Julian Fellowes
Appearances
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
I think it was an interesting period for the relationship between Great Britain, still a vast imperial power at that time, and America, which was, you know, becoming the greatest economy of the Western world or the world.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
And people in a way, I think, were pretending that it was about snobbery and being well-bred and good manners and grace and knowing how to do things properly and all those phrases snobs use. But of course it wasn't really. It was about power. And the British were starting to see that the Americans were more powerful than they were.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
America had started to develop its own society. It wasn't anymore imitating Europe. It wasn't based on leading families who were the younger sons of Scottish gentry or Dutch gentry or whatever it was. These were new people who'd come along and they'd invented, you know, doorknobs or trains or yachts or whatever.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
And they were vastly rich and they weren't about to be told what to do by the youngest son of someone from Argyllshire. You know, they could piss off as far as they were concerned. And they made a new society. And you see that on the Titanic, that actually Titanic first class was dominated by Americans.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
It didn't occur to anyone that a gash that long would be made in the side of a ship. And in fact, the truth is that if they had not tried to steer out of the way of the iceberg, if they had simply headed straight on into it, they wouldn't have sunk. I mean, there wasn't a ship that could have done that damage. Only an iceberg could do it.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
2. Bad Luck Comes in Threes
Like everything, the truth is a little more complicated. The reason there were too few lifeboats was that it never occurred to anyone that the lifeboats would be any more than ferries, because liners, when they sank, took a very long time to do it.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
I certainly don't advocate for alcohol in hyperthermia situations. As far as the flask of whiskey and the baker, it is a plausible story, but it's not recommended. You know, a good rule of thumb is that, you know, a drunk man would usually freeze faster than a sober man.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
And in a survival situation, having all that warm blood away from the vital organs, which is called vasodilation, which alcohol causes, puts that person at greater risk for hypothermia. In the case of the baker, the water was cold enough to quickly tighten his blood vessel and kind of cancel out the effect of the alcohol.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
But it's thought that the relaxing effects of alcohol gave him the uncanny ability to remain calm, not thrash around, to conserve his energy and survive. So it did, in a way, bolster his courage and decrease that feeling of cold, and therefore he was not as panicked as other passengers.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
I don't think he died drowning because he was wearing a cork life vest. He most likely died from hypothermia. And this occurs when the body temperature drops below 35 degrees Celsius. And the water where Titanic sank in the North Atlantic was literally minus two degrees Celsius. So at that temperature, hypothermia sets in fairly quickly. I mean, within 15 minutes.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
It is an agonizing death, especially when you have that first cold immersion and that cold shock. Titanic's second officer, Charles Lightoller, described it as being like a thousand knives being driven into one's body. And at that stage, that very first cold shock stage, it's quite common to gasp and to hyperventilate, meaning breathe very fast.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
But then what happens is you start shivering, your teeth start chattering. And as the body temperature falls further, at some point shivering stops and movements become slow and clumsy. Thinking is blurred. Judgment is impaired. And people become more sluggish and slip into a coma. And then the heart and the breathing rates become slower and weaker. And eventually the heart does stop.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
Typically in hypothermia, death occurs in about 30 minutes. There were reports from Titanic survivors describing the cries of victims who were wearing their cork-like vests lasting more than one hour. It's heart-wrenching for me to even think about my great-grandfather, you know, bopping in the ocean that night, that moonless night, and then drifting into unconsciousness.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
And I wondered, what was he thinking about? alone in this vast ocean? Was he thinking about his wife, Marta, and his six kids? Was he thinking about his beautiful village in Lebanon by the Mediterranean? Was he having visions of the snow-capped mountains, the majestic mountains in Lebanon with its biblical cedar trees?
