April | 2021 | Linda McLaughlin/Lyndi Lamont

RMS Titanic departing Southampton, April 10, 1912 By F.G.O. Stuart (1843-1923) – http://www.uwants.com/viewthread.php?tid=3817223&extra=page%3D1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2990792

Titanic and Me

by Jina Bacarr

I first discovered the Titanic nestled among paperback romance novels on a shelf in a small library branch near the sea.

‘A Night to Remember’, that wonderful tome definitive of all things Titanic, had found an unlikely home among princesses and maids. I imagine the Walter Lord book was shelved there by a fussy librarian because of its provocative title, but oh, what a lucky break for me.

I was thirteen and living in a small beach town on the coast. Every day that summer I’d walk to the small branch and take out as many books as they’d let me. Then I’d walk down to the beach and sit under the boardwalk, listen to the roar of the pounding surf, eat strips and salsa, and read.

Read… read… read.

I read ‘A Night to Remember’ a million times, imaging myself on the ship of dreams wearing an elegant gown and long white gloves, dancing in first class with a handsome gentleman. Then reality set in and I realized I’d more likely be in steerage since my family came over from Ireland.

The place dreams are made of…

When I was a little girl, I lived with my Irish grandmother for a while and I remember sitting at the big, wooden table with her as she added flour, milk, and herbs to leftover mashed spuds for potato cakes; or wound her blue rosary beads around her gnarled fingers while she spun tales about life in Ireland. Grand times they were, and a lovely thread woven through the quilt of my childhood.

Books were my companions back then and I’d read anywhere, anytime. I read tons of romances, but I’d often end up in the history section of the library looking for more stories about the Titanic. Imagining sneaking into first class and pretending I belonged there. Something I found hard to do growing up since we moved a lot and I was always the ‘new kid’ (I went to fifteen schools before college). I yearned to be among the popular kids at the beach, but somewhere in my heart, I knew the way to better myself was reading and the rest would come later.

Reading was my world.

That became the basis of my heroine, Ava O’Reilly, in THE RUNAWAY GIRL, a girl who wants to better herself by reading books but it’s forbidden to the servants in the grand house in Ireland where she’s in service.

Then when she’s wrongly accused of stealing a diamond bracelet, she escapes.

To the Titanic.

And every tale I’d heard at my grandmother’s knee, every book I’d read, every film about the ship of dreams I’d watched over and over again became the fodder for telling my own story about the Titanic.

Based on my girlhood and love of books.

And the sea.

And yes, romance, too.

And how an Irish girl makes a daring choice on that fateful night when the Titanic hits an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. that changes her life forever…

And mine, too.

Jina

The Runaway Girl: A Titanic Love Story
by Jina Bacarr

Blurb:

Two women hold the keys to his heart. Only one will survive that fateful night…

When Ava O’Reilly is wrongly accused of stealing from her employer, she has no option but to flee Ireland. The law is after her, and she has only one chance at escape – the Titanic.

Aboard the ship of dreams, she runs straight into the arms of Captain ‘Buck’ Blackthorn, a dashing gentleman gambler who promises to be her protector. He is intrigued by her Irish beauty and manages to disguise her as the maid of his good friend, the lovely Countess of Marbury. Little does he realise, that the Countess is also in love with him.

As the fateful night approaches, tragedy strikes further when Ava is separated from Buck, and must make a daring choice that will change her life forever…

A sweeping, emotional historical romance set aboard the Titanic, perfect for fans of Gill Paul and Suzanne Goldring.

This is a revised and fully updated edition of a novel previously published as Titanic Rhapsody.

What readers are saying about The Runaway Girl:

‘A fantastic Titanic take woven in with a great portrayal of love, friendship, and even forgiveness. I would have rather seen this as a movie than the Jack and Rose story!!!’

‘Oh how I adored this story… From start to finish I was enchanted with the story and the characters and all the finer details describing the ship, clothes and scenery.’

‘A breathtaking romance that is sure to stay with you long after reading’

‘Perfect for historical fiction and romance fans.’

‘A mesmerizing romance that is sure to sweep you off your feet and take you away to another place, another time.’

‘A fabulous book you won’t want to miss’

‘You will start to love the favorable characters and the great storyline’

‘I was enchanted with the story’

‘Oh how I adored this story’

——————————

The Runaway Girl Buy Links:

Amazon:

US https://amzn.to/30yll8P

UK https://amzn.to/2NCqTty

Audible https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084MM1D4R

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/3A08bcsCeI6LHWRQTmAM30

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-runaway-girl-jina-bacarr/1135653540?ean=9781838893736

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-runaway-girl-1

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-runaway-girl/id14922691322

Last year was The Year of No Travel, a disappointing situation for a lot of us. I’m thinking of returning to the British Isles next year. I truly enjoyed my cruise of the British Isles in 2015.

the Titanic Passenger Liner on the afternoon of the fateful day it sank
@ CoreyFord

This week marks the 109th anniversary of the ill-fated voyage of RMS Titanic. During the cruise, we stopped at three of the Titanic cities: Belfast where the ship was built, Southampton where the Titanic’s (and my) voyage began, and Cobh/Queenstown where the ship made it’s final stop before meeting its fate.

