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188. Voilet Jessop · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now? The
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Speaker 1: history podcast that is not Your history class with me,
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Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlwood, History Harlotte and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm really trying to be positive about everything anything,
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Speaker 1: but my god, the world is on fire and it
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Speaker 1: seems like some people are intent on just not only
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Speaker 1: lighting the match, but dousing the place and accelerant. You know,
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Speaker 1: it just seems to be happening more and more, and
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Speaker 1: my patience just seems to be aware and thinner and thinner,
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Speaker 1: Like it's gotten to the point that my bullshit tolerance
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Speaker 1: is so low it's doing shots with balsabub and hades.
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Speaker 1: I'm trying. I'm trying to talk about The Titanic, but
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Speaker 1: people keep bringing up the movie like it's fact and
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Speaker 1: it's it's it's not. It is a work of fiction
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Speaker 1: that is based around historical events, like historical events are
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Speaker 1: the backdrop, and there's so much misinformation actually that even
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Speaker 1: comes from the movie itself that it's perpetuated, like and
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Speaker 1: it doesn't even just come from that, like from A
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Speaker 1: Night to Your Member in nineteen fifty eight, like from that,
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Speaker 1: like there's a lot of borrowed parts you can even
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Speaker 1: see it in the James Camera movie.
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Speaker 2: But I'm not here to dissect, you know, movies about
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Speaker 2: maritime wreckages.
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Speaker 1: However, it's not a documentary. Okay, that's my point. That
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Speaker 1: being said, I have actually had some really really lovely
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Speaker 1: like emails this week. Like I've had a lot of nice,
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Speaker 1: nice comments and emails and a very very fun interaction
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Speaker 1: in my comments section that was just Monty Python quotes,
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Speaker 1: but in conversation, and obviously some really fun gifts. I'm
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Speaker 1: not saying, Jeff, guys, I'm not doing it now. I
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Speaker 1: do feel I do feel like I need to be
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Speaker 1: more positive, like actively, like I think I need more
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Speaker 1: positivity in my life and to help sort of breed that.
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Speaker 1: So that's that's my goal. My goal is to kind
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Speaker 1: of focus on that and to try and not fall
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Speaker 1: into a swirling whirlpool of despair. But anyway, I know
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Speaker 1: what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kerrie, quite your jibbl jabba
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Speaker 1: in fact me, In fact you I will. But first
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Speaker 1: we've got to get our source on. Our sources are
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Speaker 1: Titanic survivor the Memoirs of Violet Jessop by Violet Jessup,
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Speaker 1: lost voices from The Titanic by Nick Barrett. Titanic A
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Speaker 1: Knight Remembered by Stephanie Barschowski. The Knight the Ship went
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Speaker 1: Down by Andrea Broomfield. Women in the Great War by
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Speaker 1: Women in the Great War by Tania and Stephen Wynn.
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Speaker 1: The Investigation into the Loss of the Titanic nineteen twelve
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Speaker 1: by Lord Mersey, The Titanic Experience in Belfast and Encyclopedia Titanica. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that is a real thing. Of course, we have a
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Speaker 1: lot of newspaper reports from the Times, you know a
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Speaker 1: lot of them. It shockingly unreliable, and we also have
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Speaker 1: our old favorites he history dot com and biography dot com.
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Speaker 1: But I also it in'tcomfortably gold. Then let's begin. When
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Speaker 1: it came to talking about the Titanic for Titanic a Month,
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Speaker 1: because I decided to make it this month's theme. I
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Speaker 1: keep calling that a block. I'm like, it's a block,
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Speaker 1: And someone was like, honey, theme, the words you're looking
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Speaker 1: for is theme, and I'm like, oh, to you, it's
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Speaker 1: a theme, Okay, I get it. So one thing I
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Speaker 1: really wanted to talk about when it came to Titanic
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Speaker 1: was because it is very clear to see that quite
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Speaker 1: a lot of people. The information they have regarding the
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Speaker 1: Titanic literally comes from you know, the movie in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety seven, is it nineteen ninety eight, whenever it was
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Speaker 1: the Titanic movie by James Cameron, Jim Jim and Jim Jim,
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Speaker 1: Andy Jim Jim, you know, and YouTube conspiracyy videos. Okay,
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Speaker 1: it seems to be that that's a lot of that,
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Speaker 1: and so that is something that I want to like dispel,
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Speaker 1: and I want to talk about people because I think
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Speaker 1: that's far more important. Although I will be talking at
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Speaker 1: one point about technical stuff about the ship because I
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Speaker 1: need to dispel some myths, but like I don't like
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Speaker 1: having to talk about physics. It's not my jam or
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Speaker 1: my buttter. So without further ado, let us start on
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Speaker 1: a member of staff. Like we always talk about the
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Speaker 1: you know, passengers on the Titanic, but a lot of
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Speaker 1: the time it's like, oh, there was like twy two
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Speaker 1: hundred people on board, but it's always lumped in a
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Speaker 1: very weird way because there wasn't two two hundred pssengers
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Speaker 1: on it. There were passengers and then like nine hundred
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Speaker 1: crew members, Like it takes a lot of bodies to
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Speaker 1: get the ship running in the manner in which it
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Speaker 1: had to run. And so today we're talking about miss
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Speaker 1: Unsinkable Violet Jessop. Violet Constance Jessup was born on the
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Speaker 1: second of October eighteen eighty seven and the Pampas near
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Speaker 1: Baya Blanca in Argentina. She was the first child to
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Speaker 1: Irish immigrants Catherine Kelly and her husband William Jessop. Like
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Speaker 1: millions before and after, the Jessops had left Ireland in
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Speaker 1: search of a better life across the Atlantic. The Jessops
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Speaker 1: were originally from Dublin and emigrated during the mid eighteen eighties,
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Speaker 1: which really isn't all that surprising. Ireland suffered three famines
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Speaker 1: in less than fifty years, and Gottimore which was the
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Speaker 1: one that most people have heard of, which was between
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty five and eighteen fifty two. Now you might
6:37
Speaker 1: hear about Black forty seven, which is eighteen forty seven,
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Speaker 1: which was the very worst year of and Gotimore the
6:45
Speaker 1: Great Hunger. And so what happened here is this is
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Speaker 1: when you had that highest level of devastation, the highest
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Speaker 1: level of starvation, and the highest level of immigration, like
6:57
Speaker 1: really everything is going then another famine followed in eighteen
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Speaker 1: sixty one, which hit the west coast more than the east,
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Speaker 1: and then and got a bug in eighteen seventy nine.
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Speaker 1: So three famines, you know, relatively quick secession because you're
7:17
Speaker 1: not really managing to get over one before another happens.
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Speaker 1: And like sidebar, you can call it the famine. You
7:30
Speaker 1: can call it the famine. There was a few of them,
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Speaker 1: but you can say the famine. That is still correct, right.
