Sex and Scandal on the Titanic

It's the most famous sunken ship in history, but its story is surrounded by a lot of myth. Were the working classes locked below deck and doomed to drown? Could the Titanic have avoided the iceberg? And most importantly (to us, at least), what sex and scandals took place on board? Joining Kate today is the marvellous Gareth Russell to talk us through what really went down on the Titanic, and why they've got major beef with Rose from the 1997 film. This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. UK listeners: voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Safford Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new programme that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend, Happy.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, special finance manager at SaffordCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffordCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 1:10Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Dr Kate Lister, back with the podcast that explores the scandalous side of history. And to you lot, I will say, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things and adulty way of going around, also mixed news being adult too. Does everyone feel safer? I think I feel safer. Right, let's crack on.

• 1:34Kate Lister?

  I have just had the best evening. The champagne was flowing and people watching was just incredible. The number of very wealthy businessmen who were flirting with glamorous women, who were definitely not their wives, was truly something to behold. And now I'm tucked up, nice and warm, in my first-class cabin bed. Ha, life on board the Titanic, what's not to love?

• 2:01Kate Lister?

  Did anybody just feel that? What was that that made the whole room shudder? It might be the bubbles going to my head, but did I just see an iceberg going past the window? Suddenly, I have got a rather sinking feeling, but on a ship this expensive and luxurious? I mean, really, what's the worst that could happen?

• 2:39Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheet, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Ever since we first set eyes on Jack and Rose in Titanic, we are all convinced that the greatest love story of all time took place on board that doomed ship. But aside from whether she did have room on her little raft, and what the hell she thought she was doing, throwing the blue diamond into the sea, what scandals really did happen on board the Titanic? I mean, apart from the obvious one, it sank. What stories unraveled after it disappeared into the icy waters in 1912? Joining me on today's episode is the ridiculously talented historian, author and friend of the show, Gareth Russell, to help us find out more. Without further ado, let's crack on.

• 3:30Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome to the new Betwixt the Sheet studio. It's only Gareth Russell. How are you doing, darling?

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Very, very well. This is snazzy.

• 3:37Kate Lister?

  It's nice, isn't it?

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like it.

• 3:38Kate Lister?

  They've done a good job.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I love it.

• 3:41Kate Lister?

  I'm liking it. We've got kind of intellectual boudoir vibes.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Love. That's my new aesthetic.

• 3:46Kate Lister?

  Yeah, like I'd tell you an interesting theological fact, then flip you over. That's what we're going for.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Ten out of 10.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Fun times in Byzantium.

• 3:57Kate Lister?

  But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the Titanic, which, when they told me you were coming out to talk about Titanic, I was like, Gareth? Gareth's coming out to talk? Gareth who does the Tudors and the Stuarts and like Hampton Court and the Titanic?

• 4:10Speaker 03

  But I, yeah, I dabble with the Edwardians. So I, yeah, I do, I dabble.

• 4:16Kate Lister?

  It's like a gateway thing.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  It is, yeah. Well, also, I mean, it's kind of psychological self-care, because after, say, two, three years in a book where I have to look at Tudor handwriting or Stuart handwriting, I would like something typed on with a fountain pen before I lose my mind and archive.

• 4:33Kate Lister?

  You do have more sources the later you get in history.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's, whilst the Titanic is not a cheery subject, it was less painful on the eyes.

• 4:43Kate Lister?

  I thought maybe you'd done what like a lot of neurodivergent people do, is you'd had a Titanic hyper-focus.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  I did, yeah.

• 4:49Kate Lister?

  Oh, I see. Right, okay.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Ding, ding, ding, yes. So it's very hard in Belfast, because you sort of grew up with stories of it, to pinpoint when the neurodivergent hyper-focus is kicking in.

• 4:58Kate Lister?

  You can't predict it. It's of no use whatsoever. It would be great if you could go, right, hyper-focus, I want you to focus on this thing, but it just arrives.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, I think it was like Trains, and then it was Titanic. But my great-grandfather, Thomas, he had seen it being built, and so I might, yeah. And it was interesting, because it was probably the first time I was linked to the Titanic, but very aware that what history you see is what class you are. So he was from like a working-class shipbuilding family in the east of Belfast. His father worked in building it. He, he had an extraordinary memory. He could like memorise whole chapters of the Bible, but he was technically illiterate, because they couldn't afford for him to go to school, he had to go and work. But my great-grandmother, Elizabeth, who he married, they sort of had like three homes and a pony, just signed to house and the PKS. But she was taken to have a picnic on the banks of the loch when it was finished and see it sail by.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  So their versions of what Titanic they saw was completely different based on how they were brought up.

• 5:56Kate Lister?

  So you've got a family link to the Titanic? That's impressive.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, and like I was seven or eight, nine, no, nine, when Papa died. But he could remember the songs that the workers sung when it sank, and like how they memorialise colleagues.

• 6:10Kate Lister?

  Oh, my God.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:12Kate Lister?

  Wow. See, I had a Titanic hyper-focus for a while there. I don't know if you've got round.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  It's a rite of passage, though.

• 6:16Kate Lister?

  It is. Another one, I don't know if you got round to this, and I don't even want to tell you in case you haven't, because it will consume you for a while. The tragedies of Everest, where people die. You haven't done that one yet?

• 6:26Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 6:27Kate Lister?

  It might be coming for you. Like, look at the 1996 Everest tragedy, it might come for you.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 6:32Kate Lister?

  But just, just.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Well, I'll take a couple of weeks off.

• 6:34Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Kate Lister?

  We'll be ready for the next book.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  I dabble.

• 6:39Kate Lister?

  It got him, it got him, oh no. But the Titanic definitely got you.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:45Kate Lister?

  I think the first question I want to ask is, like, it's the big one, isn't it? And I know that you always get asked this, and most Titanic historians do. Why are we obsessed with it? Because loads of ships have sunk.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:55Kate Lister?

  Loads of ships, like even ones have hit icebergs and have sunk, and posh people have drowned on ships, and it's all very sad. Why that one?

• 7:02Speaker 03

  I think it's a really boring but obvious answer, which is the way it sank and how long it took. So whilst the Titanic sustained enormous damage, two and a half, two hours and 40 minutes to sink, and the way it sank, sort of straight down into the water, meant that you sort of had time to process what was happening. And I think it becomes a morality play and a mortality one. So you go through the stages of death with it. You're like, I'm fine, oh, what's happening? Oh, something might be going wrong. And also then it can, so you get a lengthy morality drama on the decks of the ship, and then you wonder, who would you have been? How would you have behaved?

• 7:44Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  So things like the Lysitania, or even its sister ship, the Britannic, they probably have more political impact, but they sink so quickly that it's just a horror.

• 7:52Kate Lister?

  It's like boom and done.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's panic. I mean, I did years ago, a podcast episode on the Lysitania, and there are, there are things in it that are more distressing. So like one woman saying that she went down to the cabin, it was already tilting, she lifted her own child, but she couldn't physically lift another one and get out, so she'd leave a two-year-old, like really horrific stuff. So it's not that the Titanic has a, it doesn't really have stories that horrific. But I think it is the, the slow sinking and the ability to put yourself there that keeps us fascinated.

• 8:25Kate Lister?

  You do ask yourself those questions, don't you? Like, what would I have done? What would, where would I have been? And you tell yourself these lies, that you would have been one of the heroic people going, no, no, no, you can have my, I would not have been that person. I would have been using the working class as a lifeboat, probably.

• 8:42Kate Lister?

  I know myself well.

• 8:46Kate Lister?

  I would like lashing him together. Shut up.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I understand. I do.

