Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 190. Charles Lightoller

Transcript

190. Charles Lightoller · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:11
Speaker 1: Oh delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
0:15
Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class with me,
0:19
Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books.
0:26
Speaker 1: So it's been it's been a funny old week. So,
0:30
Speaker 1: as you know, it's Titanic month and we have been
0:34
Speaker 1: following stories of people throughout the Triitanic And one of
0:40
Speaker 1: the videos I filmed for the socials I did at
0:45
Speaker 1: work upstairs at work after I'd gone to the doctors,
0:49
Speaker 1: and one man really really mad about this, like he
0:55
Speaker 1: complained that I should be taking my bandages off, and like,
0:58
Speaker 1: first of all, their plasters or band aids, like it's
1:01
Speaker 1: you know, or like that medical band aid thing they use,
1:05
Speaker 1: And yeah, I had them because I literally came straight
1:08
Speaker 1: from the doctors and then filmed the video. But like,
1:11
Speaker 1: imagine being personally offended by someone wearing.
1:20
Speaker 2: A band aid after a medical procedure, right, imagine being
1:25
Speaker 2: mad about that, like what what?
1:31
Speaker 1: Like that's ridiculous. It's a very ridiculous thing for people
1:33
Speaker 1: to be complaining about. But yet here we are and
1:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what it is these
1:39
Speaker 1: last few days, but I have had just the biggest
1:45
Speaker 1: bloody headache, and it's like permeating, like through my skull
1:50
Speaker 1: into my jaw. So at this point, I don't know
1:52
Speaker 1: if I'm just holding an awful lot of tension in
1:55
Speaker 1: my body, but I think I might be holding a
1:59
Speaker 1: lot attention in my body. Oh dear, oh dear, you
2:03
Speaker 1: may anyhow, I know what you are all thinking. You're thinking, Kerry, Please,
2:10
Speaker 1: it's been two minutes, Jebel Zabba, in fact me, in
2:13
Speaker 1: fact you I will. But first we've got to get
2:16
Speaker 1: our source on. Our sources are lights The Odyssey of C. H.
2:23
Speaker 1: Lightoller by Patrick Stenson, Titanic and Other Ships by Charles Lighthall,
2:32
Speaker 1: The Voyage between Truth and Fiction. Stories of the Titanic
2:36
Speaker 1: by Rebecca are Sanchez, Titanic Disaster Hearings before the Subcommittee
2:43
Speaker 1: of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate Doc. Seven
2:48
Speaker 1: two six sixty Second Congress, Second Session, nineteen twelve. Report
2:55
Speaker 1: on the Loss of the Titanic by the British Rick
2:58
Speaker 1: Commissioner's Inquiry, nineteen twelve. We also have Encyclopedia Titanica, history
3:05
Speaker 1: dot com, and biography dot com. Now I was it
3:10
Speaker 1: in comfortably good? Then let's begin. Charles Herbert Lightaller was
3:18
Speaker 1: born on the thirtieth of March eighteen seventy four to
3:22
Speaker 1: Frederick James Lighthaller and Sarah Jane Widrows in Charley, Lancashire, England.
3:28
Speaker 1: Is from Lancashire, So for context, Queen Victoria was on
3:34
Speaker 1: the throne at the time, and you're thinking, oh, that's
3:38
Speaker 1: like seventy four years, seventy four years and eighty four years. Listen,
3:43
Speaker 1: it was a long time. She was on the throne
3:46
Speaker 1: for quite a while. And yeah, Queen Victoria on the phone,
3:52
Speaker 1: it's eighty four years. Listen. I'm not up on the
3:55
Speaker 1: Kings and Queen's in the length of time in which
3:57
Speaker 1: they reigned. But she was on the throne for like
4:00
Speaker 1: nearly a whole centuries. So whenever you mention the eighteen hundreds,
4:04
Speaker 1: it is, you know, less surprising to hear that Queen
4:07
Speaker 1: Victoria was atop the throne with a weight danic diny
4:11
Speaker 1: legs dangleing from it. She was quite small, so anyway,
4:16
Speaker 1: Charles Lightaller was the second son and the youngest of five.
4:22
Speaker 1: When he was only a few weeks old, his mother,
4:24
Speaker 1: Sarah Jane, contracted scarlet fever, a disease that would claim
4:29
Speaker 1: the lives of his siblings, Richard and Caroline, and his
4:33
Speaker 1: grandfather in quick succession. The light Tawllers ran a cotton
4:38
Speaker 1: mill in Chorley, which Frederick James would inherit. But a
4:43
Speaker 1: savvy businessman, he was not so. When light Taller was
4:47
Speaker 1: ten years old, his father remarried and moved to New
4:52
Speaker 1: Zealand without his remaining children. So Charles and his siblings
4:59
Speaker 1: they were left in the care of his aunt and uncle,
5:04
Speaker 1: because you know, why not move to a new world,
5:09
Speaker 1: Like he didn't have any more kids. Actually, Frederick James,
5:11
Speaker 1: he moved there, that was him. But like you just
5:15
Speaker 1: left all your kids behind, Matt like what anywhow? Charles
5:23
Speaker 1: attended Truly Grammar School, where he was, by all accounts,
5:29
Speaker 1: an average student. Being the next in line, it was
5:34
Speaker 1: expected that Charles would take over the mill, but he
5:37
Speaker 1: didn't want to walk up mill. He wanted a different life.
5:41
Speaker 1: He just didn't know what that was yet. Then when
5:44
Speaker 1: he was thirteen, he travels to Liverpool on an excursion
5:48
Speaker 1: with his uncle and when they visit the docks, something happens.
5:55
Speaker 1: According to Lightholler, a sailor invites them on board. Now
6:01
Speaker 1: Liverpool is a port city and it even had the
6:06
Speaker 1: world's first enclosed commercial doc Like it was a maritime
6:12
Speaker 1: mercantile city. It was a big hub for trade and
6:17
Speaker 1: the White Star line and the Qunard line and like
6:21
Speaker 1: they were all based in Liverpool. Originally ships would start
6:26
Speaker 1: their maid in journey from there before Southampton became like
6:31
Speaker 1: the more popular choice. Now, the reason Southampton becomes the
6:35
Speaker 1: more popular choice is its proximity to London, because it
6:39
Speaker 1: was just like a much easier journey. Now for years
6:43
Speaker 1: after Liverpool you know, stopped being like the big massive
6:47
Speaker 1: hub that it was, like a lot of those shipping
6:51
Speaker 1: companies would have their registration still in Liverpool as a
6:56
Speaker 1: mark of respect. So yeah, anyway, big dot city, loads
7:01
Speaker 1: of boats, loads of sailors, so lightaller. You know. He
7:07
Speaker 1: goes to his uncle and asks to go to sea,
7:10
Speaker 1: like he wants to see apprenticeship, Like it's a four
7:15
Speaker 1: year see apprenticeship, and his uncle happily pays the forty
7:20
Speaker 1: pound fee and is kind of relieved. Oh so it's
7:26
Speaker 1: forty quid back then, that's a huge chunk of change.
7:31
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. But here he goes he's like, hey,
7:36
Speaker 1: let me go to sea, and he's like, okay, now,
7:41
Speaker 1: everyone is fairly cool with this decision, except for Lightaller's
7:50
Speaker 1: half sister, Janie, who is very very upset. She makes
7:55
Speaker 1: him promise that he won't drown, and he promises her
7:59
Speaker 1: like He's like, no, I'm not gonna drown. It's like
8:02
Speaker 1: it's very team America world probalys, isn't it When he
8:05
Speaker 1: just goes, I promise I will never die. Except he's
8:09
Speaker 1: from Lancashire. This is probably not even a lancash accent.
8:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get completely dragged by all the lancash people.
8:16
Speaker 1: They're gonna call me a lightwa it's just a really
8:20
Speaker 1: it's a really bad accent. I'm so sorry. But he
8:24
Speaker 1: does tell Janey that there isn't enough water in the
8:28
Speaker 1: sea to drown him, which listen, like he's young. He's
8:32
Speaker 1: a child at this point, and honestly, like like children
8:36
Speaker 1: have a certain level of confidence that others don't, and listen,
8:43
Speaker 1: he's cocky. He's a cocky little shit. And so, at
8:48
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, Charles Herbert Leetoller packs his gear and
8:53
Speaker 1: heads aboard the Primrose Hill, which was a ship by definition,
9:00
Speaker 1: it wasn't exactly kept in the best of conditions, but
9:05
Speaker 1: it floats. It's point. That's that's enough. Being an apprentice
9:11
Speaker 1: seaman wasn't exactly the most glamorous job in the world.
9:15
Speaker 1: Like most people at sea had to mind over matter
9:18
Speaker 1: and power through sea sickness. I mean, this is the
9:21
Speaker 1: time before stabilizers and those handy little bracelets where they
9:25
Speaker 1: put pressure on your like points to I don't know,
9:29
Speaker 1: stop you vomiting or whatever. So he and the other
9:33
Speaker 1: apprentices worked for room and board. They slept in cramped bunks,
9:39
Speaker 1: worked hard, and were just hungry enough to keep down
9:42
Speaker 1: the moldy pork and lime juice that they were provided.
