior.

He's done everything. There is nothing more to do.

The man is ready to die.

LOUD CREAKING SCREAMING CONTINUES

At this stage, all the lifeboats on the boat deck have been launched.

And, of course, there's a panic that there are no lifeboats left.

But there is actually two more stashed away on the roof

of the officer's quarters, Collapsible A and B.

I saw the boat and the men trying to push it off.

They couldn't do it.

I went up to them, lending a hand.

The collapsible lifeboats were very much a secondary option

which would need to be rigged so that they could be used.

Now, the crew are trying to launch them in increasingly difficult

and desperate conditions.

SCREAMING

Just then, the ship took a slight, but definite plunge.

The sea came rolling up in a wave.

- JJ CHALMERS: - And a large wave washes Collapsible A and B overboard.

You've just been given that hope, but, in amongst the chaos,

the lifeboats are stolen from you by the elements.

And that is just devastating.

The big wave carried the boat off.

I had hold of an oar lock and went off with it.

SCREAMING ECHOES

Water was washing right across the deck,

and we were in water right to our hips.

Another lurch threw myself off and away from the ship

into the water.

I fell into a mass of people.

WOMAN SCREAMS

I was under water and knew I had to fight for it.

MUFFLED SCREAMING

The temperature in the water is minus two degrees,

so, as soon as that cold water hits the body,

there's a shock reaction.

And the mind is reacting in a state of panic.

Everything I touched seemed to be women's hair.

Children crying...

MUFFLED SCREAMING

..women screaming.

Their hair in my face.

PANICKED GASPING SCREAMING

If only I could forget those hands and faces that I touched.

The ship was sinking on its head very quickly.

The water was right up to the bridge.

The crowd moved with it...

..pushing towards the stern.

LOUD CRASHING SCREAMING

A sight that doesn't bear dwelling on.

To stand there above the wheel house...

..watching the frantic struggles to climb up the sloping deck,

unable to even... hold out a helping hand.

We were a mass of hopeless, dazed humanity...

..trying to keep our final breath

until the last possible moment.

I knew the futility of following that instinct for self-preservation.

It would only be postponing the plunge and...

..prolonging the agony.

Turning to the bridge, I took a header.

Striking water was like a thousand knives

being driven into one's body.

For a few moments, I completely lost grip of myself.

We were at the starboard rail

to keep away from the crowd.

The ship began to shoot down fast,

the water rushing up towards us.

We had no time to think, only to act.

- ECHOING: - Good luck.

We wished each other luck.

And we jumped up on the rail.

Milton looked up at me, and he said...

- .. "You're coming, boy, aren't you?" - You're coming, boy, aren't you?

DISTANT SCREAMING

And I said, "Go ahead.

"I'll be with you in a minute."

Then he let go.

The people who choose to jump are ultimately the people

who take some form of control

in a situation where you are powerless.

We were about five minutes away from the ship.

But we could still see it as the lights stayed on.

The ship stood almost on its nose,

slowly sinking.

The people on the Titanic were yelling and crying.

I could see some of them as they jumped into the water.

SCREAMING METAL CREAKING

SCREAMING STOPS

I found myself drawn against the grating covering a ventilator.

The pressure of the water glued me there.

The shaft led to a stokehold,

a sheer drop of 100 feet right to the bottom of the ship.

I struggled and kicked for all I was worth.

It was impossible to get away.

As fast as I pushed myself off, I was dragged back.

Every instinct expecting the wire to go...

..to find myself shot down into the bowels of the ship.

MUFFLED GRUNTING

The shock of the water took the breath from my lungs.

Down and down I went,

spinning in all directions.

The cold was terrific.

Most people think of drowning in a circumstance like this,

it is that ultimately, your body runs out of energy.

But actually, you can drown as soon as you first hit freezing water.

There's something called cold-water shock.

And part of the reaction is to have a big intake of breath,

and that prepares you for action.

In the case of hitting cold water, it's not in your favour

to have a sharp intake of breath.

Some may have cardiac arrest almost immediately

because of the shock.

I was still fighting when a blast of hot air came up the shaft

and blew me right away from the airshaft

and up to the surface.

SCREAMING

Finally, I came up, my lungs bursting.

The ship was in front of me.

Suddenly, the second funnel seemed to be lifted off.