• 8:53Kate Lister?

  I like to think in my head, I'd have been the, no, no, children, let's get the children in.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Think of the children.

• 8:57Kate Lister?

  I would have been straight, all feminist principles out the fucking window. No feminists on board the Titanic. Not a one.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  No, no, I think like some of the suffragettes were like running straight to the boats.

• 9:08Kate Lister?

  Absolutely.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  No boat off the boat. Yeah, boats for women. And it was, so it was just, I think,

• 9:17Speaker 03

  it does ask that question because you think, you've probably been Billy Duff Gordon in the lifeboat with 12 people being like, we're cramped, we can't go back and pick up survivors.

• 9:24Kate Lister?

  I just wish you could go and talk to them like, is this really, like, do you want to redo that? Because that's, this is how it's going to be remembered.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you're, because and it's a lot of what's really interesting about the concept of gender with the Titanic is there is a story that is retold, which is a man who survived must have dressed as a woman.

• 9:42Kate Lister?

  I've heard, or a man who survived as a coward.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's, and what's interesting is that, I mean, gender does play a massive role in whether you live or die. So if you are, it's plays more of a role than class. So if you're a man, you do not have more than a 50% chance. There's more men lost in every class of carriage than there are.

• 10:01Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  But then class becomes the second contributing factor to it. But the statistic that shocks people is that the worst hit demographic was second class men.

• 10:11Kate Lister?

  Really?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. So they did 92% fatality rate. And so the third factor is, are you married? So married men and family men tend to prioritize getting their wives and children into the boats. And second class is overwhelmingly made up of families struggling.

• 10:28Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  So there's three things that'll contribute really to it.

• 10:32Kate Lister?

  Because that's, that's one of the big enduring iconic stories about the Titanic is that it was, it was women and children first and, and you know, that these, and I guess, and these men did give up their seats, as we can't take that away, which is incredibly brave. And maybe that's one of the reasons it's so intriguing as well is because you're like, you're confronted with that moment and secretly, you probably know, you definitely wouldn't have done that. But like, there is something admirable slash stupid about it. Like, it's very close how those two things intersect.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  You're right. And because there's a massive debate afterwards, and an exchange of letters between George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Conan Doyle. And George Bernard Shaw says, the women and children, the women and children first rule was a stupid rule. And we're pretending that it was a noble and courageous thing to explain away the fact that lifeboats left two thirds empty or one third empty, or that there weren't enough men to row them.

• 11:24Kate Lister?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. He was like, you were putting women and children in with three sailors and being told to row a boat.

• 11:31Kate Lister?

  Five year olds trying to row, yes. I didn't even thought of that. Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  He said the Countess of Rotherham had to volunteer to row for five.

• 11:37Kate Lister?

  Not the Countess of Rotherham.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Well, she, she was very sort of chipper about it. And she said, we have a small, a small yacht in, off the coast of Devon. I can row. And she just, she took the teller and rowed for five hours and then sort of, yeah, yeah. And then, and then this is the most like sort of old received pronunciation. So she said, I'm quite all right. And she said afterwards, she was thinking, how does one kill oneself if we're never, if we're never rescued? And they got to the Carpathia, she climbed up and she fainted onto the deck. She just refused to give any sign that.

• 12:06Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's, she's a tough cookie.

• 12:08Kate Lister?

  That's a stiff upper lip, isn't it?

• 12:10Speaker 03

  But, but generally speaking, so, so George Bernard Shaw is writing into newspapers, saying, there are questions to be asked about, did many men die unnecessarily? And then Arthur Conan Doyle, yeah. And then Arthur Conan Doyle comes back and says, you're so unshovelled, Russ. How could you possibly be saying this? And it's, it's a question that's never, because it does, it does create moments of incredible bravery.

• 12:32Kate Lister?

  It does.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  But there is definitely a case to be made.

• 12:36Kate Lister?

  See, I read, read, I watched on YouTube, so possibly TikTok. If ever I say I've read something, just now I probably haven't. Yeah, I read that the women and children first rule that is much mythologized actually cost more lives than it probably saved.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Yes, it's, there are cases where

• 13:00Speaker 03

  men stood back and they were the only ones on the deck at that particular part of the deck. And the lifeboats were lowered half full because there were no women or children at that particular point. There's some really grim stuff. So there is a point at which a first class family are boarding and the officer who's on the side of the deck that's enforcing the women and children rule puts, and it says, he's not going in, the kid's 13. And his father has to say, really, really kick up a fuss. They let him in, but then the officer's nose is out of joint. So he says, there's no more. And so later there is a woman, this was probably the, this was the chin wobbler during the research where I sort of had to take a moment because I'm not a crier, but this was, reading this was just horrific.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  So this lady called Rhoda Abbott had escaped a physically abusive marriage. And she was being brought over to America in third class through the congregation of her church. And she was traveling with her 16 year old son and 13 year old son. And the 16 year old son had started to train as a boxer. And he, so he did look a little, you know, 16, you can look older. It's 16 to 18, I think you can go, like, we people at 18 in school who look 30. But he, he just looked a bit older and he was wearing trousers, filled trousers. So when they get to the lifeboat, the officer says, no, they're not, he, he is not going in, he's a man. And she won't leave without him. She stands back. They're still on the deck during the final plunge.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  They jump together and only she survives. Both of the boys die. So actually that is one of the, I think, clear examples when that rule, as it was applied, cost in this case, three completely unnecessary deaths.

• 14:43Kate Lister?

  Because that, that's something that, that's the obvious consequence, isn't it? It's if you're saying that no 13 year old boys can go in this.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:50Kate Lister?

  Like, that's, families aren't going to be split up.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:53Kate Lister?

  I mean, I'd go, but like others definitely wouldn't.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  We wouldn't even look back.

• 14:57Kate Lister?

  Right? No, not even a chance. I'd be like, so nice to know you. Bye.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  We love you.

• 15:02Kate Lister?

  Be a good boy.

• 15:04Kate Lister?

  I'm a nice person, I promise. But like, you can totally understand how that, if they're like, right, you're not coming in, then, well, families aren't going to be split up.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  That first class family I told you about where the father had to kick up a fuss, that really was, that was going to happen because the reason they were traveling back was that their eldest son was at Yale and was killed in a car crash. So they were, they were coming back like for his funeral. So essentially the dad said, like, my wife will not get in that boat without him. Like, it will not be happening. So eventually he kicks up enough of a stink and the fact that they are, they're going home to bury a son. But the dad stands back. So when she gets to New York, this woman is burying her son, her eldest son, and having a memorial for his father lost at sea. So, I mean, it, it does. There are some really awful, awful things that happen because of that rule and some very noble things as well.

• 15:55Kate Lister?

  Both of those things are happening at the same time, aren't they?

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:58Kate Lister?

  Maybe one of the reasons why it endures so much is because it just seems like such a bizarre set of events and circumstances that all had to come together in exactly that way. And there are so many moments where like, if that hadn't happened, like, if, if the, if the hitting of the iceberg had been a few degrees off, or if it had been faster or shorter, or if the binoculars had been there, or if you know, that Smith had made different decisions, or if they had more lifeboats, or if they'd had a training drill or some, like, all of these things.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Line up.

• 16:27Kate Lister?

  Line up. And if any one of them had been different, it probably would have been okay.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, you're talking seconds, seconds had they spotted it a bit earlier. And I, I'll be honest, I am the ultimate like anti-conspiracy theorist for the Titanic. So shoddy steel, fire in the boiler, sunk on purpose, varying degrees of diminishing, I will get to.