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Speaker 1: Famine is also a tool of genocide. You can also
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Speaker 1: say that. You can also say that famine or the
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Speaker 1: famine was a genocide. Those are all correct statements. You
7:48
Speaker 1: can say famine. What you can't really say, what is
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Speaker 1: disrespectful is calling it a potato famine, right, because that's
7:58
Speaker 1: that was how the colonial powers downplayed the absolute travesty
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Speaker 1: and tragedy that was happening all over the country that
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Speaker 1: they created. Okay, they created mastarvation and they called it
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Speaker 1: the potato fatmlin to be like oh the Irish and
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Speaker 1: their potatoes like no, but that is another story for
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Speaker 1: another day. So Ireland, when they are getting married, it
8:28
Speaker 1: is still very much under British rule, and cities like
8:32
Speaker 1: Dublin very much under Anglo rule. So This is where
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Speaker 1: a lot of the Anglo Irish would be from, and.
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Speaker 3: As such, the ruling classes were by and large Protestant.
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Speaker 3: The Jessups were a Catholic household, and this couple decided
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Speaker 3: to take their chances in South America to start a
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Speaker 3: new life. However, things didn't exactly go to plan. William
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Speaker 3: he really wanted to be a sheep farmer. Unfortunately, in
9:03
Speaker 3: order to do that you need the finances to buy
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Speaker 3: or breed a lot of sheep, and he did not like.
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Speaker 3: The jess Ups were not exactly a family of means.
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Speaker 3: They lived in a one room building, which honestly so
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Speaker 3: typical for regular ordinary people of the time. And like,
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Speaker 3: there's this story about how the children when they were small,
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Speaker 3: like babies to infant toddler, that they slept in cribs
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Speaker 3: made of repurposed gin creates. And this comes up quite
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Speaker 3: a lot, actually, And.
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Speaker 1: I don't know why that is such a surprising thing, right,
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Speaker 1: because they used to put babies in baskets and drawers, Right,
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Speaker 1: you used what you had, like working class eighteen hundreds, Right,
9:53
Speaker 1: they were a waste not want not era. Okay, But
9:57
Speaker 1: back to the sheep farming for a second, I became
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Speaker 1: clear to William that he was not going to be
10:02
Speaker 1: able to afford to buy enough sheep to make the
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Speaker 1: sheep farm a working sheep farm. It was not going
10:08
Speaker 1: to be self sustaining, and so he took on other
10:11
Speaker 1: means of employment. He was a customs officer for the
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Speaker 1: Bahia Blanca Port Authority and even worked for a railroad
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Speaker 1: line at one point. Like these were more financially secure
10:23
Speaker 1: positions for the family, but a steady income does not
10:28
Speaker 1: always protect one's family. Violet was the oldest child of nine. Unfortunately,
10:37
Speaker 1: only five of her siblings would reach adulthood, with her
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Speaker 1: four brothers and one sister. A baby sister, Molly, died
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Speaker 1: of meningitis. Two of her younger brothers almost died of diphtheria. Now,
10:52
Speaker 1: diphtheria is an infectious disease that is one of the
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Speaker 1: ones that you vaccinate against because you know it used
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Speaker 1: to kill babies. It spread through droplets in the air
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Speaker 1: like that cough there susan. It can be manageable, but
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Speaker 1: in severe cases, the lymphodes can swell, creating what's known
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Speaker 1: as bull neck, sort of like a frog's throat just
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Speaker 1: before it ribbits like that, it looks like that, like
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Speaker 1: this can cause suffocation, as can this pseudo membrane, like
11:22
Speaker 1: because this gray patch that grows like like on the
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Speaker 1: pala and everything, and it can block airways. So then
11:32
Speaker 1: of course you've got paralysis and heart failure so on
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Speaker 1: and so forth. Like this is one of those diseases
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Speaker 1: that there was a big campaign going vaccain edgeob children
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Speaker 1: against dip theorya because they would die so like measles
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Speaker 1: mumps rebella. Now, anyway, when Violet is small, both she
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Speaker 1: and her little brother Ray caught scarlet fever. She survived,
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Speaker 1: Ray did not. After this, she contracts tuberculosis, although this
12:07
Speaker 1: would have been just called consumption at the time. Now,
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Speaker 1: tuberculosis caused violet lungs to hemorrhage, and even when she
12:17
Speaker 1: was old enough to attend school, doctors advised that she
12:20
Speaker 1: stay home due to complications from her illness. Like at
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Speaker 1: one point she's in the hospital and it's very much
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Speaker 1: touch and goal, like the doctors think she's not going
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Speaker 1: to make it right, and months she's given a prognosis
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Speaker 1: of like months to live right somewhere along the road.
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Speaker 1: As well, she manages to contract typhoid. Now, a lot
12:47
Speaker 1: of these diseases are the ones that spread in you know,
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Speaker 1: population dense area areas where you have you know, unfortunately
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Speaker 1: lower levels of hygiene. And that's just because of sanitation
13:05
Speaker 1: in the area and and germ theory. I mean it's
13:11
Speaker 1: only really coming about at this point too, you know,
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Speaker 1: before we knew and understand basic health things like the
13:20
Speaker 1: spread of infectious diseases. So they're like, it's going to
13:25
Speaker 1: be a couple of months, and you might be able
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Speaker 1: to extend her life or give her a more comfortable
13:30
Speaker 1: last few months, if you like, move to the mountains
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Speaker 1: where the air is like a wee bit better. William
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Speaker 1: manages to get a transfer to work in Mendoza, which
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Speaker 1: is like at the foothills of the Andes, which is
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Speaker 1: the mountains, not the community Cobb Duo and Hot Fuzz.
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Speaker 2: Any surprising twist, this actually helps Violet mix of recovery
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Speaker 2: and is doing well.
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Speaker 1: So she is looking after younger siblings, She's playing with
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Speaker 1: her pet armadillo, like she can go to school, Like
14:06
Speaker 1: everything is coming up Millhouse, like going through so many
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Speaker 1: medical situations in her life, Like she was drawn to nursing,
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Speaker 1: Like she really really wanted to be a nurse, now,
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Speaker 1: I don't think at this point that being a doctor
14:23
Speaker 1: would have been a consideration for her at the turn
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Speaker 1: of the century, but either way, the family couldn't afford
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Speaker 1: to send her to the necessary school in order for
14:33
Speaker 1: her to get the training and become a nurse. When
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Speaker 1: she's about sixteen years old, her father has to have surgery,
14:42
Speaker 1: but there were complications and he dies in Mendoza, leaving
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Speaker 1: a heavily pregnant Catherine Jessup with six children to raise
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Speaker 1: on her own. Unfortunately, the baby does survive, and with that,
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Speaker 1: Catherine Jessup decides to leave Argentina, head back across the
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Speaker 1: Atlantic and settle in England. And she's planning on going
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Speaker 1: and taking all six surviving children with her, right, and
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Speaker 1: people are genuinely concerned that Violet's lungs are not going
15:21
Speaker 1: to be able to handle the English heir, right because
15:25
Speaker 1: England temperate zone, kind of damp, kind of cold, kind
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Speaker 1: of chili. Right. So two teachers like they offer to
15:35
Speaker 1: adopt her, but Catherine's like adamant the full jess Up
15:40
Speaker 1: clan are going to England. So when they like initially arrive,
15:45
Speaker 1: they get help from Catherine's sister and her husband so
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Speaker 1: her brother in law. And it's not easy because, like
15:53
Speaker 1: they're trying to get settled. You know, one woman six
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Speaker 1: children on a widows and I'm going to call it
16:01
Speaker 1: a very meager pension, right, So Catherine needs to work
16:06
Speaker 1: and she needs the children to be cared for. And
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Speaker 1: this is going to sound kind of weird today, right
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Speaker 1: because of how how we raise children nowadays. But what
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Speaker 1: a lot of people would do is back in the day,
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Speaker 1: the children will be sent into the care of you
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Speaker 1: know what, nuns. It's usually nuns, right, it was always nuns,
16:31
Speaker 1: especially if you're a Catholic like Catherine was. So the
16:35
Speaker 1: boys were put in a Catholic orphanage, again not uncommon
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Speaker 1: for the time, and this ensured that the boys were
16:41
Speaker 1: raised in the faith and always so that they got
16:44
Speaker 1: an education. They were clothed, and they were fed. I mean,
16:49
Speaker 1: it's not exactly five star cousine, but they'll being they'll
16:53
Speaker 1: being satiated, shall we say.