9:46
Speaker 1: Now lime juice, yeah, to prevent scuvey, which was you know,
9:52
Speaker 1: a big issue at the time because people were getting
9:55
Speaker 1: enough fit eman sea. Which I hate to bring this
9:59
Speaker 1: up sidebar, but scurfy has made a comeback. The thing
10:05
Speaker 1: that made pirates ill and lose all of the teeth,
10:08
Speaker 1: scurvy Ricketts is back. Scurvy is back, and people are
10:15
Speaker 1: just deciding to let their children die from measles instead
10:18
Speaker 1: of fucking vaccinating them Like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, your
10:24
Speaker 1: child should not have a disease that was prevalent in
10:28
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, right, I'm sorry if Shmi from Goddamn,
10:35
Speaker 1: I mean that's the eighteen hundreds, But like, if Shmi
10:39
Speaker 1: from Peter Pan could have contracted this disease, I feel
10:44
Speaker 1: like maybe we should be trying to prevent that. And
10:47
Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty six. Sorry, anyway, back to back,
10:53
Speaker 1: Charles Lighthaller. The boys got to know the ship very
10:57
Speaker 1: well and soon discovered that panels gave them access into
11:02
Speaker 1: other rooms with much better food, which often was going
11:08
Speaker 1: to waste. So they'd sneak around to the ship stealing
11:13
Speaker 1: leftovals the remainders of someone else's luncheon or dinner. But
11:18
Speaker 1: they were hungry, and so they did what they did.
11:22
Speaker 1: They sailed. They survived. Over the next few years later
11:27
Speaker 1: there continued his life at sea, and when on land,
11:30
Speaker 1: enjoyed visiting various ports he liked. He very much enjoyed
11:35
Speaker 1: the stopover. He particularly enjoyed Rio de Janeiro in Brazil,
11:42
Speaker 1: even though the locals weren't exactly too fond of the British.
11:46
Speaker 1: How surprising, after one such trip on the Halt Hill,
11:51
Speaker 1: as it left Brazil and was heading towards Calcutta, India,
11:56
Speaker 1: an illness had followed its way on board. Initially, the
12:02
Speaker 1: superiors thought that one of the young sailors was just
12:06
Speaker 1: being lazy and wanted to skive off, but in the
12:10
Speaker 1: actual fact, one of Letholer's crewmates had contracted smallpox. But
12:18
Speaker 1: it wasn't the only disease on board, because what also
12:21
Speaker 1: followed was yellow fever. Both illnesses spread through the crew,
12:28
Speaker 1: most of whom died, one of whom in Leightoler's arms,
12:34
Speaker 1: but Charles he was unscathed, seemingly with a bold immuon system.
12:43
Speaker 1: The Whole Hill had to stop on its way to
12:46
Speaker 1: India and docked in Cape Town. It quarantined after dropping
12:52
Speaker 1: cargo and burying their dead at sea. On the thirteenth
12:57
Speaker 1: of November eighteen eighty nine, the Whole Hill was making
13:01
Speaker 1: its way around the Cape of Good Hope when another
13:04
Speaker 1: ship tries to overtake them. Naturally, Captain Sutherland was not
13:10
Speaker 1: having it, and so the Whole Hill sped up and
13:14
Speaker 1: they raced. Unfortunately, this pedal to the meddle sent the
13:20
Speaker 1: whole into the direct path of the massive fuck off rock.
13:27
Speaker 1: And then a voice cries out, A voice nobody wants
13:31
Speaker 1: to bloody here which.
13:32
Speaker 2: Is every man for himself.
13:39
Speaker 1: The ship runs aground and Lighthaller is practically tribuchaded into
13:44
Speaker 1: the air. And is this the end? No, of course not,
13:49
Speaker 1: because like we're not that far into this story. But
13:54
Speaker 1: the next thing he knows, he's on the ground, the
13:57
Speaker 1: sound of screeching surrounding him. On one side of him,
14:03
Speaker 1: a massive ships gear inches from his head. The other side,
14:10
Speaker 1: the captain's chicken cook.
14:12
Speaker 3: Surprisingly intact, like he narrowly missed being pancaked. For someone
14:22
Speaker 3: who had been thrown from a ship, knocked unconscious and
14:27
Speaker 3: almost had his head caved in with the metal gear,
14:30
Speaker 3: he was doing okay, actually no cuts, no broken bones,
14:35
Speaker 3: just the way bit of a dizzy spell, but you know,
14:38
Speaker 3: not too bad. And the crew, well they were on land.
14:45
Speaker 3: It was an island, and they were moround, but it's there.
14:48
Speaker 3: They're on land, and you know, we're eaten by.
14:52
Speaker 1: Sharks, which is like super fun for everybody involved. Now,
14:57
Speaker 1: on this island, they did have shelter. There were some
15:00
Speaker 1: abandoned huts and so at least they had some protection
15:04
Speaker 1: from the elements. While some of the maroon sailors rather
15:09
Speaker 1: logically started to search for a fresh water source, the
15:12
Speaker 1: teenage Charles was thinking about finding buried treasure like full
15:18
Speaker 1: on Robert Louis Stevenson. He's like, ah, maybe there's gold
15:21
Speaker 1: in these parts org. For two days the men searched
15:26
Speaker 1: for water, dehydrated and exhausted, but then water was discovered.
15:38
Speaker 1: The forty two men they had been struggling. Now like
15:43
Speaker 1: they think they're heroes. They're like, we've found water, and
15:46
Speaker 1: so one cerman runs back to inform everyone like that
15:50
Speaker 1: they're running down this hill like we've got water. We've
15:53
Speaker 1: saved everyone, right, But his enthusiasm was quickly bust when
16:00
Speaker 1: another search party, as it turns out, had already found
16:05
Speaker 1: water closer to where they had wrecked, right, So you know,
16:12
Speaker 1: they're like, we saved people, and it's like did you
16:14
Speaker 1: because we saved everyone first. So they light uponfire and
16:19
Speaker 1: hoped to get the attention of passing ships, but to
16:22
Speaker 1: no avail. So for six days Lightholler and the other
16:27
Speaker 1: forty one men hoped for rescue, eating what they could manage,
16:34
Speaker 1: starting with the captain's chickens. Wonder if they were too
16:38
Speaker 1: stressed to lay eggs, like or if there was enough
16:42
Speaker 1: food for the chickens so like it probably was more
16:45
Speaker 1: humane than letting them starve one, I would assume. Luckily
16:51
Speaker 1: a small boat came ashore. Now this boat didn't have
16:57
Speaker 1: space for all of the marooned seas nor did it
17:01
Speaker 1: have enough provisions for forty two men. They barely had
17:06
Speaker 1: enough for like was it like an eight man crew
17:09
Speaker 1: that was on this boat. But Captain Hayward was well
17:13
Speaker 1: aware that any of the men left behind would die
17:16
Speaker 1: on the island, and so he got every last one
17:21
Speaker 1: on board and brought the men to Adelaide, that's in Australia.
17:28
Speaker 1: Even being in a shipwreck and marooned didn't stop Lydoller,
17:33
Speaker 1: who continued to work at Say in his teens and
17:37
Speaker 1: early twenties. As ships evolved from rigged vessels up to steamships.
17:45
Speaker 1: He mainly worked on cargo ships and worked his way
17:49
Speaker 1: up the ranks until becoming third mate. This is on
17:52
Speaker 1: a wind jammer the night of Saint Michael. This ship
17:58
Speaker 1: would lead to yet another incident. So there's there's a storm,
18:03
Speaker 1: a bad one, and one thing leads to another and
18:07
Speaker 1: the colag nights in the cargo pit. Now, coal fires
18:11
Speaker 1: usually take a bit to get going, and so it
18:14
Speaker 1: does take a while for people to notice that there
18:16
Speaker 1: is a fire on board. Nothing quite like a fire
18:21
Speaker 1: on a boat in the middle of the ocean with
18:24
Speaker 1: no lifeboats yep. Thankfully, being made of iron prevented the
18:31
Speaker 1: ship from going completely ablaze, but everyone is on deck
18:35
Speaker 1: to avoid the heat and of course the noxious fumes.
18:41
Speaker 1: When they get to land, or well are in sight
18:43
Speaker 1: of land, many crew members just swim to shore, while
18:48
Speaker 1: others maguivered some rafts now. Charles end up spending his
18:54
Speaker 1: time convincing fellow crewmen that they would not get eaten
18:57
Speaker 1: by sharks a lab birkenhead. By the way, if I
19:02
Speaker 1: hadn't mentioned it before, I mean I think I did.
19:04
Speaker 1: But Charles Herbert Lightoller was one cocky son of a bitch.
19:09
Speaker 4: Like like, he doesn't act like he's scared anyway, He's
19:14
Speaker 4: too busy, just like ridiculing and walking all of these
19:18
Speaker 4: little makeshift rafts everyone's doing like in its head.