• 16:52Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay, we'll get, we'll get to that one.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  But, but I, I don't believe in any of it, partly because the evidence, well, solely because the evidence is not there. But I'm really psychologically fascinated by it. I think we reach for conspiracy theories for things like the Titanic to tell us, oh, they did something wrong.

• 17:08Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  With the construction.

• 17:10Kate Lister?

  There must have been a reason.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're like, no, actually it was an, it's still standing upright on the floor of the Atlantic. And it's one of the most inhospitable places in the world.

• 17:19Kate Lister?

  Oh, it's very sturdy. I mean, apart from the fact that it.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  You know, listen, it had, it had one mistake.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  But it's still, you know, it's, I, we try to hold the idea, if you do everything right, nothing bad will happen to you. And you're like, this, this was just a ship that was following protocol. It was going too fast. It wasn't going at full speed. The sole mistake is, the sole big mistake is the speed. And it's just a normal standard human error. And there's nothing in that ship that should have made that outcome likely. And maybe sometimes we're just screwed.

• 17:53Kate Lister?

  And it's just unlucky.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:55Kate Lister?

  And that, it's, it's like the definition of unlucky. It's unlucky on so many points.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Well, it's like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. It's just everything lining up. And you're like, if one thing.

• 18:06Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:06Kate Lister?

  And, and of course, the consequences of it, like, how many people died on board the Titanic?

• 18:10Speaker 03

  1,496.

• 18:12Kate Lister?

  Oh, that's a huge number, isn't it?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Particularly, and it takes a long time before it's eclipsed. It's even the Lusitania sinks with less and it's 20 minutes on a torpedo. You know what?

• 18:20Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  It is enormous. And there, there's a lot of things that they do in the aftermath of the Titanic. So they insist in double rows of lifeboats. And there are some marine experts saying, I don't think you should be doing this because.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  If they are on top of each other, the double Davids mean there's a chance one could fall, which does happen on the Lusitania, there's lifeboats collapsing on top of the other ones lowering. It has to, the Titanic almost sinks perfectly. So we're looking for solutions afterwards.

• 18:49Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  That actually most ships sink in a much more chaotic way than it did. So yeah, there's, it's just, it's, it's the after effects of a nuclear bomb with the Titanic, I think.

• 18:57Kate Lister?

  And the, the lifeboats as well. I, I read that, um, I, I saw on YouTube again. But I saw a, a guy saying that actually the lifeboats themselves, we have this idea that, you know, that there wasn't enough, that there was only enough 50% and they were half filled anyway. So like, everyone was just fucked. But he was actually making the case that lifeboats were never supposed to operate like that. It was never the idea that the sick, that the ship is sinking, we'll lower the maul down, we'll get everybody in and we'll row to safety. The lifeboats are always supposed to be used to ferry people to a rescuing ship. Is that right?

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's correct. And, and there's an even sadder thing with the Titanic, which is that everyone knows that there should have been more, but actually they didn't have time to launch even the ones they had.

• 19:41Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it's timing, isn't it?

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were, they were, they, one went, one, the, so they had 16 wooden ones, which are the white ones you see. And then they had four collapsible ones that were on the roof, sort of the bottom of one of the funnels. And they get one of those working, but another one, you know, goes, flips over, another one is washed overboard in the final plunge. So they don't have time even to launch the 20 that they have.

• 20:03Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  So really, the, the two biggest things that would have helped was if Captain Smith had told, let's call them the hospitality staff and said, you need to get them up on deck immediately. If there had been a quicker turnaround time, it's, you know, it's, it's nearly an hour between the collision and the, and the regular launching of the lifeboats happening. Had they done it sooner and had they filled them, those are the two things that would have made a substantial difference, but it still wouldn't have saved everyone.

• 20:31Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  And so there's no, but I, once the iceberg strikes, there will be fatalities. It's just a question of how many.

• 20:38Kate Lister?

  There is, isn't it? And there were so many myths about the Titanic, the lifeboats being one, um, that it was going too fast. Is that one true?

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 20:48Kate Lister?

  That is, that is true.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  So one of the things that blew my mind, and I always try to say we're not more intelligent than people in the past, but in this particular one.

• 20:55Kate Lister?

  I think that actually that that might be another reason why we like this story so much is because we love to interject and say what I would have done differently here.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Well, there is one where I was like, really? I know, I know very little about captaining a ship, but even I can see like a kind of, so it was protocol at the time that you only slowed the big ships down for fog.

• 21:15Kate Lister?

  What?

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:17Kate Lister?

  What?

• 21:17Speaker 03

  That's why he technically, yeah, it was like, cause fog, you wanna make sure that like, you, you have to go really slowly and use the foghorn and make sure you can sense opposite, like other ships coming close to you.

• 21:27Kate Lister?

  Okay, well, yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  The prevailing wisdom with ice was try to get through it as fast as you can. And then this Rear Admiral in, now this was in the commercial fleets, and then there's a, a very snarky letter from a Rear Admiral in the American Navy afterwards saying, this is insanity. Why are you?

• 21:45Kate Lister?

  Speed up to get through ice?

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:48Kate Lister?

  I'm not, I don't have any naval training and I think that's dumb. And I don't see the logic of that one.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  And, and what's really interesting as well, so, which I did not know till I started doing research, um, was that White Star Line, so, sorry, back to your question on, yes, it's going too fast, but it's not trying to break the speed record for crossing the Atlantic. So there's a prize called the Blue Ribbon.

• 22:09Kate Lister?

  Like you see in the film where Ismay's like, let's go much faster.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Ismay actually handed, made a point, letters were handed to every captain at the start of a voyage to reiterate, you do not pursue speed prizes. So White Star Line have built ships with the Olympic and the Titanic that are 45, 46,000 tonnes. They do not compete for the Blue Ribbon, which is the prize for the fastest commercial crossing of the Atlantic. The Mauritania holds it, the Mauritania is about 13,000 tonnes lighter and it's significantly faster. And you have quite interesting letters from second class passengers on the Titanic and Olympic who've done the Lusitania and Mauritania saying, this is much more comfortable. It's less rattly.

• 22:46Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  So White Star offer that sort of size, stability rather than speed. That's, so they market themselves.

• 22:54Kate Lister?

  Mark of a good lover.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Absolute.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  So White Star are trying to get everything.

• 23:04Kate Lister?

  Anyone who goes down quickly.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. White Star say, listen, we will get you over the finish line. It'll take a much more pleasurable experience.

• 23:12Kate Lister?

  Sign me up.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  White, right, and White Star. So yeah, they, they do say that we'll get you there a day slower. And so, so they're not trying to break the record. Ismay is not at all interested in them going faster, but Smith is testing the engines, just trying to, they're introducing them bit by bit to see what her normal service speed will be. And actually, when he lights two more boilers in the penultimate day, that he should not have done. Um, so yes, it is going too fast. It's not trying to break the record.

• 23:41Kate Lister?

  Now, I don't wanna speak ill of the dead, but I'm a historian and that's my job. So, but Captain Smith, like, and oh, like what a way to go out. And he went down with the ship and he seems to have had an impeccable record and everything, but it just seems like, like, I wasn't there. So maybe this is just like what I picked up.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Well, of course, we weren't there. We left in the first lifeboat.

• 23:58Kate Lister?

  We would have been like.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  We, we really can't speak of thinking, we were there for a very short time.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  We can't speak of how cold it was in the lifeboats.

• 24:09Kate Lister?

  Oh, it was awful. It didn't, they weren't seating to class or anything. Right, yeah, exactly.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  We didn't even bring our right fur, so you know.

• 24:15Kate Lister?