LOUD METAL CREAKING

The funnel started to fall right amongst the...

..struggling mass of humanity already in the water.

It missed me by only 20 to 30 feet.

The suction of it drew me down.

Those poor people were sucked down in those funnels...

..like flies.

As I came to the surface, my hand came against something.

One of the collapsible lifeboats.

It was floating in the water, bottom side up.

About four or five men clinging onto her,

so I asked them to give me a hand up, which they did.

Sitting on my haunches, holding on for dear life,

it seemed as though hours had passed since I left the ship.

People like Jack and Officer Lightoller are swarming

onto Collapsible B upside down,

using it like a raft in the freezing water

just as a way of trying to survive.

The end was very close.

Something in the bowels of the Titanic exploded,

and sparks shot up to the sky.

Two other explosions followed, dull and heavy,

as if below the surface.

MUFFLED EXPLOSION

The impact was so great, it shook the waters...

..and we thought our lifeboat would sink.

Everyone screamed.

The huge weight of sea water in the bows and in the stern

meant that the two things were unable to remain as one part.

The whole superstructure of the ship seemed to split.

The lights suddenly go out,

and then, darkness falls.

DISTANT SCREAMING

The Titanic broke in two before my eyes.

The fore part wallowed over

and disappeared instantly.

The ship seemed to right herself...

..like a hurt animal with a broken back.

For a strange hallucinatory moment,

it looks as though everything is going to be fine,

because the weird, wonky, distorted angles of the great ship

start to settle.

There's people that think that some sort of safety feature

has kicked in, you know, at least this half of the ship is going to

somehow survive, and those on board are going to be spared.

But ultimately, that is short-lived.

I saw the Titanic go up in the air...

..ever so big.

Huge ship reared herself on end.

Rudder and propeller clear of the water...

..until at last, she assumed a perpendicular position.

We saw groups of the 1,500 people still aboard

clinging like swarming bees.

The contents of the Titanic is now falling through it,

and tragically, people, as well.

I think it was only at that moment that

many of those poor souls onboard

realised their fate.

"If we're going to die," I said,

"it would be best to die gripping something".

We gripped the rail.

LOUD CRASHING SCREAMING

DISTANT SCREAMING

A sharp exclamation from my husband.

"My God, she is going now."

The steamer, without a sound...

..except for the shrieks of the people still onboard...

..stood right on end.

SCREAMING ECHOES

It stood there several moments,

and slipped straight down into the water.

As easily as a pebble in a pond.

Our proud ship.

Our beautiful Titanic.

DISTANT SCREAMING CONTINUES

DISTANT AGONISED SCREAMS

Everyone round me on the upturned boat

breathed the two words...

.. "She's gone."

I did not wish to see her go down.

I'm glad that I did not.

My back was turned to her.

We were pulling away.

This is his ship, this is his company,

and there is intense professional and personal shame here.

I think that was just too overwhelming for him

to be able to look.

Probably a minute passed with almost dead silence and quiet.

Then, an unforgettable cry went up

from 1,500 despairing throats.

A bedlam of shrieks and cries.

AGONISED SCREAMING ECHOES

A nightmare... of both sight and sound.

Hearing desperate, disembodied voices in the darkness

of the ocean...

SCATTERED SHOUTING

..a cacophony of tears and shouts, and despair...

..is almost like a soundscape of hell.

Potentially it's your husband, your brother, your father,

your loved ones' voices.

I don't know how you recover from that.

I have never...

..heard such screams...

..from the hundreds of people floating about us.

They were piercing.

It was a horrible row.

SCREAMING

One young man near me shouted...

- .. "Mother"! - Mother! Oh, mother!

A man alongside me crushed me round the neck.

I chucked him off.

Nobody knows how they'll react in that circumstance.

You're surrounded by others in a panic with you.

You begin to lose the function of your arms

and the function of your legs,

the thing that you need to keep afloat.

And that can happen extremely quickly,

because that body's reaction - to keep your vital organs warm -

is so powerful, and it's painful.

Like, you are being tortured, essentially.

The people in the lifeboats are sitting and listening

to others die.

And everyone's response to that trauma situation

will be different.

We chatted of little unimportant things,

as people do when they've been through great mental strain.

Try to make feeble jokes.

