Iceburg that sank the Titanic...Photo sold at auction

Photo Of 'Iceberg That Sank Titanic' Is Sold

A "remarkable" photograph of the iceberg which sank the Titanic has sold at auction for £21,000 ( about $32,000.00 ).
And a Spillers and Bakers "Pilot" biscuit which was on board a lifeboat was bought for £15,000 ( approx. $23,000 )
The grainy iceberg picture was taken on the morning of 15 April, 1912, several hours after the historic collision that happened just before midnight.
Auctioneers said the original image was captured by the chief steward of the steamer Prinz Adalbert which passed the iceberg.
There was, reportedly, red paint on one side of the iceberg, suggesting it was scraped by a ship. The Titanic sank just over two hours after the collision with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

Meanwhile, a cup presented by Titanic survivor Margaret Brown to Sir Arthur Rostron, the captain of rescue ship Carpathia, has sold for £130,000 ( almost $200,000 ) at the same auction organized by Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told Sky News: "The prices reflect the eternal interest in the Titanic story and the iconic nature of the objects concerned."
The cup was the third most expensive Titanic-related artefact ever sold after a violin went for £1m ( roughly $1,500,000 ) in 2013 and a 32ft-long plan of the ship from the British Titanic inquiry was sold for $337,000 in 2011. The cup had been expected to go for around $100,00.
The American socialite Margaret Brown, who later famously became known as the "unsinkable Molly Brown", survived the sinking which happened during its maiden voyage to New York from Southampton. Ms Brown presented the sterling silver cup to Sir Arthur Henry Rostron in a ceremony in New York the following month.
He and his crew rescued 705 Titanic survivors. Brown was on one of the last lifeboats

 to reach his ship.

Molly Brown presents a trophy cup to Capt. Arthur Henry Rostron for his service in the rescue of Titanic passengers.

The last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic died aged 97, in 2009. Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of
April 15/1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton.

 
Millvina Dean with her mother

The disaster resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people in the north Atlantic, largely due to a lack of lifeboats.
Miss Dean, who remembered nothing of the fateful journey had been travelling with her family in third class to America, where they hoped to start a new life and open a tobacconist's shop in Kansas City.
Miss Dean's mother, Georgetta, and two-year-old brother, Bert, also survived, but her father, Bertram, was among those who perished when the vessel sank.
The family returned to Southampton, where Miss Dean went on to spend most of her life. Despite having no memories of the disaster, she always said it had shaped her life, because she should have grown up in the US instead of returning to the UK.
She was fond of saying: "If it hadn't been for the ship going down, I'd be an American."
In 1985 the site of the wreck was discovered and, in her 70s, she found herself unexpectedly in demand on both sides of the Atlantic.
"I think sometimes they look on me as if I am the Titanic!" she said after a visit to a Titanic convention in America. "Honestly, some of them are quite weird about it."
She was unimpressed when divers started to explore the wreck, located 3,000m below the surface of the Atlantic, saying: "I don't believe in people going to see it. I think it's morbid. I think it's horrible."

She refused to watch James Cameron's epic film of the disaster, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, fearing it would be too upsetting.

 But in the last years of her life, she struggled to survive financially and Actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio contributed towards her care costs, along with the film's director James Cameron, by donating to the Millvina Fund which was set up by her friends.

TITANIC IN NUMBERS

 -882ft by 92ft, 46,328 tonnes - largest vessel afloat at time

 -2,223 passengers and crew left Southampton on 10 April 1912

 -Struck iceberg, sank in two hrs 40 mins at 0220 GMT on 15 April

 -1,517 killed, 706 survived

 -Total lifeboat capacity: 1,178 but ship could carry up to 3,547

 -Survival rates by ticket class - first: 60%, second: 44%, third: 25%, crew: 24%

Original Photos From Titanic disaster

Titanic survivors on the Carpathia

Survivor:  Harold Bride

Survivors aboard the Carpathia

Why has the tragedy of the Titanic been kept alive?
Since 1912, there have been, by actual count, 650 books published about the disaster - an awful lot of print spilled over a single shipwreck. There have been several movies, even one by the Germans in 1943, meant to show the incompetence and greed of the British. Still, we can't get enough.

Is it because it was touted to be unsinkable ? And yet the design was so flawed it literally doubled  the danger of sinking and loss of life.  Is it because the supreme arrogance of the designers and builders resulted in far too few lifeboats being supplied ?

It was a microcosm of society then. Different demographics all within a few hundred feet of each other, and in a time of emergency, these societal differences were used to determine who was better and more worthy of saving than the other. The few lifeboats were used to save the wealthy, powerful or those who enjoyed some sort of celebrity.

The tragedy points to the  frailties of human nature that are still present in our society today.  Is that part of the fascination ?

The male passengers voluntarily went down with the ship and the musicians kept playing music as the water crept over the decks. There was heroism, self sacrifice and drama aplenty.

The survivors all had horrific stories to tell at a time when the press was becoming a strong and influential voice in the world.  They exploited and somehow romanticized the tragedy.

But surely there is more to it.

The Lusitania sank in 1915, hit by a German torpedo and 1900 passengers perished. It is an all but forgotten disaster.

There is a certain kind of magic associated with the Titanic that I just can't get a handle on but I am a victim of it myself.