19:21
Speaker 1: He's not doing it aloud because he doesn't want to
19:24
Speaker 1: bring down morale, but like he's having a laugh inside safely. AnyWho,
19:32
Speaker 1: The crew end up on another island, Baya Blanca, off
19:37
Speaker 1: of Argentina, where light Dollar, along with the captain acquired
19:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say acquired. They acquired some horses. Now, thanks
19:48
Speaker 1: to some like bitty Espanol and plain old bribery, they
19:53
Speaker 1: managed to get help and extinguish the fire. Now, after
19:58
Speaker 1: all that Taller is promoted to first officer. So he's cocky,
20:06
Speaker 1: he's arrogant, and he's a fan of some tom fuckery,
20:10
Speaker 1: but he is a damn fine sailor. Most people put
20:22
Speaker 1: up with his crap because he was a damn fine sailor.
20:28
Speaker 1: Then he meets Liverpool's least favorite, Captain Bully Waldles. Now,
20:35
Speaker 1: his name was William, and normally William gets salted to Billy,
20:39
Speaker 1: but this guy was such a shit that they called
20:42
Speaker 1: him Bully right like that, he just stuck. Captain Bully
20:48
Speaker 1: was so awful that two men entered their own lives
20:52
Speaker 1: rather than work with him. Like that shows you just
20:57
Speaker 1: how bad he was. Upon the African Royal steamship the Niagara,
21:05
Speaker 1: there was a storm that prevented the ship from getting
21:08
Speaker 1: to shore. Billy had sent his chief office on our
21:12
Speaker 1: head and pulled up light dollar and asked him what
21:15
Speaker 1: he thought the issue was. Now, I remember when I
21:19
Speaker 1: said he was a cocky little shit. He's also really
21:22
Speaker 1: fucking sarcastic. So he says, like, the issue is that
21:29
Speaker 1: if we can't get to shore to collect whatever the
21:32
Speaker 1: wood or whatever we're supposed to collect, we don't get paid. Right.
21:38
Speaker 1: The captain then asks him why can't we get to shore,
21:43
Speaker 1: and again light Dollar he's like, I don't know. I
21:48
Speaker 1: can't see it because it's foggy. Right, there's a storm,
21:51
Speaker 1: you know, it's not great, it's terrible visibility. The water
21:54
Speaker 1: is just i'm gonna say, the waves are rocky. And
21:59
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't know, I'm not there. So the
22:05
Speaker 1: captain gives him the boat and sends him out with
22:09
Speaker 1: three men and a quartermaster. This is a choppy sea, lats.
22:16
Speaker 1: This small boat is barely in the water before it flips,
22:22
Speaker 1: and Lightoller is in the sea. Now he tries to
22:26
Speaker 1: grab on to the quartermaster as he goes bit like,
22:29
Speaker 1: it slips out of his hand and he is under water.
22:34
Speaker 1: So that he's there and he is sinking, and he's
22:36
Speaker 1: aware that his clothes are weighing him down, and so
22:41
Speaker 1: he starts loosening his clothes. He tries to kick off
22:44
Speaker 1: his trousers because again he's trying to like make himself
22:48
Speaker 1: lighter to get through the sea. Unfortunately, they do not
22:54
Speaker 1: go past his ankles because he's wearing like shoes or
22:58
Speaker 1: boots or you know, and so they're stuck. So he's
23:02
Speaker 1: trying to swim in the sea with his trousers around
23:06
Speaker 1: his ankles. Now, luckily the sea is chopping in such
23:12
Speaker 1: a way that a wave throws him onto the shore
23:16
Speaker 1: of Grand Bassam. Like, so he's on the Court di
23:19
Speaker 1: Vois or the Ivory coast, his trousers again around his ankles,
23:25
Speaker 1: and rain is lashing on his body and he's just
23:27
Speaker 1: on the beach, right, He's just there and like he's tired,
23:35
Speaker 1: he's in pain. He's probably just glad to have a
23:38
Speaker 1: woman to breathe. And this is when he is spotted
23:42
Speaker 1: by two locals who alerted the French authorities because colonialism
23:48
Speaker 1: and the thing is, they saw what they thought was
23:51
Speaker 1: the corpse of a white man, and they were like,
23:55
Speaker 1: we don't want to be dealing with this because we
23:57
Speaker 1: don't want to get into trouble for something we didn't do.
24:00
Speaker 1: And so because they didn't want to be accused of
24:03
Speaker 1: something by the colonial powers, they were like, let's go
24:07
Speaker 1: and just report this. When authorities dead find Lighthaller. He
24:13
Speaker 1: wasn't corpsing on the beach. Instead he was in a
24:17
Speaker 1: saw mill, downing all the whiskey. He was awfuled. The captain, meanwhile,
24:24
Speaker 1: had started organizing recovery as he assumed that all the
24:28
Speaker 1: men in the boat were dead, and they were save
24:33
Speaker 1: for one Charles freaking Lighthaller, who's Jacob whiskey and a sawmill.
24:44
Speaker 1: When the storm subsided, he was back aboard the ship
24:51
Speaker 1: and then you know, he thinks, okay, we're going back,
24:55
Speaker 1: it's fine. And yeah, then he contract malaria. So out
25:02
Speaker 1: of the frying van ends the fire. But because this
25:06
Speaker 1: is light taller, he survives again. So this incident, it
25:14
Speaker 1: had an effect on Charles. His hubris had resulted in
25:19
Speaker 1: the death of shipmates, and so he thought of doing
25:23
Speaker 1: something other than the sea. I mean, the thing is
25:29
Speaker 1: this fella, he's like ken so like his job is ship,
25:34
Speaker 1: but he wants a break and so he sells most
25:40
Speaker 1: of his belongings and hopped on a boat to Montreal.
25:44
Speaker 1: So if you're wandering about Billy Williams, by the way,
25:47
Speaker 1: he ends up getting like a proper like telling off
25:50
Speaker 1: a pure dressing down. And apparently after this incident was
25:55
Speaker 1: a little bit less shitty as a person because you know,
25:58
Speaker 1: he fucked up bad. So why Montreal? So Charles Lighttoller.
26:05
Speaker 1: His plan was to head to the Yukon for gold
26:10
Speaker 1: and this we'll do. This was to travel via Edmonton,
26:14
Speaker 1: like this was the way that was promoted. It was
26:17
Speaker 1: like get to Yukon, get to the gold rush, get
26:21
Speaker 1: via Aham the King Edmonton. See See that that's a
26:28
Speaker 1: problem because that was a super dangerous route and almost
26:34
Speaker 1: as if other perspectives did it too thin. The held
26:37
Speaker 1: because it's like, here's a dangerous route to go less
26:41
Speaker 1: people go please. So he tried to go prospecting for
26:47
Speaker 1: gold with three other men. But this this was not
26:51
Speaker 1: a fruitful endeavor. He had to admit that his your
26:56
Speaker 1: plan wasn't really going going well and it was gonna
27:00
Speaker 1: pan out pan intended. He ends up like giving up
27:06
Speaker 1: on just gold. Like, so he's traveling, actually travels and
27:11
Speaker 1: he tries to go looking for gold with I think
27:14
Speaker 1: it's an irishman and two Americans and a banjo which
27:18
Speaker 1: breaks a burn for dimes. Apparently wasn't very good with
27:23
Speaker 1: this particular instrument. But he thought, if I'm gonna go
27:25
Speaker 1: out West. I need a banjo. Nobody needs a banjo.
27:31
Speaker 1: I await the angry letters from banjo players. Listens the
27:36
Speaker 1: banjo's just remind me of deliverance. So I'm sorry, but
27:40
Speaker 1: they're ling ring ding ding ding ding ding. I say
27:43
Speaker 1: that as if I can play an instrument. No, I
27:48
Speaker 1: can't belave the triangle. But yeah, So he ends up.
27:54
Speaker 1: He ends up going the hobble lifestyle, like I'm surprised
27:59
Speaker 1: he hasn't like Quittington, this little bundle of a stick, right,
28:03
Speaker 1: He ends up riding the rails to get to the
28:07
Speaker 1: East coast. He worked where he could and eventually made
28:12
Speaker 1: it to Port, where he would join a crew on
28:15
Speaker 1: a boat heading back to Liverpool. It seemed to be
28:20
Speaker 1: that this adventure, one where he came out poorer, hungry,
28:26
Speaker 1: and more exhausted than he ever was at say, really
28:30
Speaker 1: helped light all or mature at least a little bit.
28:36
Speaker 1: When he gets back, like he's like straight off the
28:39
Speaker 1: bat starts working. You know, he is working towards his
28:45
Speaker 1: master's certificate to improve his rank and to provide him
28:49
Speaker 1: more opportunities in the shipping industry. So he does this
28:54
Speaker 1: like nose to the groundstone. He gets his selt and
28:57
Speaker 1: gets named third Night that's incorrect, third Mate of the
29:03
Speaker 1: Night Bachelor.
29:05
Speaker 5: Happy days.
29:07
Speaker 1: Everything's coming up Millhouse, except just kidding. He has been
29:13
Speaker 1: absolutely bullshitted. He gets to London and the ship docked
29:19
Speaker 1: is not the Night Bachelor but a companionship. Right, so
29:26
Speaker 1: he's told he has this like really great possession on
29:27
Speaker 1: this really great ship. And then he gets there and
29:29
Speaker 1: it turns out it's like this companionship which is full
29:33
Speaker 1: of cows. Lo Mary cows, Like that's that's where we're at.
