It Is A Story We All know,

and knowing how it ends,

 we still flock in our droves,

 to see the same event repeated,

 over and over again,

 as each generation falls under the spell,

of the Titanic, so here for a change, that is not featuring the sinking, here are 36 photographs of the great lady being built here, and in case you are wondering, here is a list of of Titanic movies – including some of the posters from various productions, that have been made about the RMS Titanic:

In Nacht und Eis, a 1912 film produced in Germany. It was thought lost until a collector discovered a copy in his collection in 1998.

Saved from the Titanic, a 1912 film starring Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson.

Atlantic, a 1929 film that is highly fictionalized. It was retitled Titanic: Disaster in the Atlantic in American home video releases.

Titanic, a 1943 German Nazi propaganda film directed by Werner Von Klingler.

Titanic, a 1953 film starring Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb and Robert Wagner, directed by Jean Negulesco.

A Night to Remember, a 1958 film based on the disaster.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a 1964 film starring Debbie Reynolds as Titanic survivor Margaret Brown.

S.O.S. Titanic, a 1979 made-for-television film.

Raise the Titanic!, a 1980 “B-Movie” film based on the novel by Clive Cussler.

Titanica: IMAX, a 1995 IMAX documentary film about the Titanic narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

Titanic, a 1996 television mini-series, starring George C. Scott, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peter Gallagher, and Tim Curry.

No Greater Love, a 1996 made-for-television romance movie in which a young woman takes charge of her young siblings, upon losing her fiance and parents in the disaster. Based on the Danielle Steel novel of the same name.  

Titanic, a 1997 blockbuster film directed by James Cameron and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart (older Rose) and Billy Zane: grossing $1,842,879,955 worldwide.

Titanic: The Animated Movie, a 2001 Italian animated musical directed by Camillo Teti

Titanic II, a 2002 short film that spoofs the 1997 James Cameron film whilst referencing the real-life sinking of the Titanic

Ghosts of the Abyss, a 2003 3-D IMAX documentary directed by James Cameron and starring Bill Paxton,

and in case you did not know, the RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by British shipping company White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom. For her time, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world, 

On the night of 14 April 1912, during the ship’s maiden voyage, Titanic hit an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, early on 15 April 1912. The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

The high casualty rate was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship did not carry enough lifeboats for everyone aboard.

The ship had a total lifeboat capacity of 1,178 people, although her capacity was 3,547. A disproportionate number of men died due to the women-and-children-first protocol that was followed.

The Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was popularly believed to have been described as “unsinkable.”

It was a great shock to many that, despite the extensive safety features and experienced crew, the Titanic sank. The frenzy on the part of the media about Titanic’s famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes to maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have contributed to the continuing interest in, and notoriety of, the Titanic.

I Had To Read This Twice,

'ice from the Titanic injures three people"

yes real ice from the Titanic broke off of the wall and injured the Titanic museum goers, the iceberg wall at the Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, collapsed injuring three visitors on Monday, August 2, 2021, luckily none of the guests were fatally injured, the half-scale replica of the Titanic hitting an iceberg is a main feature of the Titanic Museum Attraction, in a message posted on social media, the owners of the attraction stated, “Our iceberg wall collapsed and injured three guests, who were taken to the hospital. At this time, we do not know the extent of their injuries, and our thoughts and prayers continue to be with all those who were affected, including the first-responders.” the museum closed following the accident on August 2 but was reopened to ticketed visitors on Tuesday, August 3, 2021. Although the museum opened back up the next day, it was without the iceberg wall. Since the accident, the affected area has been blocked off, and museum officials estimate it will take at least four weeks for the iceberg wall to be completely rebuilt to its original size,

the ice wall in question was approximately 15 feet by 28 feet (4.6 meters by 8.5 meters). The large wall was made out of real ice, and visitors were allowed to touch the ice block to better understand what the elements in the Atlantic were like on that fateful night in April 1912. The ice block was created using a water filtration system, despite the accident, visitors go to the Pigeon Force Titanic Museum Attraction to immerse themselves in history. Guests of the Titanic Museum Attraction receive boarding passes with the names of actual passengers and crew members onboard the original Titanic. The 400-piece collection is valued at over four and a half million dollars. Not only were visitors able to touch the iceberg before the accident, but they also can stick their hands in 28-degree water (the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean the night the Titanic sank) to see how long they can last before pulling their hand out, the Museum also offers visitors the opportunity to walk a replica of the Grand Staircase, learn how to send an SOS distress signal, and sit in a true-to-size lifeboat, it seems like quite a neat museum, I especially like the idea of putting your hand in the 28 degree water to feel how cold it is, having done something similar I know it is incredibly painful.