  That'd be a hell of a time. But it seems like Captain Smith, it's almost like the iceberg hit and then he just like wandered around in a daze.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  So when I wrote Ship of Dreams, I, if there's anything I could go back in any book I've done and change, I think I was too soft on Smith.

• 24:31Kate Lister?

  Oh, really?

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think it was being restrained by the sorrow of his death.

• 24:36Kate Lister?

  And it's like, it, you feel bitchy because like, it's like, you know, I know that we're joking, but the reality that to, to realise, like you're on a ship and it's sinking and this, like, the psychological impact that is colossal.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  There is. I think he is in shock and I think.

• 24:51Kate Lister?

  But get out of shock. You're the captain.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Yes, this is my issue. So he, a lot of the reason why third class have the fatality rates they have is that he doesn't tell any of the stewards or stewardesses, this is a full scale evacuation.

• 25:05Kate Lister?

  See, and they need to know because that's definitely going to happen. They're gonna find out.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Their job is to keep people safe and warm. Like, they're not wanting to bring parents and children up to the deck unless they absolutely have to, because it's the middle of the Atlantic and it's midnight.

• 25:16Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  There's no doubt in my mind that, you know, Ismay was a tricky personality, but he carries the can because the, the captain and the designer are dead. Um, and.

• 25:26Kate Lister?

  I've got a lot of sympathy for him actually.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do.

• 25:29Kate Lister?

  But we'll, but we'll get to him.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, but, but with Smith, I think the thing that turned me, and I should have been harder in the book on him, was the, the day is happens, but you were supposed to be prepared for this. And there was an interview he gave in 1903 that I found sort of slightly towards the end of the research, where he said, modern technology has taken us beyond shipwrecks.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  And that, yeah. So that to me is just hubris. That's quite difficult to forgive, to be honest.

• 25:56Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, you are the captain though. Like, that's, that, you are the captain because you're supposed to be like sorting stuff out when, when things get bad. I could be the captain of a ship and everything's fine. Point it in the right direction, crack on. Not a problem. But like, you need somebody to take charge of the situation.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Which he doesn't, which he doesn't.

• 26:15Kate Lister?

  Which nobody does, really.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  You have, um, you have Thomas Andrews, the designer, going through all the corridors, check, making sure no one has slept through it and making sure all the, and then he, then he has this moment where he sort of freezes in the smoking room, but then he goes out and starts walking down the promenade deck, lifting up the steamer chairs and flinging them overboard because he realizes there would, if people can, need something, maybe someone will be able to.

• 26:39Kate Lister?

  Cling on to. Wow. All right. So we're, we're getting through quite a few myths.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:44Kate Lister?

  Here. Another one, I think, and this is, so it's interesting when something like this happens in history is because it gets retold and retold and retold. And every generation that comes to it has a different take to reflect their own interests. And a big one that's emerged, I think, is class. Especially, we're gonna talk a bit about romanticising and, and sex on board the Titanic in a minute, but like, class and this idea of like, it's this perfect representation of how the upper classes had contempt for the working classes and how, uh, that story about how the working class were all locked down and in the basement and how, um, the electricians were heroically doing their thing. And what's your take on that?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  So the electricians, yes.

• 27:22Kate Lister?

  See, that, that was brave.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:24Kate Lister?

  Again, very close. Brave, stupid, brave, stupid.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the big thing that they do, the, the big thing of the electricians' sacrifice is that they keep the lights on until two and a half minutes before the ship sinks.

• 27:34Kate Lister?

  That is amazing.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Which in terms of helping with an evacuation is, is massive.

• 27:38Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Um, with the third class, so as I said earlier, the, the statistic that shocks everyone is the worst hit demographic is second class men. Um, so class is not the determining factor. Even the biggest surviving male group is, is first class and they have a 30% survival rate. So it's, it is gender will be the thing. Why third class has such a low survival rate is of the three classes, first class has nine out of 10, passengers have English as their first or only language.

• 28:13Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Second class have eight out of 10 and it's two out of five in third class. The crew are only British. The signposts are only in English. And because of laws that were introduced by, uh, US immigration after a cholera epidemic, um, a few years earlier. First and second class can be near each other. So their, their decks actually kind of run into each other for promenading. Um, it's very easy. They're separated by a very low fence. Third class have a separate area. Some immigrants who are very keen to bypass Ellis Island will book second class tickets if they can afford it because it means they can go through.

• 28:51Kate Lister?

  Right, yeah, yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  So the structure of the ship, because of American law, is to keep second, sorry, third away from second and first. So, and the lifeboats are on the promenade space for first and second. So the, the whole layout of the ship, getting them there is difficult. The stewards haven't been told it's an emergency. And the other thing is that we have this myth of the gates.

• 29:13Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  So the myths come from quite a forward-thinking and commendable attitude from White Star Line, which is that they split where they house third-class passengers. So all the public spaces and any accommodation for families or single women are at the stern. All single men are at the end of a very long corridor in the bay and they close gates between those sections at night. So they market to female immigrants or travellers, you will be safe from harassment, or they would call it bothering.

• 29:43Kate Lister?

  Oh, right.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  So, because bear in mind also, the, the trajectory of immigration at this time, a lot of it is the men will go out first. And then wives, sisters, mothers, daughters will follow. So White Star Line really leans into women, you will be safe and we'll close the gates.

• 29:59Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  And so during the evacuation, a Norwegian farmer called Olaf Abelsath is going to get his sister Karen and he encounters a locked gate. And the steward opens it for him. Abelsath survives and carves a very lucrative career for himself on the public speaking circuit in America. And every time he tells the story, it gets a little bit juicier.

• 30:26Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  And by the end of 1912, the single locked gate between the male and female cabins has become, we were locked below and deliberately denied a chance to get up. And that is not what happened at all. Yeah. It's, it's, but, but it's important to say when you, you're just telling, you're not making the loss any less tragic. It's just, it was again.

• 30:45Kate Lister?

  Didn't happen like that.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:49Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Gareth and the Titanic after this short break.

• 31:00Kate Lister?

  In case you weren't aware, World Mental Health Day takes place in October. And I don't know about you, but I'm taking this as a reminder to practise some proper self-care. Saying no to plans I don't want to go to, guilt-free snacking and Halloween movie marathons. It's also the perfect time to check in with yourself and your mental health. For many, it can mean taking that step and speaking to a professional who can help and guide you through any difficulties you're having. But often when you try to do that, it's still way harder than it should be. A lot of online therapy platforms don't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month focused on mental health, you're stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for an expensive monthly subscription.

• 31:44Kate Lister?

  This is where Rula comes in. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average co-pay just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. Because the whole point of World Mental Health Day is making sure people actually get help, not just think about it. And Rula sticks with you throughout your journey, checking in to make sure your care is actually helping you move forward. With World Mental Health Day this October, it's a good reminder that taking care of your mental health can start with one step. Visit rula.com/shets to get started. That's R U L A dot com slash S H E E T S.

• 32:26Kate Lister?

  You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 32:33Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there and the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 33:02Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 33:14Kate Lister?

  I mean, you'd have to be an absolute bastard of epic proportions to make that.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  The stewards are working class as well. Like, why are they going to be, you know, locking down their own people? Like, it doesn't make any sense.

• 33:23Kate Lister?

  No, it doesn't. It does. I mean, you have to remember, all this is happening. I mean, I know it took a long time to go down by boat sinking standards, but it is all happening very fast. It's unprepared. Because is it right that they didn't do a lifeboat drill? Smith cancelled it.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was, well, they weren't mandatory and it was windy.

• 33:41Kate Lister?