29:40
Speaker 1: And so now we didn't have time to be angry
29:44
Speaker 1: on this cattle ship because he contracted malaria. Again, third
29:49
Speaker 1: one's free. So he ends up just like in a
29:53
Speaker 1: corner in a blanket, just fevered, like with malaria, rounded
30:00
Speaker 1: by cow dung. Like it's not an opportune moment, you know.
30:06
Speaker 1: And after this he starts looking for other options and opportunities.
30:13
Speaker 1: And when he's twenty four years old, he makes his
30:17
Speaker 1: way to the White Star Line in Liverpool. His first
30:23
Speaker 1: assignment was on the RMS medic Now this was a
30:27
Speaker 1: big change for him, all right. He said that the
30:30
Speaker 1: White Star Line ran out ships with a military level precision.
30:35
Speaker 1: He knew boats. He knew the sea, but he'd never
30:38
Speaker 1: dealt with this level of organization and authority considering some
30:47
Speaker 1: of the vessels he had been on like this like
30:51
Speaker 1: a way of working, did come as a bit of
30:53
Speaker 1: a shock. He rotated on and off the medic for
30:58
Speaker 1: a while. And it's when he's on the Australia route
31:03
Speaker 1: that he would meet the love of his life. Okay,
31:07
Speaker 1: so okay, I gotta talk about the Australia route for
31:09
Speaker 1: a second because it's too funny not to mention. So
31:12
Speaker 1: remember how I said that he had matured, Well, it
31:15
Speaker 1: turns out he hadn't matured completely because the boy still
31:18
Speaker 1: loved a prank. So he ends up like in Australia
31:24
Speaker 1: and him and a bunch of crewmates like set off
31:29
Speaker 1: a one gun salute and causes a whole issue in
31:32
Speaker 1: port and basically the authorities try and figure out who
31:37
Speaker 1: did this stuff, because like they raise the boar flag
31:39
Speaker 1: and everything. It's just a whole mess and authorities are
31:43
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who did it. Now the White
31:46
Speaker 1: Star Line very quickly and very swiftly find the culprit.
31:50
Speaker 1: Now Lightwaller like offers to reside like the guy in
31:55
Speaker 1: George just like like laughs tells him to like not
32:01
Speaker 1: be a dick effectively and to just not do that
32:03
Speaker 1: shit again. And for a while he has taken off
32:07
Speaker 1: the austraet of your route because they're like, let's just
32:09
Speaker 1: not risk him being caught. Now he does end back
32:13
Speaker 1: on it, which again is where he meets the love
32:18
Speaker 1: of his life, a one Miss Iowa Sylvianna Zela Holly Wilson,
32:25
Speaker 1: or or Sylvia to her friends. Sylvia, like King Toutunkamun,
32:31
Speaker 1: had a clubfoot, which is relevant to this story just
32:35
Speaker 1: so you know, I promise. So basically, having a clubfoot
32:41
Speaker 1: isn't great for a balance on a rocking ship. So
32:45
Speaker 1: what would happen is she often lost her footing because
32:49
Speaker 1: you know, ships aren't exactly the steadiest of places to be.
32:55
Speaker 1: So one day she loses her footing and boom ends
32:59
Speaker 1: up in chary earls light taller's arms. So, being a gentleman,
33:05
Speaker 1: he carries her up a flight of stairs like he's
33:08
Speaker 1: so into her, and he ends up finding out. By
33:12
Speaker 1: finding out, he inquires watches and asks when she had
33:17
Speaker 1: her meals so that he could be around to help her,
33:20
Speaker 1: so like to carry her to her breakfast and to
33:23
Speaker 1: her dinner and things, and like the other crew, they're
33:28
Speaker 1: just like why won't you marry her? Like what is
33:30
Speaker 1: wrong with you? Because like yours so into her boy
33:32
Speaker 1: woo woo woo woo, and like they're probably making like
33:34
Speaker 1: kissing noises at them from like behind a door. Childs
33:43
Speaker 1: and sildey a treat. Okay, yes, sissy and gee. So
33:49
Speaker 1: then of course he proposes. So they dock in Sydney,
33:56
Speaker 1: like they're not they're not going very far right, So
34:00
Speaker 1: they dawk in Sydney, get married, and then travel back
34:04
Speaker 1: to England as husband and wife. Now after this he
34:11
Speaker 1: moves from the Australia route to the Transatlantic route. He
34:16
Speaker 1: sells on the Majestic, then the Oceanic, and he has
34:22
Speaker 1: taken home a good chunk of change. Right what he
34:26
Speaker 1: earns on one trip on the Oceanic was what he
34:31
Speaker 1: earned the total of the previous year. Now this is
34:36
Speaker 1: his favorite ship, Like this is his favorite ship to
34:40
Speaker 1: be on, like being on the sea. This is the
34:44
Speaker 1: place he wants to be, like this is it? So
34:48
Speaker 1: it's here where he was named Officer of the Watch
34:51
Speaker 1: under Captain John G. Cameron. He worked for years on
34:59
Speaker 1: the Oceanic ending up like as a second officer. So
35:05
Speaker 1: the White Star Line had been expanding and growing over time,
35:11
Speaker 1: and there was a big boss of a ship and
35:15
Speaker 1: he wanted on it, the RMS Titanic, because he wants
35:22
Speaker 1: to progress. And he's told like, this is the one,
35:25
Speaker 1: this is the big boy, this is the one we
35:26
Speaker 1: want to be on. And so originally he is named
35:31
Speaker 1: fust officer. William mud Duck was chief officer. Second officer
35:38
Speaker 1: was David Blair, and the captain was Edward J. Smith.
35:43
Speaker 1: Now he had actually met Edward J. Smith like before this,
35:47
Speaker 1: and they had worked together on previous like White Star
35:52
Speaker 1: Line ships, and he considered the captain a friend. Now
35:58
Speaker 1: White Star Line for wherever the hell reason decided that
36:03
Speaker 1: instead of keeping this very specific way that they had
36:07
Speaker 1: originally planned it, that they were gonna shake things up
36:10
Speaker 1: a little and change it around.
36:14
Speaker 6: And yeah, yeah, decided to bring in some Olympic crew,
36:22
Speaker 6: including Henry Wilde as chief officer.
36:25
Speaker 1: This bumped Mr Doctor first led to all of a
36:28
Speaker 1: second and Blair off the ship. So the men, you know,
36:35
Speaker 1: they joined the sea trails in Belfast, and yeah, went
36:39
Speaker 1: through everything. Everything seemed fine, going through all their safety
36:42
Speaker 1: protocols Unfortunately, what no one knew, like at the time
36:47
Speaker 1: was the David layer when he left, he did so
36:51
Speaker 1: with the keys to the cabinet that stole the binoculars.
36:56
Speaker 1: Now that isn't just like this like very easily accessible cabinet.
37:01
Speaker 1: Otherwise somebody would have just like Jimmy to open. Because
37:04
Speaker 1: let's fix it, somebody would have Jimmy to open for
37:06
Speaker 1: a pair of binoculars. Because that's these guys have tricks. Okay,
37:12
Speaker 1: So anyway they do the trials and the contemporary safety
37:17
Speaker 1: standards of the time well met. The Titanic left Belfast,
37:24
Speaker 1: then on April tenth left Southampton, made it to way
37:28
Speaker 1: to Sherbeau in France and then Cove and Cork in Ireland,
37:33
Speaker 1: which was also known as Queenstown at the time. At
37:38
Speaker 1: the French port, he was informed that the ship had
37:42
Speaker 1: no binoculars. Now here's the thing, Okay, why would a
37:50
Speaker 1: ship only have one set of binoculars? And now understand
37:54
Speaker 1: that this could be a financial thing. However, no expense
37:59
Speaker 1: was spelled building the Olympic class liners. Like when I
38:04
Speaker 1: say there wasn't a budget, there was not a budget. Okay.
38:08
Speaker 1: They really went all out to ensure that these were
38:10
Speaker 1: the best vessels they could be, and so one set
38:15
Speaker 1: of binoculars just seems like, you know, something that was overlooked. Sorry,
38:23
Speaker 1: my voice is getting very high pitch now. So here's
38:29
Speaker 1: the thing. They're like, they don't think it's going to
38:31
Speaker 1: be that bad because the Marconi operators, so the guys
38:35
Speaker 1: who run the radio, they would be informed of dangerous
38:38
Speaker 1: and so they decided listen, right, these guys will be
38:42
Speaker 1: informed if there's any stuff out there, if there's anything
38:44
Speaker 1: to look out for. So it'll be fine, and we'll
38:48
Speaker 1: just pick up and new binoculars when they reach New
38:53
Speaker 1: York and we'll have it for the journey home. Cut
38:58
Speaker 1: to April fourteenth at ten pm. So he Charles Lighthaller
39:06
Speaker 1: is relieved by Muduck. Like a warner could come in
39:09
Speaker 1: about ice ahead, but that message never made it to
39:13
Speaker 1: Lighthaller or the bridge. Murdock and Lightholler discussed just how
39:19
Speaker 1: dark it is. It's a moonless night with poor to
39:23
Speaker 1: no visibility. Right. There's always this talk about how clear
39:30
Speaker 1: the skies were, and like that's fine, it's fine if
39:33
Speaker 1: there's no cloud cover, but it doesn't help if there's nothing. Okay,
39:39
Speaker 1: So pure darkness. There is no moon, there's no light
39:44
Speaker 1: source from anywhere, there's just the darkness ahead. There's nothing
39:51
Speaker 1: to see until it's too late. So he goes to
39:57
Speaker 1: bed and like he tries to rest. So basically his
40:02
Speaker 1: shifts tend to be four hours on and eight hours off,
40:06
Speaker 1: and so you're basically rotating just to ensure that people
40:10
Speaker 1: get enough rest to be able to do their job.