I remember I teased Ms Fragatelli,

"Just fancy, you left your beautiful nightdress behind you."

SCATTERED CHUCKLES

And we all laughed.

DISTANT SCREAMING

But in our hearts, we felt very far from laughter.

"Never you mind, madam.

"You were lucky to come away with your lives",

said one of the sailors.

"Don't you bother about anything you had to leave behind you."

Lucy's comments sound tone-deaf to us,

but I think they're a trauma response.

It is far easier to comprehend

the loss of a beautiful piece of clothing -

she's a fashion designer, of course -

than it is to wrap their heads around the extraordinary horror

of the loss of human life that they're seeing before them.

For those in the water, a fatal countdown has begun.

Once severe hypothermia sets in,

you've got about 15 minutes until you'll become unconscious.

When I was wounded in Afghanistan,

I knew that that helicopter was coming.

But if you don't know that a rescue is imminent,

how long are you capable of holding on for?

A large number of people gave up the struggle

and were content to die,

for the water was... so cold,

and there seemed no hope of rescue.

When the darkness starts to creep in on you,

that's when you have to have a real word with yourself

and remind yourself that you still have some fight in you.

PANICKED SCREAMING LABOURED BREATHING

I swam as though I was in a race.

I got myself away from the crowd.

Behind me, there was the horrible volume of groans which...

SCREAMING ECHOES

..I can hear them now.

I came up to my chum, John Bannon, and I said,

"Cheerio, Johnny".

And he said...

.. "I'm all right."

Then he told me he had seen a flashlight some distance away,

and pointed out the direction.

As I went off, I cried out, "So long, Johnny"!

Poor chap.

He was drowned.

It was a terrible sight all around.

SCREAMING

Men swimming and sinking.

I saw a boat of some kind.

I put all my strength into an effort to swim to it.

It was hard work.

I was all done...

..when a hand reached from the boat and pulled me aboard.

Collapsible B, that had been stored on the roof of

the officers' quarters, was washed off deck,

and is now the last hope of the men who jump from the Titanic.

Among the 30 men on Collapsible B,

we have Harold Bride, Jack Thayer,

Eugene Daly, and Charles Lightoller.

Others came near, nobody gave them a hand.

The bottom-up boat already had more men than it would hold,

and was sinking.

We were very low in the water,

standing, sitting, kneeling,

lying in all conceivable positions.

People came up beside us and begged us

to get on this upturned boat.

Saving ourselves, we were obliged to push them off.

One man was alongside us and asked if he could get up on top of it.

We told him that if he did, we would all go down.

His reply was, "God bless you. Goodbye."

SCREAMING ECHOES

To look another human being in the eye and say to them,

"You're going to have to perish"...

Like, that is an impossible thing not just to live through

in the moment, but then, to have to live with.

There are 1,500 people in ice-cold water in the Atlantic.

And there are some lifeboats that are full to capacity,

and there's nothing they can do.

But there are many others that are even less than half full.

There are less than 700 people in the lifeboats.

Because the 18 lifeboats are not at capacity,

there's still space for over 400 people.

It could save them from almost certain death.

Within the lifeboats, there's an intense dilemma.

Do they go back and save people?

Or do they stay at a safe distance so that they don't get overcrowded,

and everyone in that lifeboat end up in the water?

These boats are fragile.

They're in the middle of this vast sea.

There's already been tragic and terrible, huge loss of life.

This is their one and only chance to survive.

Three times, an officer ordered his men to turn about.

But each time, they were prevented from doing so

by some of the passengers.

They grasped the oars, so that the seamen were forced

to give up turning back to rescue any of the unfortunates.

In the Duff-Gordon boat, one of the crew members says,

"It's up to us to go back and see if we can pick anyone up".

The Duff-Gordons object, they say they'll be swamped,

and they persuade the crew not to go back.

At the later inquiry, Cosmo Duff-Gordon said,

"It's difficult to say what occurred to me.

"I was minding my wife,

"and we were in a rather abnormal condition, you know."

I find it chilling that the Duff-Gordons are just

openly hostile to letting anyone in their lifeboat.

All along, they have been given privileges that other people

haven't been given,

and to die slowly in ice-cold water within earshot of people

who might save your life,

I think there's a particular cruelty to that.