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Speaker 2: So.
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Speaker 1: At the beginning, Violet is looking after her younger sister Eileen.
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Speaker 1: But after more health issues, both Jessup girls go to
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Speaker 1: a convent. So they they bored in this convent and
17:12
Speaker 1: they can still be together. They were able to continue
17:15
Speaker 1: in education. And they were also clothed, sheltered, fed, also
17:23
Speaker 1: a very common practice, like even here, even for me
17:28
Speaker 1: as a here. And I'm not sure if it was
17:30
Speaker 1: in Scotland or England, because I know that my great
17:33
Speaker 1: grant had traveled south for work, so like left Scotland,
17:39
Speaker 1: made her way down to England, got work worked, and
17:43
Speaker 1: the children were boarded in like houses. Like you can
17:48
Speaker 1: actually see the registration of where these kids were, Like
17:55
Speaker 1: I know where they were staying during the Manchester blitz.
17:57
Speaker 1: Like but after Second World War, so like, oh yeah,
18:02
Speaker 1: Manchester gets blitzed as she just like sidebar, Manchester gets blitzed,
18:05
Speaker 1: and my great gran she takes my grant and they
18:08
Speaker 1: walk from Manchester all the way up to Glasgow. And
18:11
Speaker 1: my grand's like three four at this point. Anyway, she
18:15
Speaker 1: ends up like with the nuns right after the Second
18:20
Speaker 1: World War. She's put in the convent for a bit.
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Speaker 1: And I've talked about this before, but one of her
18:28
Speaker 1: jobs there, one of her duties was cleaning coffins. Yeah,
18:33
Speaker 1: that's not traumatic for a child. That being said, Like
18:37
Speaker 1: she knew a lot about coffins by the time she
18:40
Speaker 1: was older, Like she was explaining stuff to me back
18:42
Speaker 1: in the day, and it's like, wow, what a very
18:46
Speaker 1: reasonable knowledge to have that is not often shelled. So
18:51
Speaker 1: like people would put their kids in these religious institutions
18:54
Speaker 1: for their protection, especially people in poverty, people who are
18:58
Speaker 1: working class. Now, woul't you think that rich people used
19:04
Speaker 1: to put their kids into boarding school. It's not really
19:08
Speaker 1: that different. It's just one is free and one is
19:15
Speaker 1: paid for. It's like, what classy if you're rich in
19:19
Speaker 1: traghy of their power sending your kids away to be
19:23
Speaker 1: cured for someone else and educated.
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Speaker 2: What.
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Speaker 1: So, now here's the thing. I'm not here to say
19:31
Speaker 1: that some children will not abandoned obviously somewhere, but others,
19:37
Speaker 1: when they're putting their kids into this care, they believe
19:41
Speaker 1: that they're doing the right thing. And of course a
19:43
Speaker 1: lot of these people are very much driven by religion,
19:47
Speaker 1: and so they're thinking, oh, if I put the kids
19:50
Speaker 1: in the care of this religious order, then obviously they're
19:54
Speaker 1: going to be raised the right way. They're going to
19:56
Speaker 1: be safe because these are people of God. Said anyway,
20:04
Speaker 1: so putting the kids into this care. Catherine manages to
20:09
Speaker 1: get a job as a stewardess on the Royal Mail line,
20:13
Speaker 1: and she's working there for five years, and she's working
20:16
Speaker 1: to earn money, but she's away a lot, and so
20:19
Speaker 1: she isn't really able to spend a lot of time
20:21
Speaker 1: with her family. And Violet, she's at the convent, she's
20:26
Speaker 1: getting her education, and she's thinking she might actually be
20:30
Speaker 1: able to do the exams that can propel her into
20:33
Speaker 1: a career like being a nurse or even a governess.
20:38
Speaker 1: But alas, all this heavy work at sea for five
20:42
Speaker 1: years takes a toll on Catherine. She takes ill and
20:46
Speaker 1: can no longer work, and so Violet, being the eldest,
20:50
Speaker 1: had to step up to support the family. And so
20:54
Speaker 1: she decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and get
20:57
Speaker 1: a job as a stewardess upon a ship. In what
21:11
Speaker 1: I can only describe as reverse pretty privilege and basic misogyny.
21:17
Speaker 1: Violet is about twenty one and going for these interviews,
21:21
Speaker 1: and she keeps being told she's too young and too
21:24
Speaker 1: pretty to work on a ship like She's even told
21:29
Speaker 1: her looks are disadvantageous because of the effects she'll have
21:34
Speaker 1: on passengers and crew alike. Sorry what sorry, honey, you're
21:41
Speaker 1: too hot to travel. The men won't be able to
21:43
Speaker 1: contain themselves. Okay, how about train your boys to have
21:47
Speaker 1: some basic fucking manners perhaps. And Violet, she's she's gorgeous, right,
21:55
Speaker 1: she has these gray blue eyes, thick auburn hair, and
22:00
Speaker 1: this beautiful Irish lilt in her voice. And she's just
22:05
Speaker 1: too pretty to get a job. And so she says,
22:08
Speaker 1: fuck this for Game of Soldiers and deliberately makes herself
22:12
Speaker 1: look less attractive in order to get a job. Like
22:16
Speaker 1: her and her mother like go to find like out
22:19
Speaker 1: of fashion clothes, stuff that looks from pay like anything
22:23
Speaker 1: to make herself look as dowdy and from pay as possible,
22:26
Speaker 1: like a reverse. She's all that, if you will, and
22:30
Speaker 1: what do you know? It works. She gets a job
22:34
Speaker 1: on the Royal Mail Line, which is the post right,
22:37
Speaker 1: it's a postal service, way before airmail. All the post
22:40
Speaker 1: was sent and sorted by c and her first job
22:44
Speaker 1: was aboard the RMS or AOC. She traveled from England
22:48
Speaker 1: to the West Indies or the Caribbean to you and me,
22:54
Speaker 1: don't you mean Caribbean? No I do not. So it
22:58
Speaker 1: did take her I'm such a dick, sorry, it did
23:03
Speaker 1: take her away bit to get her sea legs. And
23:07
Speaker 1: it was mainly mind over matter, Like it was determination
23:12
Speaker 1: more than anything else, because like even after that, it
23:16
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly smooth sailing, Like this was grueling work. You
23:22
Speaker 1: had long days. You were cleaning cabins, delivering meals, running
23:25
Speaker 1: errands for passengers, and even looking after sick passengers. Like
23:31
Speaker 1: she could be running around all day and then up
23:33
Speaker 1: half the night with some top piking the guts out,
23:35
Speaker 1: which is not exactly a pleasure cruise lance. Like what's
23:42
Speaker 1: interesting is that in this position, like it's not exactly
23:46
Speaker 1: one in which you were formally trained. You hit the
23:49
Speaker 1: ground running, you learn as you go sort of thing.