40:15
Speaker 1: And so he wants to be warm, he wants to
40:17
Speaker 1: get a cozy, he wants to have a nap. He
40:21
Speaker 1: is drifting off. He's like basically out when he is
40:25
Speaker 1: awoken sharply at twenty to midnight, He's jerked awake, right.
40:33
Speaker 1: He looks outside his door and he doesn't see any commotion,
40:37
Speaker 1: and he decides to wait in his cabin because people
40:40
Speaker 1: know he's supposed to be in his cabin and if
40:42
Speaker 1: somebody wants to find him, they will. He's easy to
40:46
Speaker 1: fde Fourth Officer John Boxall comes and tells him that
40:51
Speaker 1: they've hit an iceberg, and let Toler throws on some
40:56
Speaker 1: clothes over his pajamas. He's got trousers, he's got a
41:02
Speaker 1: navy jumper and his bridge coat. Now, the thing about
41:07
Speaker 1: the Titanic which everyone seems to manage to forget, is
41:11
Speaker 1: that it was designed to be its own lifeboat. The
41:15
Speaker 1: lower deck had water tight doors that would close, keeping
41:20
Speaker 1: the ship afloat and pumping out water, so like it's
41:24
Speaker 1: basically an engineering marvel. Basically, if two components were full,
41:30
Speaker 1: it would stay afloat. Unfortunately, the breach in the hull
41:36
Speaker 1: resulted in six compartments filling with water, so it's not
41:43
Speaker 1: even one big gash. The way of the iceberg hit
41:48
Speaker 1: the ship is that it's several small gashes or small
41:53
Speaker 1: by comparison to the anormity of the ship, like all
41:56
Speaker 1: across it. And that's where that's where this trouble comes from.
42:02
Speaker 1: Because if it was just two compartments, if it was
42:05
Speaker 1: just one, but this just it just took over, you know.
42:13
Speaker 1: And so the other thing about the lifeboats is that
42:19
Speaker 1: the Titanic actually had more lifeboats than it was required
42:22
Speaker 1: to have because it was to do with tonnage and
42:25
Speaker 1: not for passengers. Because these lifeboats were designed to be
42:30
Speaker 1: you know, ferries, right, they were supposed to ferry the
42:36
Speaker 1: people from one sinking ship to the rescue ship. So anyway,
42:42
Speaker 1: the compartments are filling up with water, and Lightholler knows
42:45
Speaker 1: that this is not good. But at this point he
42:49
Speaker 1: didn't think the Titanic was actually sinking. So he knew
42:52
Speaker 1: there was a breach. He knew water was coming in,
42:54
Speaker 1: but he thought, like it's designed this specific way, it's
42:58
Speaker 1: gonna be fine, you know. But a good captain knows
43:02
Speaker 1: his ship. And captain entered Jasmith. He checked his enklinometer
43:08
Speaker 1: and saw that the Titanic had already tilted five degrees starboard.
43:14
Speaker 1: So it was already tilting because of the water that
43:19
Speaker 1: was filling up. The captain's old chief officer wild to
43:24
Speaker 1: start uncovering lifeboats. And steam is bellowing from the funnels.
43:31
Speaker 1: It's going through the engines, and it is loud. So
43:34
Speaker 1: when light Taller is told to enact the buckanhead drill,
43:38
Speaker 1: he thinks it means women and children only. Now for context,
43:47
Speaker 1: Lighthaller does not think the ship is going to sink.
43:50
Speaker 1: And in fairness, chips usually sank very quickly. Right, you're
43:55
Speaker 1: talking minutes, I mean sometimes it's an hour. Sometimes it's
44:00
Speaker 1: like much quicker. But like he's been on chipwricks, he
44:03
Speaker 1: knows how they go down, and they go down, and
44:05
Speaker 1: this is slow and the Titanic it was supposed to
44:11
Speaker 1: stay afloat the lifeboats were supposed to ferry passengers to
44:15
Speaker 1: the rescue ship, and so lighttoler he is severely underloading
44:20
Speaker 1: the lifeboats on his side. Like they also didn't want
44:24
Speaker 1: to panic the passengers. It's just a lot going on
44:30
Speaker 1: because they don't want if there's a panic, there's a stampede,
44:32
Speaker 1: which then leads to like more loss of life, and
44:36
Speaker 1: it's hard to be in control when there's a lot
44:38
Speaker 1: of panic happening. Meanwhile, the Marconi operators are pounding out
44:47
Speaker 1: c QD, so like SQD is was just like a
44:52
Speaker 1: warning sign, like help Maddy. And at this point, because
44:58
Speaker 1: you know, they haven't they haven't really got an official system,
45:04
Speaker 1: so like people would use different codes, and they just
45:08
Speaker 1: chose these three letters, the CQD and Morse code because
45:12
Speaker 1: they're like that'll be fine, right, that'll be it'll be
45:16
Speaker 1: a thing that it doesn't mean anything, so people know
45:19
Speaker 1: will know it means this thing. And then they decide
45:24
Speaker 1: to even start using so OS, which was not like
45:27
Speaker 1: what we know it today and so OS does not
45:30
Speaker 1: mean save our souls. Okay. It's one of those weird
45:33
Speaker 1: things that happens when say, for example, you take a
45:37
Speaker 1: bunch of letters together like sos, and then suddenly over
45:40
Speaker 1: time people will think it means something, they'll apply something
45:45
Speaker 1: else to it, when really it's literally just dida do
45:51
Speaker 1: do do, just because it's three dots, three dashes, three dots. Right.
45:59
Speaker 1: That's why old sms, the old SMS used to be
46:08
Speaker 1: because it was the Morse code for sms, because those
46:12
Speaker 1: were very easily recognizable sounds, especially when you know you're
46:19
Speaker 1: looking for a very specific combination of letters and there's
46:25
Speaker 1: other noises happening. Now. Each sort of Marconi machine, each
46:30
Speaker 1: radio wireless system, they had their own specific sound. In
46:34
Speaker 1: the Titanics was like high pitched. It was very very clear,
46:38
Speaker 1: very different. But yeah, they are doing their best, so
46:42
Speaker 1: try and get the attention. They're sending like warnings to
46:47
Speaker 1: the California, they're sending it out to everyone, like the
46:50
Speaker 1: Carpathia is hearing it, and so as like the Olympic,
46:53
Speaker 1: and the Olympic is like like eight hundred miles away,
46:57
Speaker 1: like it's so far, but there's just a lot happening,
47:02
Speaker 1: and a lot of these crews, especially those who were
47:04
Speaker 1: in these areas, they knew each other like it was
47:09
Speaker 1: you know, the White Starlin crew all knew each other,
47:11
Speaker 1: and you know, these were friends, these were colleagues, and
47:18
Speaker 1: something bad was happening, and the crew on board they're
47:24
Speaker 1: setting off flares, so the California thinks they're fireworks and
47:33
Speaker 1: it's receiving messages. But their Marconi operator had gone to
47:36
Speaker 1: the bed right, and well here here's the thing. Now,
47:40
Speaker 1: people didn't think this was going to be sort of
47:47
Speaker 1: a system like that. They assumed that things like the
47:51
Speaker 1: Marconi machine would just be to send messages, you know,
47:56
Speaker 1: oh to one another. Like it wasn't meant to be
47:58
Speaker 1: this big, you know, reasonable logical idea. So as the
48:05
Speaker 1: ship continued to sink, light Dollar is just like walking
48:10
Speaker 1: around at one point picking up women and putting them
48:14
Speaker 1: into lifeboats. So basically there are women and children in
48:21
Speaker 1: these lifeboats and he's not letting in any men. And
48:24
Speaker 1: like it even gets to the point where it's like no,
48:27
Speaker 1: like boy over twelve or over fourteen, Like there's a
48:30
Speaker 1: very specific cutoff. Now on the other side of the ship.
48:35
Speaker 1: Murdoc is putting women and children first, and then if
48:37
Speaker 1: there's any space, any man who happens to be around
48:40
Speaker 1: gets in the damn boat. So as the reality of
48:46
Speaker 1: the situation sets in, the crew tried to call back
48:50
Speaker 1: Lifeboat six, but it doesn't return. Now, lifeboats Sex lest
48:55
Speaker 1: we forget doesn't have a lot of crew. It's got
48:58
Speaker 1: one crew member on it, right, It's got one a
49:01
Speaker 1: yachtman with a broken arm, and a bunch of women.