  I just like, that's another example, isn't it? Of just if that one thing had happened, maybe a few more lives could have been saved.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Well, because the thing with the, because first class, you know, the, their women have a very high, I think actually they are, no, sorry, the, again, the, the winner is second class, the highest survival rate is second-class children, there is 0% fatality.

• 34:00Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  And then there's one child that dies in first class, but they, with first-class women, it's very, very high. But one of the reasons why there's problems of evacuating some of the first class is they don't know what's happening. Like, they're woken up. A lot of steam was coming up through the funnel, so it's really light, it's freezing outside. The purser isn't told what's, that it's, so he thinks, I can't have them, like, congregating. So he goes and turns, reopens the first-class lounge. So then they all start congregating in there. Like, one of them said it was like a weird picnic. Like, all these people were dressed and waiting, but they thought, well, if the lights are on and someone's put the electric fire back on, the bands here, the steward starts. Start serving cocoa. They didn't, there was no sense of urgency because they didn't know where to go.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  And a recurring testimony for first-class passengers is, they have the grand staircase that they can come out to. There's basically eight points they can exit onto the deck and they, so they're just going from point to point.

• 34:54Kate Lister?

  They're just milling about.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:55Kate Lister?

  And they don't know what's happening. And I did hear, it was a testimony by one of the women that survived it. And I thought, oh my God, I hadn't even thought about that before. Like, a lot of people didn't want to get into the fucking lifeboat.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Who would?

• 35:06Kate Lister?

  And I hadn't even thought of this because you're thinking about it, like, look, the ship is sinking, get in the bloody lifeboat. But if you don't know for certain that it's sinking and it's pitch black, I know that there's electricity on, but it's pitch black and it's freezing. And there is a boat dangling off the side of a ship by two ropes. And how, how far is the drop?

• 35:25Speaker 03

  It's about 70, 80 feet.

• 35:26Kate Lister?

  Like, terminal drop. That's, and you're going to sit in this and swing out over the side of a boat, pitch black. And then you're going to be lowered in jerky motions to the, that does not sound tempting.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's, so very early, one of the first boats, Colonel Astor, the richest man on board, refuses to get in because he doesn't want to put his pregnant wife in that boat. He was like, I don't know.

• 35:50Kate Lister?

  I don't know, yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, which is completely logical.

• 35:54Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think there's a great, on YouTube, there's a great, the Titanic Honour and Glory people, they do a brilliant every year, like, second by second recreation of the sinking.

• 36:06Kate Lister?

  We didn't know that. I haven't even seen that. Okay.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Go and look at them because they were so useful when I was working on the book because there, the amount of research those gentlemen put into it is extraordinary. And, but it's very useful to see the time lapse. So whilst it took a long time to sink, it didn't sink evenly. Of the two hours and 40 minutes, it takes about two hours and 30 before the water hits the base of the first funnel. And then the final bit is 10, 15 minutes.

• 36:30Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  So for a significant amount of time, the dip is not that obvious. That how much water is coming over the forecastle deck, et cetera. It's just not a big, it's not enough to really think.

• 36:42Kate Lister?

  Frighten people.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Let's get, yeah. So that's a big, big problem. And also, what's your lifeboat? Like, you've first-class men saying, oh, are we? Because one of them is haunted by this fear that he asked, are these boats only for first class? What he was actually asking was, is this where we're supposed to go?

• 36:59Kate Lister?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Is, are these the first, is this the first class? And then, because someone can tell us, oh, the second-class boat's here. No one knew.

• 37:06Kate Lister?

  What was going on?

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, where you were supposed to get into, yeah.

• 37:08Kate Lister?

  And maybe they would have done if they'd done that lifeboat drill. Let's talk about Ismay. Because we, we just finished a little mini-series on Betwix called How to Get Cancelled in. And we were looking at people who got roundly and spectacularly culturally cancelled. And we were tempted to do Bruce Ismay.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  I mean, he's like patient zero for a lot of it.

• 37:28Kate Lister?

  He really is, isn't he? He was like, he has carried the can for this, for the crime of surviving.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:34Kate Lister?

  Basically.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was that, I mean, he's a, he's a deeply weird little man.

• 37:39Kate Lister?

  He does sound weird. I've done a bit of looking into him. He does, I think now, you know, we might be sending him for an assessment somewhere.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, yeah, I think so. He, he can be quite obtuse.

• 37:49Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  His father seems to have been pretty monstrous to him, so.

• 37:52Kate Lister?

  Very socially awkward.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Really socially awkward and at times, like, could not read a room and sort of develops this quite intense infatuation with Marion Thayer, who's the wife of a railway magnate that's travelling back on board. And, and, and she's very close friends with the woman I mentioned earlier, who's going home to bury her son. And they're walking around the deck together, so because it's one of the few, like, the woman can't leave her cabin, she's grief-stricken. But Ismay sort of stops and just starts talking at them about, like, shipping matters. And Marion's like, there's almost nothing in the world Eleanor cares about less.

• 38:28Kate Lister?

  He's an odd duck.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  He is odd and he sort of falls madly in love with Marion after the sinking and sends he's quite pseudo masochistic, like, when did you realise how worthless I am? You're so right to be angry at me. His father bullied him quite severely and humiliated him. But he comes back.

• 38:45Kate Lister?

  Oh my god, you know, like, leading to Tummin, he has a humiliation kink after what happened.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  It, I can't say what, if, if it was kink or sentiment, but there is definitely, the letters are quite uncomfortable to read.

• 38:58Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  It's like, when did you realise I'm worthless? You're so right to realise that I'm worth nothing. This is another failure of mine and here are my failures.

• 39:06Kate Lister?

  Imagine getting that letter, fucking hell.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  And Marion's like, I, like, I've got four children, a dead husband and limited patience, so.

• 39:12Kate Lister?

  Do you not have time for this nonsense?

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so she, what she does is she uses etiquette to, to end it, because so she replies, but to him and his wife, she sends Christmas cards to be like, they'll be, yeah.

• 39:22Kate Lister?

  Fuck off, yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  So, but his wife, they, they had, the, the reason she hasn't done the Titanic is the marriage is not going well.

• 39:30Kate Lister?

  You do, you surprise me.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Yes, well, he, well, he seems so easy to live with.

• 39:33Kate Lister?

  He seems a delight.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  So, but she does step up to the plate afterwards and so she starts, she bans the Daily Mail, she bans John Bill, John Bill magazine, anything that might, some of these are calling for him to be publicly hanged.

• 39:48Kate Lister?

  It's vicious, like, they call, like, the, the coward of the Titanic.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, his name's Jay Bruce Ismay, the, um, Hearst Press in America, changes it to Brute Ismay.

• 39:57Kate Lister?

  And that this is because he got onto a lifeboat.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Yes, so he is one of the cases where, to give him credit, a lot of the stewardesses publicly testify and say, I owe my life to him.

• 40:08Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  We were standing back because we thought we still had to help other passengers and he said, get in, get in a lifeboat, because he knew, and actually he does far more than Smith does to get people into boats. And he's on the side, or the same side where Officer Murdoch is loading them with women and children, but then men if there are no women left. And there's no one else on the deck. And there are two versions of the story. One is Murdoch says to him, get in. And the other is he looks around and sees no one's there, no one is there and gets in. There's actually probably more evidence that Murdoch said something and then Ismay just didn't reveal it later because he kind of internalises that he should be dead.

• 40:46Kate Lister?

  He should, oh.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:47Kate Lister?

  You can, there was that brilliant Titanic podcast series, was it last year or the year before, Titanic Ship of Dreams, I think it was called. And they've got Bruce Ismay's, like, his great nephew or something on it, talking, he's doing his best he can to kind of rehabilitate his image, quite right as well. And he tells that story about how, and he sort of makes the point, and I hadn't even thought about it before, exactly like you did, like, he stood there waiting to get on board the, the ship and there's no women there and there are spaces in the boat. Who wouldn't go?