23:52
Speaker 1: But Violet was a hard worker, diligent, orderly, unassuming and
23:59
Speaker 1: really just got on my Like on her very first voyage,
24:03
Speaker 1: everyone is sick, right, everyone is sick, even the ship's doctor.
24:07
Speaker 1: Like there's a storm that happens, like everything is happening
24:11
Speaker 1: all at once. She gets a cut on her thumb
24:14
Speaker 1: and it gets infected, and it's like she doesn't get
24:17
Speaker 1: it treated right away, Like it gets quite bad because
24:20
Speaker 1: she can't go to the doctor because his head's in
24:23
Speaker 1: a bucket, right, Like she can't be seen, and she
24:27
Speaker 1: just like pulls through it, right, gets on with it.
24:33
Speaker 1: You got physical labor, you got long days. But she
24:36
Speaker 1: does get a little downtime when they hit land, which
24:40
Speaker 1: is her favorite part of this whole experience. She loved
24:44
Speaker 1: visiting port. She really enjoyed like New York City and
24:50
Speaker 1: visiting Buenos Eris. It reminded her of her childhood, Like
24:54
Speaker 1: she got to explore places, and they're like because basically
24:57
Speaker 1: the ships would have to dock in order to refresh, right,
25:01
Speaker 1: so they'd need to get supplies, they would need to
25:04
Speaker 1: whatever they were, you know, cargo they were carrying would
25:06
Speaker 1: go off. Whatever new carrier they were supposed to take
25:09
Speaker 1: had to go on. Like things had to be laundered
25:13
Speaker 1: as well, so like all of the bedding on the ship,
25:17
Speaker 1: everything like that would all need to be refreshed, cleaned,
25:21
Speaker 1: you know, brought on board. So you know, she had
25:27
Speaker 1: time to actually enjoy port because there was so much
25:31
Speaker 1: that had to be done. Because remember, like these ships
25:34
Speaker 1: were a to B right, this was not a cruise
25:37
Speaker 1: or such. These were for immigration goods mail, right, Like
25:43
Speaker 1: that's what this was for. Now. Being on the ships
25:48
Speaker 1: on a certain line meant they were often working with
25:51
Speaker 1: the same crew members and obviously certain passengers would prefer,
25:57
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I only go on the Red Star line,
26:00
Speaker 1: or I only travel on this line because you know,
26:03
Speaker 1: or I only follow this captain, Like the captain of
26:07
Speaker 1: the Titanic basically had his own little fan club, and
26:11
Speaker 1: some people would only travel if they knew that he
26:13
Speaker 1: was captaining the ship. Like, so this was a very
26:15
Speaker 1: common thing. And so Violet, she's basically caring for like
26:20
Speaker 1: first and second class passengers. That's typically her duties as
26:25
Speaker 1: a stewardess. Right now, that meant being on this ship,
26:32
Speaker 1: like it's close quarters. You know, you're often traveling with
26:35
Speaker 1: the same people, and Violet was not so keen on this,
26:41
Speaker 1: Like cliques were not uncommon, and when you're with people
26:45
Speaker 1: in an enclosed space for a lengthy period of time,
26:48
Speaker 1: well everything starts to create on you, like a pressure
26:51
Speaker 1: cooker or like a boiler pot scenario. Now, even when
26:58
Speaker 1: she tried to make under herself, she was noticed by
27:01
Speaker 1: the passengers and crew alike, and she was often fending
27:05
Speaker 1: off advances. And by fending off advances, I mean that
27:09
Speaker 1: she was harassed and therefore, you know, avoiding attempts of
27:15
Speaker 1: sexual assault. Like she receives three marriage proposals as a stewardess,
27:21
Speaker 1: all of which she declined, like it's one of those
27:24
Speaker 1: things that sounds like it's romantic, but it's not, because
27:29
Speaker 1: she clearly was not interested in marrying any of those schmucks.
27:33
Speaker 4: Like like, if she was genuinely interested in someone and
27:37
Speaker 4: actually wanted to marry them, like she would do that,
27:42
Speaker 4: she would take this opportunity, like that's what she would do.
27:44
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Part of me always feels like
27:48
Speaker 1: she's very Catholic. People know she's very Catholic, and the
27:52
Speaker 1: marriage proposal could just be like a sneaky way of
27:55
Speaker 1: trying to like lure her to bed, you know, and
27:59
Speaker 1: she about that because you know, super diuper Catholic. So
28:05
Speaker 1: there's this married captain who takes an interest in Violet,
28:09
Speaker 1: and this changes the trajectory of her career a wee
28:13
Speaker 1: bit because she's not interested in him, because one, don't
28:16
Speaker 1: piss on your own doorstep. In two, he's married, and
28:21
Speaker 1: again she's super Catholic, like she carries rosary beads in
28:26
Speaker 1: her apron right. The first time he tries his luck,
28:30
Speaker 1: she rejects him, and of course his fragile male ego
28:33
Speaker 1: cannot handle it, and so the second time they travel together,
28:38
Speaker 1: he finds problems with everything she does, Like he reprimands
28:43
Speaker 1: her for like flirting with officers, which she is absolutely
28:49
Speaker 1: not doing right, but he keeps making comments in lying
28:55
Speaker 1: and making these statements about her reputation, and then he
28:58
Speaker 1: dismisses her, and so she's lost her job. She's lost
29:04
Speaker 1: this position. She can't prove he's lying, and there's nothing
29:06
Speaker 1: she can do about it when he dismisses her for
29:10
Speaker 1: sluttery that she was not a part of. And it's
29:15
Speaker 1: tough for her because like she's a woman in the past,
29:20
Speaker 1: there's not a lot that she can do in this scenario,
29:25
Speaker 1: like this is an issue, and so like she just
29:30
Speaker 1: starts applying for like all these lines, like she's applying
29:34
Speaker 1: for this, that, and the other. Like she doesn't really
29:38
Speaker 1: want to join the White Star Line specifically, the hours
29:42
Speaker 1: were long, the crossing was choppy, and the North Atlantic
29:46
Speaker 1: was cold, and she had so many health concerns, right,
29:50
Speaker 1: and she also knew the company's reputation for excellence and
29:53
Speaker 1: knew that meant that she'd be run ragged around first
29:56
Speaker 1: class passengers. But again, she she's been dismissed, and so
30:02
Speaker 1: she really needs to get a position, and she needs
30:04
Speaker 1: it quick, and so she joined the White Star Line.
30:08
Speaker 2: Right.
