Titanic: 100 Years On

This is the first installation of tonight's trilogy of Titanic themed posts. At approximately this time* (11.40pm 14th April) one hundred years ago the "ship of dreams, " Titanic hit the iceberg that would eventually lead to its tragic demise.

I have a weird sort of obsession with Titanic at the moment. I don't know if obsession is the right word but I am drawn towards anything associated with it and it keeps making me feel incredibly sad whenever I think about it, which, at the moment, is a lot. On Wednesday I went to the BFI IMAX cinema in London to see James Cameron's 1997 Titanic film and I literally cried for pretty much the whole of the last hour of the film! It was a fabulous experience though as the screen is so big there and I would recommend going to watch it. Its on until the end of the month and maybe even the beginning of May so I would recommend booking tickets if there are any left. You might want to leave at the interval though if you are as sensitive to that film as I am. I don't think I ever want to watch it again because it's so sad.

I've also been watching the ITV series and last night I watched a 3D programme that showed the wreck in 3D for the first time. I also bought a book called Unsinkable by Dan James that I will probably read on holiday in the summer. The thing that really got me, however, was channel 5's docu-drama called Inside the Titanic. It was so sad because it was based on the real statements of survivors. The sad thing was that some survivors were so haunted by the tragedy of the early hours of April 15th 1912 that it affected the rest of their lives. One man completely disappeared from history after giving his statement and no one knows what happened to him. Another young American man who was in his twenties on the Titanic went on to go to college only to take his own life some years later after suffering a long bout of depression.

The Titanic is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century but even now, a hundred years on new discoveries are being made. The wreck was filmed with 3D cameras for the first time recently, new artefacts are being pulled up from the deepest depths of the North Atlantic where even most fish dare not go. The Titanic is so intriguing because it is such a marvellous story, terrible yes but marvellous. It sounds fictional but it really did happen. The Titanic legacy is not just about a ship it is about the romance, the tragedy, the cowards and the heroes. The way that the human race act when in extreme conditions. There are those who fought to save others and those who just wanted to save themselves. The fact that submarines can now go down there and recover passengers items insures that even for those who died that night are never forgotten. Even when the Titanic is just a speck of dust at the bottom of the ocean, they will be remembered.

If you've managed to get down to this part of the post without getting bored because its about something seemingly more serious than fashion then at whatever time you are reading this try to take a minutes silence to remember the approximately one and a half thousand people that died in the early hours of 15th April one hundred years ago. I am going to now. If you think its a waste of minute just remember that scene when Rose lets go of Jack's hand and he floats down into the sea.

*I'm going by GMT. Titanic was actually in the north Atlantic ocean. Also I accidently posted this earlier so it doesn't show the actual time that I posted it but I did post the finished copy at 11.40pm GMT.