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and exactly. And I, and he, you know, he, he is a very, very badly broken man. It's quite.

• 41:26Kate Lister?

  He had a breakdown after this.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, full, at least two. And then develops diabetes later in life, loses his leg, two diabetes. And he's in a wheelchair for, for his later years. He has to step back. I mean, his life is annihilated completely and he becomes the whipping boy of the story.

• 41:46Kate Lister?

  I think this is all projection. I think this is us, again, after the fact, trying to say how we would have acted.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:52Kate Lister?

  And so therefore we're appalled with him because in our little perfect heads, we would definitely have not have done that. Yes, we would, you bunch of liars.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:59Kate Lister?

  So it all gets projected onto him.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Ismay's, yes, Ismay's too, too much like how we fear we would behave. And he does, he, he, he makes a mistake when he gets in the Carpathia, where he wants a room to be in his own. And he doesn't seem to think, actually, what, you've taken a room.

• 42:21Kate Lister?

  This is a bad look.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he, no, he doesn't, um, one of his friends sends her son to see him and the son says, like, he probably shouldn't be left alone, actually. He's like in a quite severe state. But he just, he, the, the tactlessness that socially had been a bit awkward as, as a reputation thing becomes pulverising, because he can't rear a room.

• 42:44Kate Lister?

  No, no. And so, yeah, he was definitely one of the people that was cancelled.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  And, but you know, the first, so he dies in, I think, nineteen thirty five, thirty six. But the movie that cements his position as a villain was produced by Joseph Goebbels. So in the.

• 43:03Kate Lister?

  As in?

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Yes, as in Siegheil.

• 43:05Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So in the.

• 43:07Kate Lister?

  What?

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Yes, one of my favourite facts to surprise people with. So during the nineteen forties, Goebbels decides to create a series of really lavish costume dramas for the German cinema goers, in which Britain is the enemy.

• 43:19Kate Lister?

  What a fabulous use of his time.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Yes. So he was like, well, we'll, we'll make people see Britain as inherently corrupt and awful. So he.

• 43:26Kate Lister?

  Oh, I see what he's doing. Right, okay.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  So there's a movie about Mary, Queen of Scots, in which I need not tell you how Elizabeth emerges. There's one about the struggle for independence for Ireland. But then America joins the war, so he needs something that, that takes down both of them. So they create this mega movie Titanic, in which the hero is the German officer who didn't exist. But Ismay is shown as this, like, morally bankrupt villain who pays the captain to break the speed record. And so it's British arrogance, American greed. And that's what the movie, but they've set a fortune on it. Hitler watches it and by this point, the tide of the war has turned. And they, they can't release it because the scenes, the evacuation

• 44:10Speaker 03

  sound reminds people too much of the bombing of German cities and the panic. So it's no longer a feel-good movie about a German hero and, you know, British wickedness. It might actually do the opposite of what's intended. So they shelve it and the mo, the, the real ocean liner that they filmed on is later sunk during the war and eclipses the Titanic's death toll.

• 44:32Kate Lister?

  Oh, now that's, there's a horrible irony to that.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. And it.

• 44:36Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Very grim.

• 44:38Kate Lister?

  Oh, let's talk about sex and scandal on board the Titanic. Let's pick it up a bit, we'll pick it up a bit from, from that. I don't know how we can, because.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  I know, I'm sorry, I didn't realise we were going to pivot into the.

• 44:50Kate Lister?

  Well, it's, it's always going to sink, isn't it? Like, that's the thing, is, that's an amazing fact.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it is, it's a good one, isn't it?

• 44:56Kate Lister?

  It is very good.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:57Kate Lister?

  So like, Jack and Rose, the film, the iconic film, there's, I think there's a lot of romanticising about the Titanic. And I don't just mean like in a mythological way, I mean, it's actual, like, romance. It's become oddly sexy. And I just want to know, is there any, I mean, presumably people did have sex on board the Titanic. They must have done, right? But we just don't know who they were. I'm sort of edging towards asking, like, was Jack and Rose any evidence of anyone coming close to this kind of real story?

• 45:23Speaker 03

  No, I should also say, just full disclosure, there, there's almost no character in fiction who I hate more than Rose DeWitt Cater.

• 45:30Kate Lister?

  I hate Rose DeWitt Cater.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  I hate her.

• 45:32Kate Lister?

  I'm so glad that you've said that. Like, I, I would, I want to, no, I can't even say what I want to do. I hate her. Why do you hate her? I hate because of the diamond.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  That's in there. That's part of it.

• 45:42Kate Lister?

  I can't, like, you fucking bitch. You had that diamond and it's like worth more than the Hope Diamond, the most valuable diamond in the world.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Why don't you let people see it, rather than gift it as a present to the dead fishy ghost of your one night stand from eighty five years ago?

• 45:55Kate Lister?

  It's obscene of like, what, some, some homeless guy on a boat fingered you eighty years ago. And now you're just throwing historical artefacts into the icy deep. She could have given it to her granddaughter.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Anyone, or the husband, the husband who worked, God knows how many hours, through the Great Depression, but sure, when you go to heaven, you want to be, like, hook up with Jack at the top of the Grand Stag.

• 46:13Kate Lister?

  A one night stand in a car?

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Not even her car.

• 46:18Kate Lister?

  I hate her so much.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  So my, my beef with Rose is that, is that she is just the archetype of like, clueless, self entitled privilege who thinks she's radical. So today she'd be like, you know, I don't know, TikToking from her beach house in Montares, Hampton, being like, fuck capitalism. And you're like, is that, is that, is that a monogrammed throw? Then she is, imagine the level of clueless to go down to immigrants who are factory workers and be like, oh, you think you're so tough? My debutante teaching Tommy to stand on my toes. Not the same thing, Rose. Factories of the Industrial Revolution. Then, continuing

• 47:01Speaker 03

  in that the only people from the working class she likes are those that, who she's hooking up with in the back of cars. When the ship is sinking, rather than take the stairs, she pushes a worker into a lift and is like, take me down, damn it. You're like,

• 47:15Kate Lister?

  oh, yes, she does. I forgot that, babe.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  Take the stairs or press the button yourself.

• 47:20Kate Lister?

  Bitch.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Oh, she's, and then to the diamonds off it all. Yeah.

• 47:23Kate Lister?

  It's, it's the, I, I can never get past that. I just.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  You had it, put it in a museum.

• 47:27Kate Lister?

  She could have built the Jack Dawson Art Memorial Institute.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and his weird hand jobby sketches that he was so fond of from her. I just, I have no time.

• 47:37Kate Lister?

  No, I hate her. She is the villain and I hate her completely.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  Yes, so.

• 47:40Kate Lister?

  I'm glad she died.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 47:42Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  A little too late, if you ask me.

• 47:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  But I digress. So mercifully, there is no one like Rose DeWitt Cater on the Titanic.

• 47:50Kate Lister?

  Thank god.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  There is a prevailing sort of pseudo internet myth that Jack Dawson is based on a guy called Jack Thayer.

• 47:58Kate Lister?

  I have heard this.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Which is, it's, they just have the same name. Jack Thayer was the seventeen year.

• 48:03Kate Lister?

  That's as close as.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  That's it. He's the seventeen year old son of an east coast, old money railway magnet family going back to apply to Princeton.