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
9. The Long Hours Before Dawn
I wonder whether he prayed in those moments and just put his faith in the hands of God. Yeah, it's a very hard image to think about.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
It's not just that you were woken from sleep, it's that, you know, if I'm sitting in my cabin awake and somebody comes and tells me, we've hit an iceberg, you need to get your life belt on and get up to the boat deck, and the bump seems really minor, is this guy right or not? I think if you have a public address system with the captain telling you,
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
But here's a steward who comes to your door, knocks on your door and says, get out, get your life belt on and get to the boat there.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
Lightoller said he felt a slight bump and heard a grinding sound. That was it. And he didn't think it was a big deal. And other people didn't think it was a big deal. Some ice had fallen on the deck where passengers went sometimes on promenades and they were playing with the ice. You know, getting the lifeboats out and down was just kind of show and tell. It was just pro forma.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
It wasn't really needed, but we probably ought to do it just because that's sort of what you're supposed to do. Something happens to the ship.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
There was no emergency planning and training. There was no practice or training on the ship of passengers going to the lifeboats. Passengers were not assigned to specific lifeboats. So there was pretty much chaos.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
The leaders did a bad job preparing the passengers once they hit the iceberg. It's estimated that it took 25 minutes before Smith decided the ship should be abandoned. So they wasted 25 minutes they could have used to get passengers up and ready to go into the lightboats or even lower some. He's delegating authority to people who are responsible. I assume that was the normal course of things.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
I think he can exaggerate Smith's failing. It seems to me that the nitty gritty of doing things is left up to the subordinates.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
6. Save Our Souls
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Titanic: Ship of Dreams
5. The Moment of Impact
It didn't occur to anyone that a gash that long would be made in the side of a ship. What they thought is that it would collide in some way. I mean, there wasn't a ship that could have done that damage. Only an iceberg could do it.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
The first and second class, actually, were treated in a fairly similar way on the Titanic. I think one first class woman died. And I think a couple of women in second class died. But otherwise, they all got off. The really scandalous treatment was steerage.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
He asked if he could join her in the boat because she was pregnant, and they turned him down.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
It's easy to say that privileged people feel more entitled, which I think they do. There is always a satisfaction when you're in a house and the red cord is unhooked for you, or it says private. In you go.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I think there are people who do not see the rules as applying to them. I mean, I always remember once I was in Ronda with my mother and brothers, and we were going in to see a bullfight. And there were crowds and police and this and this and this. And there was a message saying in Spanish, pedestrians this way, whatever. And my mother was marching us in the opposite direction.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
And I said, but mummy, it says pedestrians this way. She said, they don't mean us, dear. And I never forgot that because I thought, oh, I get it. There are rules, but they don't apply to everyone. And I can't say that much in life has taught me different.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I think stories that illustrate the wheel of fortune, how you can be up one minute and down the next, always have a certain fascination. There is something about people who believe they are untouchable. And there they are, grabbing a life belt and hoping not to be frozen to death. And that, I think, was rather extraordinary.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I'm not saying he wasn't a brave man. I think he was. I don't think any of his mistakes were deliberate or unkind, but they were costly. He had this theory that the men were going to jump into the sea and swim out to the half-full boat. Well, with the temperature of the sea, the men were going to last about a minute. in the water. He hadn't thought that through at all.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
And the business of not letting, you know, 15- and 16-year-old boys onto the lifeboat, I don't think he was a bad man at all. But those were errors of judgment that cost many lives. A lot more people should have got off that ship in the boats they had. And the fact that they sailed away not even half full
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
You have to understand that these were all members of a different civilization from our own. And they had been brought up with certain rules and moral duties. In a way, it's like telling the 16th century not to be religious. It's too deep in their fiber for it to seem possible for them to ignore it, even in extremists. And they couldn't. I think we are a very selfish generation.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I don't think we would stand back for the women and children first. I think a lot of people, too many people, would be elbowing each other out of the way to get on the boats. whereas they were different. They had a strong sense of duty.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I think that the behavior on board the Titanic actually what strikes you when you get into the detailed research is the extraordinary selflessness and bravery that you witness.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