Men and women were going to their death

beneath the icy waters of the Atlantic.

But I noticed in a hazy, detached sort of way.

I'd gone through too much in those hours to think clearly.

Lucy's talking about trauma here.

She's talking about going through so much emotion that

she's effectively shutting down.

She's so traumatised, she's not able to get out of her own experience

enough to engage with what those people in the water

are going through at that time.

SCREAMING

Partially-filled lifeboats standing by,

only a few hundred yards away never came back.

Why on earth they did not come back is a mystery.

How could any human being fail to heed those cries?

I think it is extremely unfortunate the lifeboats didn't go ahead

and start to rescue people.

They were willing to sit with people screaming and dying in the water,

and I find that quite surprising.

We're highly attuned to other people's emotional expressions.

Out on the lifeboats, it's dark and they're quite far away -

so not seeing those faces may be

one way of distancing themselves from that suffering.

I became so numb, I could hardly swim.

My head was so queer.

But when I was almost at my last gasp, I shouted...

Boat ahoy!

..on the off chance that one might be near.

I had room for a dozen more people in my boat.

But it was dark.

We didn't pick up any swimmers.

We all like to think we'd be the noble one that does the right thing.

But that's not how survival works.

Ultimately, as human beings, we are animals who have survived.

That's how we've evolved to be what we are.

So, survival instinct is absolutely within our DNA.

And so, you have no idea what you are capable of

until you are pushed to an extreme.

Disasters reveal an aspect of your personality

that you might not know is there,

and you might not like being there.

To save your own life, to let hundreds of people die?

I think that's something that would weigh heavily on you

for the rest of your life.

Perhaps a thousand...

..perhaps more...

SCREAMING

..gone down with her.

There's a cluster of lifeboats

closer to where the Titanic went down,

including Lifeboats 14 and 4.

And this is a kind of case of right place, right time

for some people in the water.

Fortunately, my shout was heard.

- ECHOING: - Over here!

I was holding to Lifeboat Number 4.

About seven people are rescued because of that boat,

including Thomas Dillon.

I think I'd been 20 minutes in the water.

I was told afterwards, I was unconscious for a long time.

I was not properly right when I came to.

Thomas Dillon survived because he's young and he's fit.

But, by the time he's picked up by the lifeboat,

he's got early symptoms of hypothermia.

I would rather die a hundred times

than go through such an experience again.

Mr Lowe went in search of other lifeboats.

He found four or five,

and took command of the little fleet.

The whole of you are under my orders!

Lifeboat 14 is very full, but Lowe realises that actually,

if this group works together,

they have a chance of being able to launch a rescue mission.

He ordered that the boats should be linked together with ropes

to prevent any drifting away.

They were able to redistribute those passengers,

and they actually free up an entire lifeboat

which allows them to go in and search for survivors.

I went with just the boat's crew. No passengers.

Of course, I had to wait for the yells and shrieks to subside...

..for the people to thin out.

Officer Lowe is very aware of the potential risks.

You can be capsized when trying to pull survivors into the vessel.

The vessel can be swamped.

But they choose to go back.

They're not just survivors in this moment,

they continue to be crewmen.

Their sense of service,

particularly those that had a military background,

ultimately outweighs their sense of survival.

Your training just kicks in, and you have a responsibility

to those around you, even before yourself.

I searched the wreck thoroughly and found four persons.

One was a Mr Hoit, from New York.

Get him in!

He was bleeding from the mouth.

I loosened his shirt, so as to give him every chance to breathe.

But unfortunately, he died.

I suppose he was too far gone when we picked him up.

Most of those that jumped in the sea

died within a quarter of an hour.

The awful moaning ceased after that.

We saw nothing but ice and dead bodies.

I remember the very last cry.

This man's voice... calling loudly.

"My God, my God."

ECHOING: My God.

DISTANT MOANING

My God...

I think it would have been very haunting to slowly hear

fewer and fewer voices.

And that's one of the most traumatic memories that people had,

is the sound of those screams.

SHIVERING

The air was leaking from under the boat,

lowering us further and further into the icy water.

Soaking wet, freezing.

The pack of huddled men on Collapsible B

survived so many odds.

But that's all for nothing if nobody comes to your rescue,

and they don't know if that's coming.