• 48:12Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that's not the same.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  It's not. No, he does, he does jump from the Titanic, actually. He, he is a pretty heroic escape and he ends up being on the overturned lifeboat. So someone helps him onto a bit of floating wood. It's not really the same. There's a really, I, Jack Thayer was one of the main people I looked at. So no, it's definitely not Jack Dawson. But there is a really, this is another chin wobbler for it. So he befriends during the, the voyage,

• 48:41Speaker 03

  a judge's son from Massachusetts called Milton Long, and they're both sort of bored young men that are pal around a bit. But they decide to flee together. And when they're on the deck, Milton says, I can't swim. And Jack's like an excellent swimmer for, he's like his, the boarding school champion.

• 48:54Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  And so they decide, they sort of shake hands and Milton gives Jack messages for his family, Jack gives messages to his.

• 49:02Kate Lister?

  Oh, dear.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  And they, and Milton's nervous and says, you are coming, old boy, aren't you? And jumps and the funnel collapses and kills him. So, yeah, yeah. So no, there's no link between Thayer and Dawson.

• 49:14Kate Lister?

  There isn't, is there?

• 49:17Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Gareth and the Titanic after this short break.

• 49:30Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there, and the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.

• 50:12Kate Lister?

  There was some scandal though. I mean, the Guggenheims were there and someone had a young mistress and people were a bit like, mm-hmm.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  So yeah, Guggenheim is all, is actually kind of from Jack Fair's neck of the woods. He's sort of Philadelphia, East Coast money. And he's been in a, not in an arranged marriage, but sort of a socially appropriate marriage. And he's fallen in love with a singer from Paris called Léontine Noire. And they're travelling back together and it's pretty serious. They've travelled, there's records that they were on the Mauritania together the year before. His marriage is sort of dead and all but named. And they go through this rigmarole of, she has a different cabin with her maid. But she is, she is asleep in his bed when they have the iceberg.

• 50:54Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  There's also, almost identically, there is a, it's sort of like, it almost looks like the fanfiction ripoff of this version, of this story. Because it's a singer, but she's from Brussels. So there is another couple doing almost exactly the same thing on board. So this woman's name is Bertha Mayne and she's like the, the hot chanteuse in Brussels. And she has started an affair with someone who's also in his twenties. It's very dishy Canadian ice hockey player called Quig Baxter, who wears an eye patch because he lost an eye to an ice hockey puck, which is sort of like a sacrifice to Canada's national sport.

• 51:33Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  And he's bringing ice hockey over to Europe, he's Quebecois. And he's travelling back with, or at least his mother is, he's travelling back with his very proper Quebecois Catholic mother and sister. But he brought his girlfriend Bertha with him and they don't know at all. So he's like, sort of, you know, having tea with mommy and his sister and then going to-

• 51:52Kate Lister?

  Oh, sneaky minks.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:54Kate Lister?

  Oh, I love that.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like that story. It's, and they're very much in love and Quig's like actually bringing her back with the intention of saying, "To hell with society, I want to marry her."

• 52:03Kate Lister?

  Has anybody attempted to do a queer history of the Titanic? Were there any gays on board?

• 52:08Speaker 03

  There were some. There were some seagoing, seagoing mows.

• 52:11Kate Lister?

  Surely not. They're letting them on ships now.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  Well, it's the thin edge of the wedge.

• 52:20Kate Lister?

  Let's get your people in order. Absolutely outrageous.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  So there's three that we can be fairly confident in.

• 52:25Kate Lister?

  Really, three?

• 52:26Speaker 03

  And if you ever want to look at the handiwork of one of them, head to Washington DC and see the Lincoln Memorial. Indeed. So there is-

• 52:33Kate Lister?

  You are clever people. You really are very talented.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Listen, we do enjoy designing. It turns out when for hundreds of years she had no civil rights, she'd loads of spare time to design nice things. There's a lesbian couple on board, which I didn't realise, I stupidly wrote like Ella White and her companion, Marie Young.

• 52:51Kate Lister?

  Oh, that's a kick yourself moment later on, isn't it? I've got loads of those.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Ella White was East Coast New Yorker money.

• 52:58Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  Briar Cliff Manor set. And she had been married and he had died quite early in the marriage. She never remarried. And she lived and shared a house with and raised chickens with a DC socialite called Marie Young, who was piano shooter to President Roosevelt's children. One of my lesbian friends was like, "Really? Nothing rang a bell for you there?"

• 53:23Kate Lister?

  They moved in together after two days and then they adopted a pet. So just friends.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  Well, someone should say that they're bringing back a rare breed of French hen that they want. The far, I was like, "Come on, Ella, work with me here." But Ella doesn't have a great time on the Titanic because she boards Cherbourg, the Titanic's too big to dock. So they have a tender called the pneumatic that brings them out quite windy. The gangplank is swaying and Ella falls over and sprains her ankle. So she has to be carried in by her chauffeur and one of the stewards.

• 53:50Kate Lister?

  That's not a good start, is it?

• 53:50Speaker 03

  No, and poor Marie trying to find a good place to store the hens. And it's really, actually, again, I didn't see this, but Ella leaves a bequest in her will that the modern equivalent of about $6,000 a month will go to Ella for the rest, or to Marie for the rest of her life.

• 54:06Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 54:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:08Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  Just friends, I think.

• 54:12Kate Lister?

  It's hard to say the context of the time. These things happen all the time.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  All the time. You can't project too much modern values back. Surely two women who live together and mention each other in their wills and only travel together and go on holiday together. Yeah, kept chickens. We're just friends. There is a solo, solo homo travelling chap called Algernon Barkworth.

• 54:32Kate Lister?

  That rings a bell.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, he is justice of the peace for the East Riding of Yorkshire. And he, apparently very gregarious, people like him a lot. He is a very conscientious JP. So his big thing is a very unsexy task, which is improving road standards throughout.

• 54:52Kate Lister?

  Someone's got to do it.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he, and he's on the Titanic talking to people about who've done the same in like American constituencies. He says it's just vital for farmers. He's really hands-on with it, with where he grew up. So it is openly accepted by his family and by everyone in the vicinity of Tranby Hall where he lived that Algernon was gay because it got quite tricky to hide it when him and the gardener Walter moved in together.

• 55:20Kate Lister?

  I love that when you find these little isolated stories, because it's so easy to be like, I'm not going to pretend that there wasn't horrendous homophobia. But a lot of the time you do find these sort of incidents of everyone going, "Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, they're-"

• 55:31Speaker 03

  The elite are definitely really, because sometimes, I mean, with, with other books I've written about sort of queer people in the past, sometimes you'll only tragically get the working class story when they end up in prison because of it. And then, but with the elite, sometimes you'll hopefully maybe have a better paper trail. And that, in a perfect world, gives you a window that this was happening. So the, the couple that are really interesting, and this is my detective work. And I went, this was a, this was an obsession because I was, it was a nice Poirot level.

• 55:58Kate Lister?

  Push the button.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  So there is a gentleman on board called Major Archibald Butt, who is an advisor to the American president. President Taft, and he is going back because he needs to be there for the Republican National Convention in Chicago in June. But he had been in Italy for months recuperating from what seems to have been a nervous breakdown because he'd been quite close to the previous Republican candidate, Theodore Roosevelt. And the fight between his two, essentially mentors, employers, however you want to put it, over the Republican nomination had, had kicked him kind of towards a nervous breakdown.

• 56:32Kate Lister?