49:03
Speaker 1: So they're just rowing, right, They don't know what they're doing.
49:06
Speaker 1: They're just continuing to row. So even if they're called back,
49:10
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee they would have heard them. And panic
49:15
Speaker 1: it is setting in and he has his room, no men,
49:22
Speaker 1: women and children only. He's in this situation where this
49:27
Speaker 1: is the only control he has. And so I think
49:31
Speaker 1: it's too easy to judge him in this very particular scenario.
49:35
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy to say, well, why didn't
49:38
Speaker 1: he do aw, why did he do b? Like because
49:41
Speaker 1: this was an unprecedented, you know, disaster. Like if he's
49:46
Speaker 1: on a ship with his crewmates and it goes down,
49:49
Speaker 1: he knows how to deal with that. These are people
49:51
Speaker 1: who are trained to survive at sea. This is a
49:54
Speaker 1: bunch of passengers. These are wives, children, you know, men
50:02
Speaker 1: who haven't lived his reality. And he's trying to keep
50:06
Speaker 1: everyone calm, and he makes mistakes. He definitely should have
50:13
Speaker 1: had those lifeboats filled, like we can argue to the
50:16
Speaker 1: cows come home, But it happened, and he did what
50:19
Speaker 1: he thought was best at the time given the inflammation
50:22
Speaker 1: he had, it wasn't enough. And sometimes we forget that
50:28
Speaker 1: no matter how hard we try, no matter how well
50:32
Speaker 1: we think we're doing, because no one likes to believe
50:34
Speaker 1: that they are the villain. They always like to think
50:36
Speaker 1: they are doing the right thing, and sometimes we're not,
50:41
Speaker 1: like honey, we're all the villain and someone else's story.
50:46
Speaker 1: So he has this one sliver of control in the chaos,
50:52
Speaker 1: and he starts getting the collapsible lifeboats ready because it's
50:55
Speaker 1: like they're not meant to be used unlessen necessary, like emerging.
51:00
Speaker 1: He's like, it's a fucking emergency, lads, and so yeah,
51:07
Speaker 1: he pulls a yachtsman onto the collapsible because he doesn't
51:11
Speaker 1: have enough crew. That's another one. He's like, you do
51:13
Speaker 1: this fucking fantastic, You're coming with me. He hears the
51:17
Speaker 1: band playing and he appreciates the morale boost, but he's
51:22
Speaker 1: not fond of the actual music because he doesn't like
51:25
Speaker 1: jazz of course he doesn't. Like he was born in
51:30
Speaker 1: the Victorian era. I don't expect this man who loved
51:33
Speaker 1: a laugh at sea to like jazz. Whereas I got
51:38
Speaker 1: very excited when I heard like a version of many
51:42
Speaker 1: the muture that I hadn't heard before, and I was like, Oh,
51:44
Speaker 1: what's this anyway? Where's that the blues anyway? So he's
51:51
Speaker 1: trying to fill this collapsible lifeboat and he sees Isidora.
51:56
Speaker 1: That's Isadora Strauss. He tries to get her own boat,
52:01
Speaker 1: and she refused, saying that she and her husband started
52:05
Speaker 1: together and they would finish together. Oh this one always
52:11
Speaker 1: gets me. Instead, she makes sure her maid gets in
52:17
Speaker 1: the boat and gives her her fur coat, saying that
52:20
Speaker 1: she isn't going to be needing it anymore. So like
52:23
Speaker 1: after the sinking, the maid tries to give the coat
52:26
Speaker 1: back to the strouser's daughters, and because she's trying to like,
52:30
Speaker 1: this is her coat, you have it, and her daughters
52:35
Speaker 1: tell her to keep it because her mum wanted her
52:39
Speaker 1: to have it. It's always the individual moments that get me,
52:43
Speaker 1: because whenever we look at something, we look at this
52:45
Speaker 1: big picture, and because it's so large, we don't really
52:50
Speaker 1: compute the human impact of it because it's so big.
52:56
Speaker 1: You know, it's numbers. It's only when you break it
53:00
Speaker 1: down to each individual, to each person, that you really
53:03
Speaker 1: see the true cost of what happened. And it's far
53:08
Speaker 1: too easy to become numb to the pain of the world.
53:14
Speaker 1: And I think we have to be able to feel it,
53:18
Speaker 1: because we have to be able to try and make
53:19
Speaker 1: it better for us and everyone else. And even though
53:24
Speaker 1: like social class was still a massive thing, this woman
53:28
Speaker 1: made sure her maid was safe. She made sure that
53:32
Speaker 1: she lived, and that is bravery beyond compare, because she
53:38
Speaker 1: knew she was going to die and she decided to
53:42
Speaker 1: use that moment to help someone else out. So at
53:47
Speaker 1: this point, men are panicking and they're pushing and shoving
53:52
Speaker 1: and jostling, and so light Older pulls out his pistol.
53:56
Speaker 1: Right Luckily, the side of the gun is enough to
53:59
Speaker 1: calm the riot. He's trying to get the final lifeboats off,
54:03
Speaker 1: but the collapsible flips like he's gotten a few off
54:08
Speaker 1: at this point, and this is the very last chance
54:10
Speaker 1: he's gotten. It goes and then the bulkhead gives way.
54:16
Speaker 1: The ship is at an angle. People are falling onto
54:20
Speaker 1: the ocean, like people are falling, people are pinned like
54:23
Speaker 1: he gets pinned at one point, like on the railing,
54:28
Speaker 1: like bodies one after another are crashing into the water.
54:34
Speaker 1: And so the ship is definitely coming down, and so
54:38
Speaker 1: with no other choice, he he leaps into the water.
54:44
Speaker 1: He sinks beneath the cold, icy waves, and he is
54:48
Speaker 1: going down, and he is sinking deeper and deeper. He
54:54
Speaker 1: hears a crack and then a massive blast of hot
55:00
Speaker 1: and water from the boiler exploding. So basic science, when
55:07
Speaker 1: very hot meets very cold reaction so effectively this boiler,
55:14
Speaker 1: when it meets the icy water of the North Atlantic,
55:18
Speaker 1: this gush just thrusts him to the surface, to the
55:24
Speaker 1: sounds of screams. He's face to face now with collapsible
55:31
Speaker 1: b the lifeboat he failed to launch. He grabs onto
55:37
Speaker 1: a rope attached to the overturned lifeboat and then climbs
55:43
Speaker 1: on top. He founds the Marconi operators, Jack Phillips and
55:49
Speaker 1: Harold McBride. He gets them onto the boat now that's overturned,
55:55
Speaker 1: and there's a few of them on it. And this
55:57
Speaker 1: is where there's a discrepancy caause he says that Phillips
56:07
Speaker 1: like he was alive for a good while, whereas McBride
56:13
Speaker 1: thinks that he's dead for or at least unconscious and
56:19
Speaker 1: isn't able to talk. But Leitoler says that he spoke
56:25
Speaker 1: to him and he apologized for not passing on the message. Now,
56:33
Speaker 1: according to Charles Lightholler, he holds on to Phillips, but
56:39
Speaker 1: he doesn't make it and he has to let him
56:41
Speaker 1: go into the water. And at this point, collapsible B
56:50
Speaker 1: was starting to sink. It's almost daybreak. But at this
56:56
Speaker 1: point lifeboats are coming around searching for survivors, and he
57:02
Speaker 1: blows on his officer's whistle. Now it's a different pitch
57:05
Speaker 1: to other whistles, and it's very recognizable to these crew,
57:08
Speaker 1: and so they know it's his. And so the thirty
57:13
Speaker 1: men atop the overturned lifeboat survived and made it onto
57:18
Speaker 1: the Carpathia, with Charles Lightoller being the very last person
57:25
Speaker 1: from the sinking of the RMS Titanic to be saved.
57:39
Speaker 1: The Carpathia made its way to New York, and not
57:43
Speaker 1: long after arriving, all crew were served with warrants to
57:47
Speaker 1: testify at an inquiry. Now, Lightoler was mad at this
57:52
Speaker 1: because to him, what right did the US government have
57:56
Speaker 1: to investigate a British ship on international waters? And he's angry,
58:02
Speaker 1: he's traumatized and he just wants to go home to
58:06
Speaker 1: his family. Now him be in Asaki, so and so
58:10
Speaker 1: led to and I'm gonna say it interesting inquiry. The
58:14
Speaker 1: US inquiry was led by Senator William Smith, who weirdly
58:19
Speaker 1: didn't know much about ocean Linuls. Lightholler is the highest
58:24
Speaker 1: ranking surviving officer and he is drilled, like they try
58:29
Speaker 1: and wreck him over the calls, but I don't think
58:31
Speaker 1: they quite manage that. So they questioned this man about
58:37
Speaker 1: the many, many ways which people could have died on
58:41
Speaker 1: the sinking ship, which just feels weird and a bit harsh.