30:10
Speaker 1: She worked on the Majestic, the Adriatic, and the Oceanic
30:14
Speaker 1: also known as now the cousins of the Titanic. So
30:19
Speaker 1: these were sort of the tip top of the White
30:23
Speaker 1: Star Line at the time. So like, there were other
30:26
Speaker 1: lines like coming from Germany, and they were more focused
30:33
Speaker 1: on speed than they were and anything else. This made
30:36
Speaker 1: the crossings like less comfortable for passengers from first class
30:42
Speaker 1: all the way down to stairage, right, and so they
30:46
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, they had speed on their side,
30:49
Speaker 1: but not comfort. And this is where White Star Line
30:52
Speaker 1: saw a gap in the market. And we're like, we
30:54
Speaker 1: want to focus on you know, a comfortable, safe, better travel,
30:59
Speaker 1: Like we want to just be like the best for
31:02
Speaker 1: all classes. So like she becomes a dab hand traveling
31:09
Speaker 1: to and from New York City and as she's working
31:14
Speaker 1: on the White Star Line seventeen hours a day, earning
31:18
Speaker 1: a grand total of two pounds and ten shillings a month,
31:22
Speaker 1: and she was fantastic. She was loved by passengers who
31:26
Speaker 1: found her diligent, hard working, kind, considerate, compassionate. They wrote
31:30
Speaker 1: letters about how she cared for them during bouts of seasickness.
31:34
Speaker 1: Like she was a fast learner, she was level headed.
31:38
Speaker 1: Her work ethic was noticed by her superiors, and when
31:41
Speaker 1: the Olympic class ships were built, she was hand picked
31:45
Speaker 1: to serve on the first of three sister ships, the Olympic,
31:51
Speaker 1: the largest and most luxurious ship in the Atlantic. The
31:56
Speaker 1: RMES Olympic was launched on the twenty of October nineteen ten,
32:01
Speaker 1: with its maiden voyage on the fourteenth of June nineteen eleven.
32:05
Speaker 1: It had undertaken four journeys, then on its fifth and
32:10
Speaker 1: September it was leaving Southampton. So twentieth September nineteen eleven,
32:16
Speaker 1: it's on the stolen and it collides with the AHMS Hawk,
32:21
Speaker 1: which was not a passenger ship. It was a warship
32:25
Speaker 1: designed to sink other ships by ramming into them. Right this,
32:35
Speaker 1: like passenger ship is rammed by a warship that's designed
32:40
Speaker 1: to ram ships and sink them. Now, both ships are
32:44
Speaker 1: damaged in this collision, but the Olympic had a whole
32:48
Speaker 1: breach just below the waterline. In a crazy random happenstance,
32:53
Speaker 1: it didn't actually sink and it managed to return to port.
32:59
Speaker 1: Like it later returned to doc for repairs back in Belfast,
33:03
Speaker 1: which took over six weeks to complete. This meant that
33:07
Speaker 1: work on the Titanic actually had to be put on
33:10
Speaker 1: hold and delayed the launch, which some people say, you know,
33:17
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why it was in such
33:20
Speaker 1: a treacherous rooped at the time because of when the
33:25
Speaker 1: you know, the ice was melting. So anyway, Violet is
33:33
Speaker 1: on the crew with Captain Edward Smith. Yes, him and
33:39
Speaker 1: the Navy did an investigation which put all the blame
33:43
Speaker 1: on the Olympic, saying that it sucked the smaller ship
33:47
Speaker 1: in sure jan. Once the Olympic was back in the water,
33:54
Speaker 1: Violet Jessup was aboard and ready to work. After working
33:58
Speaker 1: on the Olympic for over a year, she was selected
34:01
Speaker 1: to join the jewel in the White star Line's eyes,
34:05
Speaker 1: like the diamond of the fleet, the bigger and better
34:09
Speaker 1: sister Olympic class ship, the Titanic. She wasn't that fussed
34:18
Speaker 1: about joining the crew, but her friends convinced her that
34:21
Speaker 1: this would be a great thing to do, a once
34:23
Speaker 1: in a lifetime you know, meeting the who's who and whatnot.
34:27
Speaker 1: But there's like they're adamant that this is like a
34:30
Speaker 1: super awesome thing and experience for her, it's going to
34:33
Speaker 1: be like the best. And so she says, yeh, sure,
34:38
Speaker 1: she relents and she joins, right, And she's working on
34:42
Speaker 1: the Titanic, right, not too bothered about it or the
34:48
Speaker 1: people like for her ships of ship. Right. She's still working,
34:51
Speaker 1: still long days, still doing a bit. But she had
34:54
Speaker 1: friends in the crew and the kinder crew. So for example,
35:00
Speaker 1: the Marconi operators on the ship, like, they were not
35:05
Speaker 1: technically part of the White Star crew. They were from Marconi, right.
35:08
Speaker 1: And the musicians they were leased out by another company.
35:13
Speaker 1: They didn't belong to the Titanic, to the White Star
35:17
Speaker 1: lines crew either, so a lot of the musicians would
35:20
Speaker 1: stay in like second class as opposed to like anything lower.
35:25
Speaker 1: Now she does her job, she prays before bed, she
35:30
Speaker 1: hasn't really that much into anyone other than the man.
35:34
Speaker 1: I am fairly certain she had a big, massive crush
35:37
Speaker 1: on Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic. She basically
35:43
Speaker 1: says in her memoirs that he's dashing and not so
35:45
Speaker 1: many words.
35:46
Speaker 2: Right.
35:47
Speaker 1: She talks about the beloved designer who listened to the
35:50
Speaker 1: crew and paid attention to their requests for better quarters.
35:56
Speaker 1: Basically everything on the ship was an upgrade for every
36:00
Speaker 1: class and even the staff. Right, it's so well thought
36:03
Speaker 1: out because the Olympic had been running for a bit
36:06
Speaker 1: and it had issues, and so they upgraded the Titanic
36:11
Speaker 1: with all of these different bits and pieces, and like
36:15
Speaker 1: they just made it better effectively. And so like, I
36:20
Speaker 1: think for her as well, because she was so used
36:22
Speaker 1: to being constantly harassed, Thomas Andrews, who was definitely not
36:27
Speaker 1: interested in her, like made him more appealing because he
36:31
Speaker 1: didn't try any shit with her. So she shares a
36:37
Speaker 1: room with another stewardess we think to be Elizabeth Leather.
36:43
Speaker 1: Oh and like I should mention as well, out of
36:46
Speaker 1: the nine hundred or so crew members, only twenty three
36:49
Speaker 1: were women, right, Like, so her being picked for this
36:54
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal. So she worked during the
36:57
Speaker 1: day and would before bed time take a stroll along
37:02
Speaker 1: the deck right at night, like in the Chile North
37:06
Speaker 1: Atlantic air refreshing, soothing, some might say. Then on the
37:13
Speaker 1: night of April fourteenth, nineteen twelve, she's kind of dozing
37:17
Speaker 1: in our bunk. She's not quite asleep, but she's kind
37:20
Speaker 1: of starting to drift, and that's when the collision with
37:24
Speaker 1: the iceberg happens, Like Elizabeth tells her that it sounds
37:31
Speaker 1: like something happened, right, because there's a noise and then
37:34
Speaker 1: silence right after. So they get dressed very quickly. Right,
37:41
Speaker 1: they're ordered to go up on deck, and they're told
37:43
Speaker 1: by the steward Stanley, that the ship is sinking, but
37:48
Speaker 1: it's very much oh, it's a precaution it might be sinking, right,
37:51
Speaker 1: and so the escort passengers to their lifeboats. It's very
37:55
Speaker 1: calm and orderly. First class passengers are just kind of
37:58
Speaker 1: strolling along the deck, and so they get people into
38:01
Speaker 1: the boats and then there is really anything to do.