I Am Sure We Have All Heard Of The Tragedy Of The Titanic,

where in 1912,

832 passengers had died in the Titanic tragedy, or in the Lusitania which had been torpedoed and sunk, with a death toll of 788 passengers, but how many of us have heard about the sinking of the Eastland? where 844 passengers died on a sluggish urban river, 20 feet from the dock, even more amazingly some of the survivors of the 2,573 passengers and crew walked across the exposed hull to safety, never even getting their feet wet, the sinking of the Eastland was on July 24th. 1915,

safety issues made after one tragedy, the Titanic and the installation of more lifeboats on the Eastland led to another tragedy, the Eastland was one of five vessels chartered to carry Western Electric workers and their families on a day-long outing from downtown Chicago to a park 38 miles across Lake Michigan to the southeast, more than 7,000 tickets had been sold, the Eastland was licensed to carry 2,500 passengers plus crew, as the Eastland filled with passengers between 7:10 and 7:15 a.m, it began to list to port, away from the wharf, the movement didn't seem to alarm the partygoers, but it caught the attention of the harbormaster and some other observers on land, the 275-foot-long boat had then righted itself, if only briefly,

at 7:23, it listed even further to port, water poured through the open gangways into the engine room, the crew there, realising what was about to happen, scrambled up a ladder to the main deck, few, if any, of the passengers boarding that day noticed that the Eastland carried a full complement of lifeboats, life rafts and life preservers, it was in compliance with the law, and that created a serious hazard,

the 1912 sinking of the Titanic gave rise to a "lifeboats-for-all" movement among international marine safety officials, in the United States, Congress passed a bill requiring lifeboats to accommodate 75 percent of a vessel's passengers, and in March, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed what became known as the LaFollette Seaman's Act,

during the debate over the bill, the general manager of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company had warned that some Great Lakes vessels, with their shallow drafts, "would turn 'turtle' if you attempted to navigate them with this additional weight on the upper decks." too few legislators listened, by July, 1915, the Eastland, which had been designed to carry six lifeboats, was now carrying 11 lifeboats, 37 life rafts (about 1,100 pounds each) and enough life jackets (about six pounds apiece) for all 2,570 passengers and crew, most were stowed on the upper decks, no tests were conducted to determine how the additional weight affected the boat's stability—even though it already had a troubled history,

the Eastland was built in 1902 to carry 500 people for lake excursions and to haul produce on the return trips to Chicago, the boat had no keel, was top-heavy and relied on poorly designed ballast tanks in the hold to keep it upright, repeated modifications increased the vessel's speed and passenger capacity—and made it less stable,  

for the technical, George W. Hilton, whose 1995 book, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic, provides a meticulous investigation, critical to a boat's stability is what is known as its metacentric height, floating objects are like an upside-down pendulum, with a centre of gravity and the ability to roll, or heel, to either side before righting itself, the distance between fully upright and the maximum heel—the point beyond which it will capsize— is its metacentric height, referring to the Eastland, Hilton wrote: “For such a ship, where the distribution of passengers was highly variable, normal practise would have been to provide a metacentric height of two to four feet, fully loaded.”

changes made to the Eastland before July 24 had reduced its metacentric height to four inches,

within two minutes after it listed 45 degrees to port, it rolled over, as reporter Carl Sandburg wrote for the International Socialist Review, “like a dead jungle monster shot through the heart.” by 7:30 a.m., the Eastland was lying on its side in 20 feet of murky water, still tied to the dock, the vessel rolled so quickly, there was no time to launch the lifesaving equipment, affixing blame for the accident began immediately, Eastland Captain Harry Pedersen, chief engineer Joseph Erickson and other crew members were taken into custody on Saturday—in part to protect them from the angry crowd that had gathered at the scene, despite the haste, it would take 24 years to conclude litigation related to the Eastland disaster, sorry this has been a long post, but it is an interesting story, the largest shipping accident of a US vessel claiming more passenger lives that either the Titanic or the Lusitania, but why have so few people heard of it or remembered it? in the case of the Lusitania, it was an act of war, in the case of the Titanic as one writer allegedly wrote about the Eastland, 'there was nobody famous on board'.