  Sensitive soul.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he'd been working far too hard. And the man that he lives with, the artist Frank Millet, goes to President Taft and says, "Archie needs a break or there will be a breakdown. That's it." And Frank Millet has just been tasked with designing the new proposed American memorial in Washington DC to President Lincoln. And he was planning to go to Rome to see the elevator monument to Victor Emmanuel II for inspiration. And so Taft says, "Well, he can go, take him to Italy. You can go to Italy together." And they lightly dress it up as an official thing. So Butt has to take like an official greeting to Pope Pius, is it the 10th? Yeah, Pius the 10th.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  And he does write in his diary that the Vatican secretary of state was the singular most handsome man he'd ever seen in his life.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  So he would have enjoyed conclave.

• 57:27Kate Lister?

  Feeling a bit better now, are we?

• 57:29Speaker 03

  So they, they take a villa in Rome for, for a few months together as pals. And then they're coming back together on the Titanic. And the really interesting piece of evidence is a letter that Millet writes. The ship leaves England, goes to France and overnight crosses to the south of Ireland where there will be a mail drop as well. So he writes a letter on the first night for it to be delivered in Ireland and posted in Ireland, sorry. And he describes his cabin.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  And he talks, he says, I, I, I'm not on one of the best in the ship. And within first class, there are gradations of cabins. You'll get access to the same food and social spaces. But E deck and A deck are kind of the cheaper or solo cabins. B deck and C deck are the really expensive ones. B is the most expensive.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  And he mentions, you know, this is one of the best in the ship. People have taken that to mean E deck. And his ticket was for an E deck cabin. And he talks about, there's a long corridor to hang your clothes in. And a real stretch, you could describe the corridor entering his room as a little bit longer. But then he mentions, it's as good as a hotel. It's better than some hotels. I have a square window looking out and square windows are only on B deck. And that is where Archibald's ticket was.

• 58:51Kate Lister?

  Oh, well done.

• 58:53Speaker 03

  So that was my deep dive.

• 58:55Kate Lister?

  Oh, there's your Poirot moment. Oh, nice.

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he books the cheapest going in first class. E deck and E deck cabin. And then they stay in Archibald's very swishy one on B deck.

• 59:10Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  So, and they both sadly lose their lives.

• 59:13Kate Lister?

  I was gonna say, did any of these, the?

• 59:15Speaker 03

  The lesbians lived.

• 59:16Kate Lister?

  Of course the lesbians lived.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Our solo chap, he actually jumps and survives. So Algen and Barquith is completely spared the opprobrium of that follows a lot of first class men who survived. Because he jumped, he wasn't in a lifeboat.

• 59:31Kate Lister?

  I bet a lot of them said that, though.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, because, well.

• 59:34Kate Lister?

  I would, I would absolutely.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  I jumped, I jumped.

• 59:36Kate Lister?

  I jumped, totally jumped.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  It didn't help that the papers kept like running just photographs of those that jumped. So people knew, like, it was.

• 59:43Kate Lister?

  Does a thing.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:44Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  So Algen and Barquith is, lives a very long, happy life with Walter back in Yorkshire.

• 59:50Kate Lister?

  Good, I'm glad to hear that.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  And sadly, the, the Atlantic claims both Frank Millet and Archibald.

• 59:55Kate Lister?

  But. So there's a final question then.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:57Kate Lister?

  Gaze on the Titanic, who knew?

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:59Kate Lister?

  That's just brilliant. But as a final question, if you, because this is all in the realm of speculation. But let's just say you're the captain, you're Captain Smith.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:07Kate Lister?

  It's hit the iceberg, shit, right? So all the stuff that has happened, just lead up to that point has happened. And now you're dealing with, like, it's gonna go down. Is there any way that you could have saved those people? Like theoretically, in like, you know, like drawing on anything? Or was it just always, always fucked from that point on?

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fucked.

• 1:00:26Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Um, the damage is enormous. I mean, ships today couldn't sustain what it went through.

• 1:00:30Kate Lister?

  Could any ship have got to them?

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Ah, so there is the whole thing about the Californian, the ship nearby that turned its radio off.

• 1:00:37Kate Lister?

  Oh, that's not nice.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they, they, there's no law that you have to keep it on for 24 hours. And they stopped because of the ice. There is a whole, I mean, it's getting into kind of a very intense area of debate among Titanic scholars about was that the ship that they could see in the distance? Wasn't, you know, does Captain Lord, who was the captain of the Californian, bear culpability? You could make an argument that even if he had turned on the, the wireless and caught the, the signal, that the Californian mightn't have been big enough to take on everyone. But the, the counter argument is they could have taken on enough and then filled the lifeboats until the bigger ship got there.

• 1:01:16Kate Lister?

  That could have happened.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:01:17Kate Lister?

  That could realistically happen.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  It would certainly have saved hundreds more.

• 1:01:21Kate Lister?

  I once read, um, saw somebody say that, that perhaps they could have got the people out onto the iceberg?

• 1:01:28Speaker 03

  That's the dumbest thing, not.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  That.

• 1:01:35Kate Lister?

  I didn't say it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  You know when someone says something and you're like.

• 1:01:40Kate Lister?

  There was a guy in a documentary going, oh, we could have put it into reverse, got it along, docked it alongside the iceberg and got everyone out. And he went, they would have been cold, but they would have been alive.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Until it flipped under the weight.

• 1:01:52Kate Lister?

  And I thought, yeah, that's a, why didn't anyone think of that?

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  Why did?

• 1:01:55Kate Lister?

  He's so smart.

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  Why did no one think, why don't we reverse this sinking ship and move our 2200 feet?

• 1:02:03Kate Lister?

  Stupid by proxy.

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  No, no, you should ask, because people say this all the time. They're like, that's why I'm like, I feel so strongly about it. Like, why didn't they put them on the iceberg? I'm like, why didn't they put 2000 people onto a floating bit of ice?

• 1:02:15Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it's kind of obvious, isn't it? So that was never gonna happen.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  That was never going to happen.

• 1:02:20Kate Lister?

  That's a stupid idea, right? But at best, we could have saved more people.

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  The, the real, if I am Captain Smith.

• 1:02:27Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  You call the officers, you inform them what's happened. You then go into first, second and third class and you tell the stewards and stewardesses, this is a full evacuation. They are to be moved up. You bring.

• 1:02:43Kate Lister?

  Everybody.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  Everybody up.

• 1:02:45Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  Um, you, and if you're concerned about, um, space, then you tell the third class, we're getting them across the, the area between the two classes. You tell them you are to go to the cabins at the back. You are to lift out women with families and, and anyone who might not be able, you know, who isn't travelling solo. You bring them up, you put them in the second class area. We'll deal with Ellis Island, we'll deal with Ellis Island. You tell them this is what's gonna happen. You start the full scale evacuation of the ship as immediately. And you have it very, you make sure every public room inside is closed.

• 1:03:21Kate Lister?

  And that's the best that we could have done.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  That's the best.

• 1:03:24Kate Lister?

  I wish you'd been in charge. Oh, and we'd left Rose behind, bitch.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah, I also, like, listen, we really need to get Kit into a lifeboat ASAP. Because if not, she's gonna strap some of us and use us, use us as a life raft. So before anything else, she goes, she goes first.

• 1:03:38Kate Lister?

  In my head, I'm being quite heroic, but there's no way it would have happened. Thank you so much.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  My pleasure.

• 1:03:43Kate Lister?

  If people want to know more about you and your work, if they've got their own theories about how they could have saved the Titanic, where can they find you to let you know?

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Don't.

• 1:03:49Kate Lister?

  Don't, don't do that, don't do that.

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  They can find me, uh, most active on Instagram at underscore Gareth Russell, uh, on my website, GarethRussell.co.uk.

• 1:03:58Kate Lister?

  Well, thank you so much. You have been a treat.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 1:04:04Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Gareth for joining us. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along, wherever it is you get your podcasts. And if you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Jim Arstle and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt's Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sounds.