38:04
Speaker 1: So the two stewardesses go back to their cabin, after
38:09
Speaker 1: which Stanley comes back and it is like, no, seriously,
38:13
Speaker 1: the ship is actually sinking, and he goes into her
38:16
Speaker 1: like her trunk and everything, and he's trying to find
38:18
Speaker 1: them warmer clothes, right that they don't they don't really
38:23
Speaker 1: have a lot, but like there isn't time, and so
38:26
Speaker 1: up they go up to the top deck, right, and
38:33
Speaker 1: like she's got her cork life dragged on in like
38:36
Speaker 1: a very very basic dress, very light now, so everything
38:41
Speaker 1: was being treated as a precaution, a just in case.
38:45
Speaker 1: But when she's back up on deck, she feels the
38:47
Speaker 1: boat very noticeably start to tilt. Like she's been on
38:52
Speaker 1: ships for a while, she knows better, right, And at
38:56
Speaker 1: this point there are passengers aboard who do not speak English,
39:01
Speaker 1: and women are clinging to their husbands and so like
39:06
Speaker 1: officers like tell Violet and her bunkmate right to get
39:11
Speaker 1: into lifeboat sixteen to show the passengers it's safe and so,
39:16
Speaker 1: and she goes right. When she gets in the boat,
39:20
Speaker 1: sixth Officer James Paul Moody calls out, miss jesub, dig
39:26
Speaker 1: this baby with you. Then she describes it. A bundle
39:30
Speaker 1: is dropped into her lap. She's on this lifeboat for
39:35
Speaker 1: eight hours in the dark, holding someone's baby. She watched
39:41
Speaker 1: the lights go out as the ship sank, she heard
39:43
Speaker 1: an almighty crack, and she sat in darkness, surrounded by
39:47
Speaker 1: women and children, scared and cold, the sounds of survivors
39:52
Speaker 1: fading into silence, and all she could think was that
39:57
Speaker 1: she'd left her toothbrush on board. Shock will do that
40:01
Speaker 1: to you. You'll focus on something really innocuous and you
40:04
Speaker 1: be like my toothbrush, right, Like people panic about very
40:08
Speaker 1: very tiny things because they need something to control in
40:12
Speaker 1: those very big situations, and it's really really common. Eventually,
40:17
Speaker 1: after again eight hours just bobbing on the Atlantic, she
40:23
Speaker 1: was rescued by the Carpathia. She gets aboard the rescue
40:29
Speaker 1: ship holding this baby to her cork life vest and
40:32
Speaker 1: the woman comes up and grabs it out of her
40:34
Speaker 1: arms and just runs away. Now whether or not this
40:38
Speaker 1: was actually the child's mother, whom's to say, right, Like,
40:43
Speaker 1: allegedly the mother was on the Titanic and sat the
40:47
Speaker 1: baby on the deck to go get something. Now the
40:50
Speaker 1: officer just sees this baby again on the deck and
40:54
Speaker 1: was like, not in you'l. Nelly just grabs them and
40:56
Speaker 1: just passes them on to Violet. But like she's just
41:02
Speaker 1: had a baby snatch from her arms after watching a
41:05
Speaker 1: ship go down and many of her crewmates die. This
41:09
Speaker 1: is not a typical situation, and the White Starline sent
41:14
Speaker 1: the s s Lapland to take survivors home. On the
41:19
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of April nineteen twelve, she returned to Southampton.
41:25
Speaker 1: And you'd think after, you know, suffering such a traumatic event,
41:31
Speaker 1: you know at sea, that you might think, you know,
41:33
Speaker 1: what land is fine, you can just stay on land,
41:37
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to go out and do
41:39
Speaker 1: this anymore. But Violet Jessups said fuck this or a
41:43
Speaker 1: game of soldiers, and by June she was back at
41:46
Speaker 1: sea aboard the Olympic. When the First World War breaks out,
42:05
Speaker 1: I kind of puts the kibosh on the whole transatlantic
42:08
Speaker 1: you know travel, And so Violet uses this opportunity to
42:12
Speaker 1: join the British Red Cross as part of the voluntary
42:15
Speaker 1: aid detachment. She starts off as a junior nurse, finally
42:20
Speaker 1: getting a go at the nursing profession that she wanted
42:22
Speaker 1: to do all those years before. She trained on land
42:27
Speaker 1: at a hospital treating the wounded and such. This is
42:32
Speaker 1: before being assigned to a ship, the third White Star
42:35
Speaker 1: Line Olympic class vessel, the hm HS Britannic. That would
42:42
Speaker 1: be His Majesty's hospital ship. So Titanic's triplet. Now people
42:48
Speaker 1: always talk about the Olympic and the Titanic, but you
42:52
Speaker 1: know their sisters, their sisters, like they're not twins, the triplets, Okay, Olympic, Titanic, Britannic,
42:59
Speaker 1: and each one gets bigger, better, more luxurious, larger.
43:02
Speaker 2: Now basically I mean it is the youngest sister of
43:08
Speaker 2: this group, but it's the largest, the most luxurious, like.
43:13
Speaker 1: It is requisitioned by by the army right basically basically
43:23
Speaker 1: as part of the war effort. Many passenger ships were
43:26
Speaker 1: requisitioned from military use, like the Olympic and the Britannic,
43:32
Speaker 1: so it becomes this floating hospital. It served from the
43:35
Speaker 1: twenty third of December nineteen fifteen all the way through
43:38
Speaker 1: to June nineteen sixteen. I mean it was released for
43:42
Speaker 1: a bit and then it was requisitioned again two months later.
43:47
Speaker 1: The Britannic is in the ag and C on the
43:49
Speaker 1: twenty first of November twenty sixteen when it hits a
43:53
Speaker 1: mine from a German U boat like not too far
43:57
Speaker 1: from Greece like. Initially they think they hit by a torpedo.
44:01
Speaker 1: But during all this violent as cam she goes back
44:04
Speaker 1: to her cabin and because she is a woman who
44:06
Speaker 1: learns from her mistakes, she makes sure to grab a
44:09
Speaker 1: warm coat, a clock, her prayer book and of course
44:14
Speaker 1: her toothbrush. She puts on her life jacket and makes
44:18
Speaker 1: her way to the deck. Now, the Titanic took a
44:21
Speaker 1: bit of time to sink two hours and forty minutes
44:23
Speaker 1: give her tech, but the Britannic was down. In fifty
44:28
Speaker 1: five minutes. The ship was sinking. The propellers are still going,
44:32
Speaker 1: and violent is watching lifeboats being launched and then pulled
44:35
Speaker 1: back to the propellers and watching the propellers shread the
44:39
Speaker 1: lifeboats and the people on them. Now, I've read the
44:44
Speaker 1: series of events a few ways. She was on a
44:47
Speaker 1: lifeboat that was getting sucked back to the propellers, or
44:51
Speaker 1: she didn't make it to a lifeboat. Either way, she
44:54
Speaker 1: has to leap into the water, which good thing she's
44:59
Speaker 1: got her life jacket on because she can't swim right,
45:04
Speaker 1: and you're thinking she works on a boat. Yet you'd
45:08
Speaker 1: be surprised how many people on boats could not swim
45:12
Speaker 1: back in the day. Also, like a lot of the
45:15
Speaker 1: dresses they wore back then, they were like you know underskirtch,
45:19
Speaker 1: we had layers. They were heavy. You would be pulled
45:21
Speaker 1: down in the water. Now she has her coat on
45:26
Speaker 1: and she has like her jacket over her life belt
45:30
Speaker 1: over it. Now the issue is with that, Like she
45:33
Speaker 1: had like warned other people on the ship, like put
45:36
Speaker 1: your coat on over your life jacket in case you
45:38
Speaker 1: need to take it off, And she didn't do that
45:40
Speaker 1: because she was just so focused on getting her other stuff.