As Far Back As I Can Remember,

people have always been fascinated by the Titanic,

now a piece of Titanic history which Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wilts, is selling this piece of history said: 'this represents the zenith of collectables pertaining to Titanic,' the piece in question, a rare Titanic deck plan which was owned by Isidore Straus and his wife Ida, Isidore just happened to be owner of the firm  R.H. Macy & Co, in addition to his business enterprise he served as a Congressman for New York State between 1895 and 1897, as first class passengers on the Titanic along with 324 others each was given one of the plans,


it is believed only three of them from the ship exist today, with two in private collections and this one now on the open market, it survived the sinking as the plan was in the possession of the Straus' maid Ellen Bird who survived the disaster, despite its age and fragile condition the delicate piece of tissue paper has remained in one piece over the last 99 years, it has been given a pre-sale estimate of between £40,000 to £50,000,


Andrew Aldridge commented further, 'Isadore Straus was one of the wealthiest people on the ship and original material relating to his and his party's time on board Titanic is practically non-existent, to have something directly related to Straus which was on the ship is a collector's dream, looking at the condition of the deck plan, it must have been stored in a book and kept somewhere dark and out of sunlight,' so you never know, lurking in a book some where near you could be another treasure!

As Soon As I Posted The Blog,

I was out,

passing the scaffolders that had already started to tear down the scaffolding, 

I made my way out of the park,

to the station where another bin for sending parcels has appeared,

into the station,

and over the bridge, 

looking down the London bound train had already left, hardly anyone on the platform,

walking out of the station the number162 bus waiting,

I was soon speeding past the green,

and the pedestrianised High Street in Bromley, now taken over by cyclists,

I alighted opposite what was once a restaurant we went to occasionally, it closed and has now reopened as a steakhouse,

I walked past the now redundant Town Hall,

and entrance to the station,

and there in the distance,

the end of my walk the testing facility, every year I give a blood sample for testing, in the fight to beat cancer,

sample taken and I was on my way,

I had a look in the coin shop that is in the station,

and walked past the pub on the corner,

that has tiles aplenty on the outside,

I dread to think of the cost of producing these nowadays!

the area is known as Bromley North,

I had a look in the 2 shops selling audio equipment, in one window a turntable, only £3,500, I nearly bought 2 of them!

all they had to do was put the drain cover back so it matched the other 3, was that so difficult to do?

next stop the bank, I had a couple of cheques to pay in,

which took no time at all, past the Partridge and onto a 227 bus and then a 54, 

alighting at This 'N' That,

I had a look at the goods outside,

so much to choose from,

next door,

the florists had a nice display of cyclamen, 

I popped into Kingfisheries to drop off some labels that I had printed,

a bus to the entrance of the park,

in the garden of Foxgrove Lodge, these dahlias a almost impossible red, 

arriving home, work had started on the potholes in the carpark that we all use,

and here they are,

the pothole crew hard at work, well done chaps!

in the afternoon I watched a few documentaries, firstly The Fall of the House of Tutankhamun AKA Private Lives of the Pharaohs, and the Lost City of the Pyramids, both excellent, 

with so many documentaries about Titanic, I would have thought I had seen it all, but this Titanic: Building the World's Largest Ship, had a few surprises about the ill fated ship, for instance one thing I did not know was that the captain of the Titanic, Captain Edward Smith, was captain of Olympic – Titanic's sister ship – when it collided with a British warship on September 20, 1911, less than a year before his famous collision, he was found guilty of causing the collision by the Royal Navy, the Olympic's collision was with HMS Hawke, in which the warship lost her prow, although the collision left two of Olympic's compartments filled and one of her propeller shafts twisted, she was able to limp back to Southampton, captain Smith had been on the bridge during the events. The Hawke incident was a financial disaster for White Star, and the out-of-service time for the big liner made matters worse. Olympic returned to Belfast and, to speed up the repairs, Harland and Wolff were forced to delay Titanic's completion, in order to use one of her propeller shafts and other parts for Olympic. Back at sea in February 1912, Olympic lost a propeller blade and once again returned to her builder for emergency repairs. To get her back to service immediately, Harland and Wolff again had to pull resources from Titanic, delaying her maiden voyage from 20 March to 10 April,

in the evening time for a read,

before a delicious beef stew that Diana had made for me,

'Cheers!', 

I popped downstairs to have a look at the the pothole repairs, a great job done!

later I was out,

walking past the graveyard,

to the 227 bus stop by the Italian restaurant,

I soon arrived at the Moon & Stars where I meet Steve for a beer or three, we chatted the night away, after saying our farewells I was back onto a 227,

and then walking back past the graveyard, arriving home as I entered the park I had a telephone call, "look behind You" Diana had just returned on her bus, so we walked home together, time for a chat and a nightcap before we were off to bed.