My copy of this VHS video is copyright dated 1990 so I have had it in my "Titanic" collection some while.Sadly Eva Hart has since died and in the companion video, "Titanic Remembered" (1992) made by the same producers, Elizabeth Haisman has also passed on.For a while these two were some of the only living survivors of this infamous maritime tragedy.What intrigued the producers about Edward John Smith was 1.He was not born in a seaport with its tradition of maritime jobs, such as Liverpool, but was born in 1850 into a modest semi-detached house in the pottery town of Hanley (near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire).2 He was not born into the social elite strata of society so he was assumed to lack the necessary social nous; however he had an ability to converse with the rich and famous passengers and officials of the White Star line in the class obsessed Edwardian society and rose to become commodore of that shipping line.
He gave a famous interview to the press in 1907 when he stated that he could not conceive of a disaster at sea since he had only personally witnessed minor problems."Science has gone beyond that".He was 62 when the iceberg struck (my age now) and his widow and daughter attended an unveiling ceremony in June 1914 in Beacon Park, Lichfield (Staffs) of the statue to his memory.The ceremony was performed by the widow of Robert Falcon Scott who also died in 1912 on his abortive way back from the South Pole (since he had been beaten to it by Amundsen of Norway).
The video gives the only known film of "EJ" which was actually taken on the bridge of Titanic's earlier sister ship "Olympic" which was launched in 1911.EJ's great nephew shows his great uncle's ship's sextant, his cheroot holder and telescope.There are many musical sketches using this tragedy as a theme and old 1912 78 r.p.m. records are extant like "Be British" alleged to EJ as the "Titanic" went down. It surprises me this film does not appear more on digital history channels on TV judged by the number of documentaries we see about the "Titanic".