45:44
Speaker 1: Now either way, like, she's in that water. Now there's
45:51
Speaker 1: a tail that she saw a hand reach for her,
45:53
Speaker 1: but when she grabbed it, it was severed at the shoulder.
45:59
Speaker 1: She was at one point pulled out of the water
46:01
Speaker 1: and into another lifeboat. Like when she leaps, she hits
46:06
Speaker 1: her head off the keel, right, Meanwhile, the captain orders
46:11
Speaker 1: that propellers be shut off so that people can actually escape. Right,
46:17
Speaker 1: she knows she's hurt her head and she loses a
46:20
Speaker 1: wee bit of hair, but there's a chance to get
46:22
Speaker 1: caught or lobbed off somewhere, but it isn't until years later,
46:27
Speaker 1: like a little bit later, like she visits a doctor
46:31
Speaker 1: because she's having issues concentrating and she's like struggling with
46:34
Speaker 1: a few bits and he tells her that she suffered
46:37
Speaker 1: a skull fracture, Like, oh, yeah, you had a skull fracture.
46:41
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, I wonder if it's going I
46:43
Speaker 1: hit my head off the keel of a ship. Like
46:48
Speaker 1: one of the stories about this, it's like, oh, she
46:51
Speaker 1: was like scalped by the propeller, which is just a
46:55
Speaker 1: bit more of a dramatization, like there probably was somebody
46:58
Speaker 1: scalped by a propeller and probably worse. But yeah, she's
47:04
Speaker 1: got a skull fracture. She climbs into a lifeboat and
47:07
Speaker 1: she lives another day. Like she used to joke that
47:10
Speaker 1: she was saved because she had incredibly thick hair, right,
47:17
Speaker 1: And also if she's got that sort of I'm still
47:19
Speaker 1: gonna call it like the Dwardian sort of button thing
47:22
Speaker 1: going on, like there's some cushioning, you know. So with
47:28
Speaker 1: a war on, getting a steward as job was tough,
47:32
Speaker 1: and so she stayed on land for a bit of clerking,
47:36
Speaker 1: and when the war was over, Violet resumed working aboard
47:39
Speaker 1: the Olympic. And so she meets this steward, John James Lewis,
47:45
Speaker 1: and she marries him on the twenty ninth of October
47:48
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three. She would later refer to this marriage
47:53
Speaker 1: as brief and disastrous, Like I bet you he was
47:57
Speaker 1: just really bad in bed. He was just terrible. It's
48:01
Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible that like it wasn't great. I think
48:04
Speaker 1: probably because like she's super Catholic, right, so I like
48:09
Speaker 1: to imagine that she was like, hey, marriage and then
48:13
Speaker 1: he was like, you don't have to live, you have
48:15
Speaker 1: to be my wife, and then the money isn't great
48:17
Speaker 1: as a steward anyway, and so she's like, oh no, oh,
48:22
Speaker 1: and yeah, I feel like like she needed to be
48:25
Speaker 1: busy because she was so used to always doing something
48:28
Speaker 1: that to go from that to then nothing like would
48:31
Speaker 1: have been like really really tough. But also I think
48:35
Speaker 1: he was just probably just like she had really bad
48:38
Speaker 1: sex once andone's like, no, I'm good done. I don't
48:41
Speaker 1: need that in my life. So she starts working for
48:46
Speaker 1: the Red Star Line on world cruises, serving on the
48:50
Speaker 1: flagship belgum Land, and she is on like five or
48:54
Speaker 1: so annual cruises between what nineteen twenty six and early
48:58
Speaker 1: thirty five, and then she returns to the Royal Mayline
49:03
Speaker 1: in early nineteen thirty five, working on the RMS Alcantra
49:08
Speaker 1: up until the start of the Second World War. Now
49:13
Speaker 1: she doesn't go back to nursing at sea. She decides
49:16
Speaker 1: not to do that and she joins the war effort
49:20
Speaker 1: by nursing at home on land. And after the Second
49:26
Speaker 1: World War she realizes that stewarding does not a retirement
49:29
Speaker 1: fund make, and so she left the sea behind her
49:33
Speaker 1: for the most part and worked in factories and did
49:36
Speaker 1: some clerical work. Again, she's a very diligent, very organized person.
49:41
Speaker 1: So well, she's on when she's still on the White
49:44
Speaker 1: Star line, no, the Red Star line. She writes her
49:46
Speaker 1: memoirs like in nineteen thirty four, Like she writes them
49:49
Speaker 1: because she's like, you know what, I've loved a lot.
49:52
Speaker 1: She probably writes some stuff down, she doesn't publish them.
49:55
Speaker 1: Her nieces find them and they are published in what
49:59
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, So like this is about when Titanic
50:03
Speaker 1: fevers heading. So it's unsurprising that this came out there.
50:07
Speaker 1: So a lot of the information we have about her
50:10
Speaker 1: life from her memoirs. It's from that and from documentation,
50:15
Speaker 1: and we're just kind of piecing it together from like
50:17
Speaker 1: bits and pieces. After that. Now, she works until the
50:22
Speaker 1: ripe old age of sixty one, and she retires to
50:29
Speaker 1: a cottage in Great Ashfield in Suffolk, England. Right, she's like, okay, no,
50:35
Speaker 1: gonna go gonna go retire, And you think she's gonna
50:38
Speaker 1: do nothing right, but no, no, she gardens. She gets
50:42
Speaker 1: into gardening and she raises chickens. Right, she can't just
50:46
Speaker 1: do nothing right. And the thing is as well. She's
50:49
Speaker 1: actually fairly close to her sister Eileen. She's not too
50:54
Speaker 1: far away, And I think that's a very deliberate choice
50:58
Speaker 1: by her, Like she doesn't have a kids. She and
51:01
Speaker 1: Lewis they got divorced, and I think she was just
51:04
Speaker 1: kind of like pretty cool with her a lot in life,
51:07
Speaker 1: like she had nieces, she had, you know, a fine time.