Some lost consciousness and slipped overboard.

SPLASH

Every wave threatened to swamp us.

The problem with trying to sail an upside-down boat,

which they're now using as a raft, is that it's not stable.

This is a balancing act - literally -

to save your life.

Every bit of strength and spirit from every one of those men

on that boat raft was going to be about staying alive.

Their class differences cease to be important.

We've got men from first class, men from third, crew members -

united by this will to survive.

We prayed and sang hymns.

Harold Bride helped keep our hopes up.

He said time and time again,

"The Carpathia is coming as fast as she can.

"Carpathia's coming as fast as she can."

Lightoller found his whistle.

WHISTLE BLOWS

After desperate calling,

we got the attention of the other lifeboats.

Two of the boats realised the position we were in

and drew toward us.

They had a right-side-up boat,

and it was full to its capacity.

Yet they came to us and loaded us all into it.

FLARE STRIKES

Officer Boxhall took some green flares from the bridge,

and now he's lighting them, hoping that he will attract

the attention of the approaching rescue vessel.

Time will be standing still.

All they can do is sit in the boats and wait.

About this time,

the edge of the sun came above the horizon.

To feel that glowing warmth which we'd never expected to see again -

that's something never to be forgotten.

I have no idea of the passage of time during that awful night.

We were all very tired...

..when we saw a big light.

Look.

- ECHOING: - Look! It's a ship!

Suddenly, a flicker of hope.

A ship getting closer every minute.

Coming towards the sight of the wreck and

the lifeboats bobbing about in this freezing, empty sea,

finally is The Carpathian.

She's come as fast as she could through the ice floes,

through the night responding to Jack Phillips's distress calls.

Nothing has ever looked so good to me...

..as the lights from The Carpathia.

Even through my numbness...

..I began to realise I was saved.

I would live.

She stopped maybe four miles away.

The task of rowing over to her

was one of the hardest things we've had to face.

At last, The Carpathia was alongside,

and people were being taken up by rope ladder.

One man was dead.

I passed him and went up the ladder.

The dead man was Phillips.

He had died on the raft of exposure and cold, I guess.

He stood his ground until the crisis had passed,

and then, he... collapsed.

Maybe I could have slipped more clothing on Phillips.

Would have saved him.

When I was wounded, three people lost their lives,

so I know what it's like to trawl over in your head,

the "what could I have done"?

And ultimately...

..life is unpredictable.

You know, you live or you die.

And you cannot change that fate,

but learning to live with that, it takes time.

No survivor...

..knows better than I the cruelty of disappointment.

I had a husband to search for.

A husband whom I believed would be found in one of the boats.

- WHISPERS: - He was not there.

I... let myself be saved...

..because I believed he too would escape.

I sometimes envy those whom

no human power could tear them...

..from their husbands' arms.

OFF-CAMERA: What do you remember of The Carpathia?

Er...

..consoling.

And being consoled.

My friends were all among the missing

when the roll was called.

The loss affected me badly.

The big narrative is always going to be about heroism

and loss, and sacrifice.

But the Titanic was a disaster.

These are real people's lives that are lost.

Real people who suffered.

Shut all the dampers!

The engineers were the heroes, I think.

They kept going in some minutes

before the Titanic went out of sight.

Not a man of them was saved.

In 1912, it was taken for granted that the price of

a first class ticket included a greater likelihood of surviving.

It was seen as a reflection of the natural order.

What the Titanic teaches us is what happens when people's lives

are given unequal value.

Every element, from your breakfast

to how you're treated in an emergency -

all of that is impacted by class and hierarchy, and status.

This happened in an age where the British stiff upper lip

was stiffer than ever.

But the reality is, it doesn't matter how resilient

you think you are.

Sometimes, we're just not capable of processing that level of horror.

Personal trauma was not recognised.

You just suffered, and you carried on.

Those people who survive, they were just now going to have

to pick up their lives as best they could, and manage.

These are searing memories that never leave them.

And the grief was huge.

But I like to imagine that there were those who felt that

this encounter with death made them live the rest of their days

more fully, and that they owed it to those who died to live.

I lost my pipes, which I prided myself so much on.

I lost all my clothes...

..and £98, which had taken me many years to save.

Here I am, stripped of all I had,

but thankful to God that He left me my life.