She and her sister, Helena Glynn, the novelist, were sort of, in a sense, masquerading as Toffs. They were pretend Toffs. And she'd married her rather dull baronet in order to give her a title. But really, she was a dressmaker. She was a designer, quite a talented one, and quite a leader of fashion. But that was not what the Duchess of Buccleuch was doing at the time, I can assure you.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
And she liked to pass herself off as very grand when she wasn't really. And I think that that made her coarse in her emotions. And her selfishness is still shocking.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
7. Women and Children First
I think her set of priorities was questionable. She wouldn't wait. She wouldn't allow the boat to wait until more people came on the deck, even if they were men, and got on board. She insisted on going when there were only twelve of them in it.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
1. The Biggest Ship in the World
Titanic is more or less a carbon copy of Olympic. The only difference visually really is that on the Olympics maiden voyage, some of the first class passengers complained about spray from the bow waves washing over the promenade deck. And so they therefore decided to enclose the promenade deck, which gives Titanic that slightly more modern look. Internally, her area was the same.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
1. The Biggest Ship in the World
The reason why they could say she had a higher tonnage than her identical twin sister ship is because they rearranged the accommodation on the ship and tonnage was actually calculated by accommodation. So she was said to be the biggest ship in the world, but actually she was the same as Olympic.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
1. The Biggest Ship in the World
And almost all photographs of Titanic being built and, you know, her staterooms coming together, almost all of them are actually the Olympic because Harland and Wolfe completely documented the building of Olympic all the way. They then didn't need to document the building of Titanic very much at all.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
1. The Biggest Ship in the World
what they did was that harland and wolf were paid on a cost plus basis which meant that instead of white style giving them a budget really what they did was they just said look show us your books open books and show us what you spent and then you know your profit will be five percent more than what you spent so actually in a way harland and walk was incentivized that the more money they spent on the the more money they would make there was no incentive to cut corners
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
1. The Biggest Ship in the World
Titanic is this metaphor for the whole of mankind. I think the reason ultimately why we're talking about Titanic today is because it speaks to the human condition.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
It wasn't that all these people were the same and they all came from the same club. They didn't. Any more than everyone in first class today on an airliner is someone you want to have to dinner next Thursday.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
His ancestor, the first John Jacob Astor, built his first fortune on fur, which was then a very important ingredient in fashion. And he made a very, very large sum of money.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
His mother had built this enormous palace for herself. So he was then living in a house, you know, not much smaller than Buckingham Palace, with a ballroom on the back. And he had this tremendously socially active wife who was very good looking and a great leader and a clever woman. And everything was tickety-boo until he fell in love with his second wife, Madeleine, who was very much younger.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
She was about 18. And nobody could believe that he was going to divorce his very prominent and important wife for this sort of slip of a girl. That is exactly what he did.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
The unsinkable Molly Brown was quite a character. I mean, she wasn't at all well-received by American society. You know, they thought she was ghastly. But ghastly or not, she was unsinkable. And she got what she wanted. And she made her life for herself. And I think we love her for it.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
I think he was a very congenial figure. I think he was good fun and chatty and he rotated the first class passengers around so he got to know them all and he sat with them all and he was very pleasant. But of course his job was to sail the ship. His job was not to keep the passengers happy any more than it would be to load the lifeboat. That wasn't what he was there for.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
Well, obviously the Titanic has changed the way we view icebergs, but it wasn't unknown. I had a great, great, great, great uncle called William Dorset Fellows, who was the captain of a ship called the Lady Hubbell, which was sunk by an iceberg in 1817. So it wasn't that nobody thought an iceberg could sink a ship. They knew it could, but they didn't think it could sink a ship like Titanic.
Titanic: Ship of Dreams
4. Iceberg Dead Ahead
They did know icebergs were dangerous. And that's why there were iceberg warnings. You know, a big part of the Titanic story is that these iceberg warnings were coming in and they were largely being ignored. And that's where, again, I'm afraid you do come back to Smith.