58:46
Speaker 1: And also he wouldn't know that information because I mean,
58:52
Speaker 1: he would have to spend a lot of time considering
58:54
Speaker 1: all the ways that people would have died. And he's
58:57
Speaker 1: just back like that's that's a law to consider. And
59:02
Speaker 1: so light Taller is being the company man while being
59:06
Speaker 1: thrown under the company bus, and he's exhausted, and he's
59:11
Speaker 1: questioned about why the Carpathia was to return to England,
59:15
Speaker 1: like why Esmy had given orders to send them back,
59:18
Speaker 1: and he's just like yeah. For the British inquiry, probably
59:24
Speaker 1: like this, man Smith like asks light Taller.
59:29
Speaker 5: What the result was on the ship from the collision
59:34
Speaker 5: with the iceberg, and light Taller said, with a smirk.
59:44
Speaker 1: On his damn face, it sank. He's not wrong, Okay,
59:52
Speaker 1: I want to clarify, he's not wrong like that. It
59:54
Speaker 1: sank like that. That was the result of the collision.
59:57
Speaker 1: The ship sank. Oh my god. Right after this terrible
1:00:03
Speaker 1: American inquiry, right, Lightholer was brought before the British inquiry
1:00:08
Speaker 1: led by Lord Mercy. Now this inquiry resulted in answers,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: and he was able to explain, you know, the Domino's
1:00:17
Speaker 1: falling that led to the tragedy. Now, this inquiry deadly
1:00:21
Speaker 1: to stricter maritime laws and safety regulations. But Lightholer, he
1:00:27
Speaker 1: didn't want to be like the face of this, of
1:00:29
Speaker 1: the survivor. He didn't want to be the face of
1:00:31
Speaker 1: the company. He didn't want to be all the stuff.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: He just wanted to be back at sea. But again
1:00:35
Speaker 1: he's dealing with the inquiries, lawsuits and being the poster
1:00:39
Speaker 1: buy of the Titanic disaster. Then two years later, in
1:00:44
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen war broke out, the Great War or World
1:00:49
Speaker 1: War One to you and I, Many ships were requisitioned
1:00:55
Speaker 1: by the Navy, and so the Oceanic, which had been
1:01:00
Speaker 1: his favorite ship, had actually been built under a deal
1:01:03
Speaker 1: with the Admiralty, so it had very specific naval specifications.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: In the case of the Oceanic, guns mounted guns were
1:01:19
Speaker 1: able to be added to it to make it an
1:01:22
Speaker 1: armed merchant cruiser. Leed Taller was given the rank of
1:01:28
Speaker 1: lieutenant and the Royal Navy Reserve aboard of the Oceanic.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: Also on board was David Blair serving as navigator. David
1:01:38
Speaker 1: Blair who had left with the keys to the binoculars
1:01:41
Speaker 1: in his pockets. On the seventh of September, the Oceanic
1:01:46
Speaker 1: hit a reef. The ship was aiming for an island
1:01:49
Speaker 1: in the Shetlands, but David Blair had directed them or
1:01:54
Speaker 1: navigated them directly hinto a reef yet again. Light Taller
1:02:02
Speaker 1: leapt out of bed in his pajamas and ran to
1:02:05
Speaker 1: the bridge. He made chill everyone was off the ship. Then,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: with a clock that he ripped from the wall of
1:02:13
Speaker 1: his favorite ship, he dove into the water of the
1:02:17
Speaker 1: North Sea. After sinking, he was sent to naval barracks
1:02:22
Speaker 1: in Davenport, and he was bored as hell. That was
1:02:28
Speaker 1: an opening, and he was told it would be dangerous,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: like super dangerous. It would be like super dodgy, and
1:02:36
Speaker 1: he's like, fuck this for a game of soldiers. I'm there, okay.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: He just he can't sit in this space anymore. He's
1:02:42
Speaker 1: bored to tails. And so he goes in a few missions,
1:02:47
Speaker 1: catches the measles and then he has to deal with
1:02:50
Speaker 1: the newest tech in water, this seaplane. If you want
1:02:55
Speaker 1: to know more about the seaplane, I do talk about
1:02:57
Speaker 1: that in detail in the episode on Frederick Rutland Rutland
1:03:02
Speaker 1: from Jutland and Beverly Hill spy so let Taller. He
1:03:07
Speaker 1: is on a seaplane sending coded messages on enemy positions
1:03:12
Speaker 1: on what I'm gonna call a tempestuous system. So he's
1:03:17
Speaker 1: up in the air like he is also shit scared.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: He doesn't like flying. He prefers being on the sea
1:03:24
Speaker 1: like water to air. Not big fan, but yeah, he's
1:03:29
Speaker 1: he's doing this and he becomes a lieutenant and is
1:03:33
Speaker 1: given command of His Majesty's torpedo boat one one seven
1:03:41
Speaker 1: and it's part of the newer defense flotilla. So basically
1:03:44
Speaker 1: it's on the Thames in London. It's basically trying to
1:03:46
Speaker 1: like protect London from attack. So on the thirty first
1:03:53
Speaker 1: of July nineteen sixteen, Zeppelins headed towards London. Gunners on
1:04:01
Speaker 1: the boat did get some licks in, but bombs did
1:04:04
Speaker 1: run down. The zeppelin did turn and retreat. And after
1:04:09
Speaker 1: that Lettoler joined the Dover Patrol, an elite and the
1:04:14
Speaker 1: discreet unit of the Royal Navy based surprisingly out of Dover.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: They helped patrols between Dover and Dunkirk in France. And
1:04:26
Speaker 1: you're thinking Dunkirk, that sounds very French. It does, it does?
1:04:31
Speaker 1: It does. Indeed patrol served as lookouts typically and Leaterler
1:04:37
Speaker 1: was given command of the h MS Falcon. The Falcon
1:04:43
Speaker 1: was struck by the John Fitzgerald, a Royal Navy troller
1:04:47
Speaker 1: on the April Fills Day nineteen eighteen. There was a
1:04:52
Speaker 1: court martial and he was basically yeah. They were like,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: it's fine, you didn't do shit, It's okay. So he's
1:05:04
Speaker 1: then given command of the HMS Gary. What a name
1:05:08
Speaker 1: for a ship us this one, It's Gary. It's a
1:05:12
Speaker 1: shipping convoys and so the Gary came upon a German
1:05:16
Speaker 1: U boat, the UB one one zero. They shot the
1:05:21
Speaker 1: boat like it took like a minute for it to think.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: It like really went down and the survivors were taken
1:05:29
Speaker 1: as prisoner and Lighthaller is promoted to a lieutenant commander.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: After the war, Lighthaller returned to the White Star Line,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: where he was appointed Chief Officer of the Celtic. At
1:05:43
Speaker 1: this point, his family had grown. He had five kids,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: two boys. Nope, that's wrong, three boys and two girls.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: Life was getting back to normal, and with his record,
1:05:54
Speaker 1: he kept waiting for his next step up. He kept
1:05:57
Speaker 1: waiting for his appointment on the Olympic was his big goal.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Now as years passed, the promotion was kept just out
1:06:06
Speaker 1: of reach. The new owners of the White Star Line
1:06:09
Speaker 1: would well, they would try and distance themselves from the
1:06:12
Speaker 1: Titanic disaster and let all her well, he was the
1:06:15
Speaker 1: face of it. And so this is like really bothering
1:06:18
Speaker 1: him and stressing him out. And so he goes to
1:06:20
Speaker 1: Sylvia for advice, like he was stuck in limbo with
1:06:24
Speaker 1: his career. So she told him to come home, and
1:06:28
Speaker 1: so he resigned, Like he reads this beautiful long heartfelt
1:06:33
Speaker 1: like resignation letter about you know, how the time he'd
1:06:36
Speaker 1: spent there and everything he loved and how he was
1:06:39
Speaker 1: so sad to go but he just had to. And
1:06:42
Speaker 1: so he gives it in and they're like, okay, bye,
1:06:46
Speaker 1: and it just knocks him for six, you know, And
1:06:50
Speaker 1: this is where he starts to struggle. He was unqualified
1:06:54
Speaker 1: for one job and too old for the next, and
1:06:58
Speaker 1: they end up like just because out of necessity, the
1:07:01
Speaker 1: family end up running a boarding house. And so he
1:07:06
Speaker 1: does manage to get a small boat called the Mutt,
1:07:10
Speaker 1: and so he would go sailing casually. Oh okay, it's
1:07:14
Speaker 1: actually really fun. So he does this one race, right,
1:07:16
Speaker 1: and it's from Dover to Cali. It's in eighteen twenty nine,
1:07:20
Speaker 1: and the weather was not great, Like you know, some
1:07:22
Speaker 1: people do try and get it canceled because the weather's
1:07:25
Speaker 1: so shit, but he ends up being the only boat
1:07:32
Speaker 1: to reach the finish line with absolutely no trouble. And
1:07:35
Speaker 1: he's so fucking smug about this, he's like a still
1:07:38
Speaker 1: govern it. By nineteen twenty nine, the Lighthallers had an inn,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: a chicken coop, and enough money to treat Charles to
1:07:47
Speaker 1: an actual boat. This Sundowner He was planning to go
1:07:52
Speaker 1: on a trip with David Blair to the island that
1:07:54
Speaker 1: he had been shipwrecked on as a teenager, but his
1:07:58
Speaker 1: wife Sylvia finally told him no, Like she was like,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: you're not doing that with him. The guy who you
1:08:08
Speaker 1: know kept the keys to the binoculars and then ran
1:08:11
Speaker 1: the last ship aground that you were upon him, and
1:08:15
Speaker 1: you want to take him over there? No trials, No, no, no, no,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: that's not happening. So he was retired now and she
1:08:28
Speaker 1: felt that they should enjoy their years together without her
1:08:31
Speaker 1: worrying about him being maround on an island on the
1:08:35
Speaker 1: other side of the world. So he's retired and he's
1:08:40
Speaker 1: just you know, living his life. And in nineteen thirty nine,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: naval intelligence reached out to him and asked if he
1:08:50
Speaker 1: would like to go on a fishing trip. He convinces
1:08:56
Speaker 1: the secret naval intelligence while the country's on the brink
1:09:00
Speaker 1: of war, for him to be able to bring Sylvia
1:09:05
Speaker 1: along on the boat, because an elderly couple fishing wouldn't
1:09:11
Speaker 1: be suspicious. So they'll sell out there with like maps
1:09:14
Speaker 1: and camera equipment to go and just like espionage the
1:09:18
Speaker 1: coast right, so she'd be up on deck like chopping
1:09:22
Speaker 1: vegetables or fishing, and he'd be below deck like making
1:09:25
Speaker 1: maps and you know, taking pictures and doing all this
1:09:28
Speaker 1: stuff together. Now, they were generally unniced most of the time.