51:12
Speaker 1: And she does get interviewed, like she gets interviewed for
51:18
Speaker 1: Women magazine when the movie A Night to Remember is released, right,
51:23
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that when she's asked about why
51:25
Speaker 1: she kept getting on another ship and another ship, she
51:27
Speaker 1: was just like, ship happens, you know. It's one of
51:33
Speaker 1: those things where we talk about like her being in
51:37
Speaker 1: like three shipwrecks, and it's like she was in two
51:39
Speaker 1: shipwrecks and one like one thing that could have gone
51:43
Speaker 1: really wrong but didn't. And like it's funny because in
51:48
Speaker 1: her own memoirs, the Titanic is like such a small
51:51
Speaker 1: part of it because she had a large life either
51:55
Speaker 1: side of that. And remember she wasn't on the Titanic
51:59
Speaker 1: for very long, right, it was a very short period
52:02
Speaker 1: of time, so like she was not the only person
52:06
Speaker 1: to survive like all three Olympic Class vessels. There was
52:10
Speaker 1: like one other dude, I think he was on all three,
52:14
Speaker 1: and there was a few people who were on like
52:15
Speaker 1: two of them. So she lived the rest of her
52:20
Speaker 1: life quietly, quite privately. And you know what, there's a
52:26
Speaker 1: story where she gets a phone call. This is before
52:29
Speaker 1: her memoirs, or this is before she tells anybody anything,
52:34
Speaker 1: like not her sister, not anybody. She gets a phone
52:38
Speaker 1: call from what she believes to be a woman's voice,
52:42
Speaker 1: and it says, miss jess Up, you saved a baby
52:45
Speaker 1: on the Titanic. That baby was me. Now, the only
52:50
Speaker 1: baby that was like logged as being on lifeboat sixteen
52:56
Speaker 1: was I think Alna to nude and that was a
53:00
Speaker 1: boy and he died in was a thirty one. So
53:04
Speaker 1: by the time that she gets this call in her cottage,
53:08
Speaker 1: it's you know, like one of her friends. He's like, oh,
53:11
Speaker 1: you know what, it's clearly some neighborhood kids. They're making
53:15
Speaker 1: like a joke, they're doing a prank call. And she's like,
53:18
Speaker 1: I never told anyone that story, like ever, so how
53:23
Speaker 1: would they know? Now, in fairness, there were other people
53:28
Speaker 1: on the lifeboat, and somebody could have said something to somebody,
53:30
Speaker 1: or it could very well be you know what, she
53:33
Speaker 1: was on that ship that sunk, right, what if she
53:38
Speaker 1: saved a baby? Like what if somebody just went what
53:40
Speaker 1: if that was the thing that happened and it just
53:41
Speaker 1: happened to be one of those like oh, like crazy
53:45
Speaker 1: random happenstances like the two Dennis, the Menaces and like
53:52
Speaker 1: coincidences do exist sometimes in the world, and that could
53:55
Speaker 1: have been that. Now, what I love about Violet Jessup
53:59
Speaker 1: as well is she's a fucking oak tree, you know,
54:02
Speaker 1: like God keeps trying to kill her, but she won't go.
54:07
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, it's like so many things keep trying
54:10
Speaker 1: to like tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever. She has consistent and
54:16
Speaker 1: she's in you know three Rex, let's say three. Sure,
54:20
Speaker 1: we'll go with three. She's in the war, right, Like,
54:24
Speaker 1: there's so many things that could have killed her. She
54:28
Speaker 1: was married, like you know what I mean, so many
54:29
Speaker 1: things could have ended her life and she kept going anyway. Now,
54:36
Speaker 1: one other things she said is like why did you
54:37
Speaker 1: get on another ship? And she's like I needed to work,
54:40
Speaker 1: like I got to eat, you know.
54:44
Speaker 2: But yeah, she lives the rest of her life quite
54:48
Speaker 2: in peace, you know, near her family what she had left.
54:53
Speaker 1: And on the fifth of May nineteen seventy one, Violet
54:57
Speaker 1: Constant Jessup passed away Great Ashfield, Suffolk from congestinal heart
55:03
Speaker 1: failure at the ripe old age of eighty three. She
55:09
Speaker 1: was led to West and Hardest, where her sister Eileen
55:12
Speaker 1: would join her two years later. And so ends the
55:16
Speaker 1: story of Violet jess Up, Miss Unsinkable. Now I know
55:23
Speaker 1: I haven't done this in a while, like because she
55:26
Speaker 1: was in so many ships and things kept happening and
55:28
Speaker 1: she kept not going down with it. You know, she
55:31
Speaker 1: gets the title of Miss Unsinkable. And one of the
55:37
Speaker 1: things I haven't done in a long time was like,
55:39
Speaker 1: what have we learned today? Which is something I used
55:41
Speaker 1: to do, like way back when I first started the podcast,
55:45
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about it recently because I was
55:47
Speaker 1: listening to old episodes to just kind of see how
55:51
Speaker 1: far I'd come, And so, what have we learned today?
55:55
Speaker 1: Always pack your toothbrush, like if we've learned anything from
55:59
Speaker 1: Violet Up, always pack your to the brush. And uh yeah,
56:05
Speaker 1: I have so rate and review five stars. No, somebody
56:07
Speaker 1: was like, I can't find where to review five Stars
56:10
Speaker 1: and Apple podcasts, So honestly, if they've changed the system,
56:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't know. Just say nice things.
56:17
Speaker 1: Comment comment on the episodes on Spotify, on a podcasts
56:21
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen engagement, but say nice things because
56:25
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear bad things because everything's already
56:28
Speaker 1: bad enough. But yeah, sharing is caring, like when you
56:33
Speaker 1: lets downward episodes, you share episodes, it just helps. Like
56:39
Speaker 1: I'm an independent podcast. I'm gonna talk about me for
56:41
Speaker 1: a second, right, I'm a very independent podcast. Everything is me.
56:44
Speaker 1: Everything is done by me, like everything you can tell
56:49
Speaker 1: because the editing is shocking, Like she gets better the
56:53
Speaker 1: way that the snail gets better at running slowly. So yeah, yeah,
56:58
Speaker 1: well the snail ever run. Let's and it can skateboard.
57:03
Speaker 1: They find ways, Okay, let's do it. But yeah, everything
57:07
Speaker 1: is like singular one person, and I'm slowly, slowly getting
57:13
Speaker 1: things together where it can be a better option for everybody.
57:18
Speaker 1: But I'm doing a vess there, and I really hope,
57:24
Speaker 1: and I'm glad for everyone who actually appreciates this and
57:29
Speaker 1: all the work that goes into it. And I'm sorry
57:30
Speaker 1: that today's episode was late life happens easter. Everything's been
57:36
Speaker 1: kind of up in the air, and I'm trying to
57:37
Speaker 1: get stuff sorted before my trip as well. But yeah,
57:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to be super prepared for that, guys, I promise.
57:45
Speaker 1: Now recommendation time, Okay. For watching, I'm going to recommend
57:51
Speaker 1: the other Bennett's Sister because it was a good time.
57:55
Speaker 1: I just I needed something fairly light to watch in
57:59
Speaker 1: that worked for me. So for listening, Sabrina Carpenter has
58:04
Speaker 1: got a new song out called Houster just just have
58:07
Speaker 1: some fun. And for reading, okay, Asako Uzuki, she's got
58:14
Speaker 1: a new book out called Hooked. Okay, so go read Hooked.
58:19
Speaker 1: It's oh I'm so excited. I loved Bottle. I loved
58:22
Speaker 1: Bottle and now Hooked and yeah, so go read that
58:26
Speaker 1: and that is everything. And with that, I shall bide
58:28
Speaker 1: you good day, Adios au revoir adam my friend Bubo