Belfast now hosts the Titanic Belfast Visitor Centre at the location where the ship was built. The design of the museum reflects the bow of the ship, making it architecturally interesting. We could see it in the distance as our bus left the docks for the drive to Londonderry. If I ever make it back to Belfast for more than a day, I’d like to tour the centre.

The Titanic was launched from the Belfast docs on May 31, 1911, and towed to a fitting-out dock for interior construction. It was the largest passenger ship of its day, but as we know now, had some fatal defects. One was in the construction of the supposedly water-tight compartments that made the ship almost unsinkable, according to the White Star Line. Obviously they overestimated the efficacy of the design. The other fatal flaw came from the fact that the ship carried only enough lifeboats to accommodate 1/3 of the passengers and crew.

The Titanic Engineers Memorial in Southampton, UK. The Titanic sank on it’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, April 15th 1912. 2012 marks the centenary of the event. –©rixipix

The plaque on the memorial reads:

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN
THIS. THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS
LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS
ST. JOHN 15TH CH. 13TH V
TO THE MEMORY OF THE ENGINEER OFFICERS
OF THE R.M.S “TITANIC” WHO SHOWED
THEIR HIGH CONCEPTION OF DUTY AND THEIR
HEROISM BY REMAINING AT THEIR POSTS
15TH APRIL 1912.
ERECTED BY THEIR FELLOW ENGINEERS AND FRIENDS
THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

Our 2015 cruise on the Royal Princess started from the English port of Southampton, as did the Titanic’s inaugural and only voyage. Passengers began boarding the Titanic on the morning of Wed. April 10th 1912. There were three classes of accommodations: First, Second and Third classes. The First Class cabins were full of wealthy and famous people, including John Jacob Astor IV and his young second wife, Isidor Straus (owner of Macy’s Department Store) and his wife, Benjamin Guggenheim and the famous Molly Brown of musical comedy fame.

That evening, Titanic docked briefly in Cherbourg, France to pick up more passengers. (Unlike a cruise where such a short stop would accommodate passengers eager to explore every possible port.) At 9PM Titanic sailed again for its final port stop.

City of Cobh, County Cork, Ireland

On Thursday, April 12th, Titanic arrived in Queenstown (now Cobh) in what was then part of the United Kingdom, but is now the Republic of Ireland. Cobh was one of our port stops, and I found it a charming and picturesque city, despite the gray skies that greeted us.

Titanic Memorial, Cobh, Ireland

Reminders of the Titanic are numerous in the docks area of Cobh, despite the fact that the ship docked for only an hour and a half. The final group of doomed passengers boarded the ship that afternoon. I imagine most were never seen again, since they were unlikely to be among the wealthy in First Class.

The Titanic’s passengers had two mostly uneventful days (unlike the James Cameron movie, which was full of drama) at sea. Then on April 14, at approximately 11:30PM, Titanic side swiped an iceberg and the unsinkable ship started to fill with water. The ship sank around 2:20AM on April 15, taking all but 705 of the souls on board down with it.

In the aftermath of the Titanic’s sinking, maritime laws changed, requiring passenger ships to carry enough lifeboats to accommodate everyone on board, changing the shipping lanes southward to avoid icebergs, and setting up the wireless distress call of SOS.

Side note: the wireless was a new, sexy technology, and the operators were kept busy sending personal message for the wealthy passengers. Later, wireless communications were reserved only for ship business, such as weather reports.

Even after more than a hundred years, the story of the Titanic continues to fascinate us. If you’re interested in more details, I recommend the extensive Wikipedia page on the Titanic and the book A Night To Remember by Walter Lord, which I reviewed on this blog. The book was written in the mid-1950s and much is based on the memories of some survivors.

The sinking of the Titanic is an epic human tragedy, a tale of greed, hubris and incompetence, cowardice and courage, and of love and sacrifice. No wonder it still fascinates after all this time.

Will you be watching the movie Titanic this week? I haven’t decided.

Linda

Save

Linda McLaughlin/Lyndi Lamont

Romance author

Monthly Archives: April 2021

Ireland’s Titanic Cities Revisited Virtually #TuesdayTravels #RMSTitanic #Cobh #Belfast