1:09:35
Speaker 1: Most see one time a German coastguard boarded the boat
1:09:40
Speaker 1: and asked Sylvia where the captain was, and without missing
1:09:46
Speaker 1: of the outsteps, li taller, like he's up on deck
1:09:49
Speaker 1: with an open bottle of gin smoking a pipe. And
1:09:56
Speaker 1: they were laughed at and like told to get on
1:09:58
Speaker 1: their way because they're just like, look at you with
1:10:00
Speaker 1: your drunk husband. Ha of thena that's as good, got
1:10:05
Speaker 1: on into your selling and I hope you don't drink
1:10:08
Speaker 1: your gin too bad and clash your bought into a reef.
1:10:11
Speaker 1: Oh no, so yeah, yeah. I love the fact that
1:10:19
Speaker 1: Sylvia was involved because it means that every member of
1:10:22
Speaker 1: the Lightholder family was involved in the war effort because
1:10:25
Speaker 1: she helped with this and like everyone else was involved
1:10:30
Speaker 1: to including their children. Frederick Roger served in the Royal
1:10:36
Speaker 1: Naval Volunteer Reserve, Richard Trevor joined the Navy. Sylvia Mavis
1:10:43
Speaker 1: was with the First Aid Nursing Human Try and Claire
1:10:48
Speaker 1: Dorene served in the political intelligence departed and finally their youngest,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: Herbert Bryan, served in the RAF. Brian was the baby
1:10:58
Speaker 1: of the family and after the very first night of fighting,
1:11:02
Speaker 1: his plane collided with a barriage balloon and when they
1:11:08
Speaker 1: returned they were informed that their youngest child was dead.
1:11:15
Speaker 1: In May nineteen forty, Lee Taller was again on the
1:11:20
Speaker 1: sea you see in Dunkirk. It was clear that more
1:11:24
Speaker 1: boats were needed to remove soldiers from the beach. The
1:11:28
Speaker 1: Germans were picking them off, so the Navy asked for help.
1:11:32
Speaker 1: The destroyers were too big to get in and so
1:11:34
Speaker 1: smaller boats were needed to ferry passengers in and out,
1:11:39
Speaker 1: and so Lee Taller, when he was asked for help,
1:11:43
Speaker 1: he gave it and he headed for Dunkirk aboard the
1:11:47
Speaker 1: Sundowner with his son Roger and Gerald Ashford, who was
1:11:51
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old sea scout. They made their way
1:11:55
Speaker 1: across the channel and got to the harbors. When he
1:12:01
Speaker 1: was asked how many men he could take, he lied
1:12:04
Speaker 1: so the sun Dinner could comfortably carry twenty one people,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: and he was like, I can take about one hundred
1:12:10
Speaker 1: ish basically, so he could try and save as many
1:12:14
Speaker 1: men as he could. He packs one hundred and thirty
1:12:19
Speaker 1: men onto the boat, evades a bomber twice, and he
1:12:24
Speaker 1: gets those boys home like clowns in a car. Everyone
1:12:29
Speaker 1: was shocked at just how he fit them in Like
1:12:33
Speaker 1: the answer to that question is determination. Trevor, who had
1:12:38
Speaker 1: been on the beaches, had been evacuated forty eight hours
1:12:41
Speaker 1: before his father had reached Dunkirk, and he was safe.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: Near the end of the war, the light Taller's Losey's
1:12:49
Speaker 1: second son, Roger, and this is during a raid in France.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: So basically Lighthaller loses his son the start of the
1:13:00
Speaker 1: war and near the end. After the Second World War,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: Lightoler sets up a boat shop with his remaining son,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: Trevor Richmond Slipways in West London. Seven years after the
1:13:20
Speaker 1: end of the war, time caught up with Lighthaller and
1:13:24
Speaker 1: on the eighth of December nineteen fifty two, Charles Herbert
1:13:28
Speaker 1: Lighthaller passed away in his sleep at the age of
1:13:31
Speaker 1: seventy eight. He had a small family funeral and was cremated.
1:13:38
Speaker 1: And so ends the story of Charles Lighthaller in like
1:13:45
Speaker 1: everyone thinks about him on the Titanic and how this
1:13:50
Speaker 1: is what he did and everything he did wrong, and
1:13:54
Speaker 1: he kept trying to do the right thing. He tried
1:13:58
Speaker 1: to serve his country, he tried to put people, he
1:14:00
Speaker 1: tried to get boys home, he tried to save lives
1:14:05
Speaker 1: for those he had lost. And I think, again, we're
1:14:09
Speaker 1: never always going to do the right thing. And I
1:14:11
Speaker 1: think he made a silly decision, a silly decision, a
1:14:15
Speaker 1: silly mistake, a silly decision. I think he made it
1:14:18
Speaker 1: and he had to deal with the consequences of that,
1:14:22
Speaker 1: and I think he tried to do better over the years.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: And I think the guilt that was laid upon that man,
1:14:31
Speaker 1: I think was too severe because he couldn't have known
1:14:35
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, and everything that led to
1:14:39
Speaker 1: that situation, the majority of it was out with his control.
1:14:44
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I just think he did his best.
1:14:48
Speaker 1: He helped in two world wars. He tried, and he
1:14:54
Speaker 1: made more of an effort than half people grumbling in
1:14:58
Speaker 1: their anoraks. But that is That's the story of Lighthllar,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: and that is our final story on Titanic. Months now,
1:15:09
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about crew, and I don't talk
1:15:11
Speaker 1: about men very often, and I'm usually the first person
1:15:15
Speaker 1: to talk shit about men. From history because usually they
1:15:19
Speaker 1: deserve it. But I think we judge too harshly sometimes,
1:15:24
Speaker 1: and I think I think probably just because I'm so
1:15:27
Speaker 1: used to the propaganda that I don't appreciate hanging this
1:15:32
Speaker 1: man out to dry for something that was out with
1:15:35
Speaker 1: his control. And you know, memory is memory is a
1:15:44
Speaker 1: funny thing and it's unreliable at best. Now, before I
1:15:47
Speaker 1: go on a big massive rant, I think that I
1:15:49
Speaker 1: think I should stop, And with that, I shall bid
1:15:53
Speaker 1: you good evening. So you can follow me on socials.
1:15:59
Speaker 1: You can see what I'm to You can even hear
1:16:01
Speaker 1: about the secret plans that are coming about for next month.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: But I we are going to talk about something I'm
1:16:08
Speaker 1: gonna hope it's a little bit cheerier. Is it cheerier?
1:16:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of squeezy, But yes, we're
1:16:14
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about something else in May. And so
1:16:19
Speaker 1: it's recommendation times. So for watching Marco's Got Money Troubles.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: It's so good. It's so good. Michelle Viepper is amazing,
1:16:29
Speaker 1: just every every member of that cast is so good.
1:16:36
Speaker 1: Like I'm really enjoying it, like I'm excited for the
1:16:38
Speaker 1: next episode, Like I'm really excited for the next thing.
1:16:43
Speaker 1: But I'm very excited for the next episode. For reading
1:16:47
Speaker 1: Murder on the Lisitania, It's a modern mystery, it's got boats.
1:16:51
Speaker 1: What more do you want? Guys? Okay? And for listening, Okay,
1:16:58
Speaker 1: you can laugh all you want, but I've I've been
1:17:00
Speaker 1: listening to on my morning walk to work. Is the
1:17:04
Speaker 1: Matilda musical soundtrack, like the original stage show, Like that
1:17:08
Speaker 1: is so good. Just revolting children just fills me with
1:17:16
Speaker 1: such joy. And Naughty is also very good. But yeah,
1:17:22
Speaker 1: that is that, And with that, I am going to
1:17:24
Speaker 1: bed you and you adios au revoir? Is there, my friends,