R.M.S TITANIC

Although many people lost their lives on board RMS Titanic, there were some survivors! It differs from report to report but it is believed 706 people survived (492 passengers and 214 crew).

Look at your notes and re-watch the survivor clips from the Newspaper lesson last week:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/survivors-of-the-titanic/z4t28xs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRAGMW4n4mc

Read this

article. What

can you infer

about the

survivors?

What was the

atmosphere

like when

Titanic sunk?

Millvina Dean was the youngest of the 705 survivors of the sinking of the

RMS Titanic and lived to be the last survivor.

Synopsis

Born in Branscombe, England on February 2, 1912, Millvina Dean was only nine weeks old when she

rode on the RMS Titanic with her parents and brother. When the ship hit an iceberg and sank, she

became its youngest survivor. She died at 97, also becoming the last survivor of the sinking.

Early Life

Elizabeth Gladys Dean was born February 2, 1912, in London. Her parents, Bertram and Georgetta

(Ettie), decided to emigrate to Wichita, Kansas.

The Deans, including Millvina's older brother Bertram (born in 1910), were originally booked on

another White Star liner, possibly the Adriatic. But due to a coal strike, they were offered passage

on the maiden voyage of the much-heralded luxury liner the Titanic. They boarded as third-class

passengers at Southampton and set sail on April 10, 1912.

On the night of April 14, while sailing south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Millvina's

mother and father felt the ship's collision with an iceberg. Her father left his cabin to investigate

and soon returned, telling his wife to dress their sleeping children and go up on deck.

Titanic Tragedy

Millvina, her mother and brother were placed in Lifeboat 10 and were among the first steerage passengers

to escape the sinking liner. After their boat drifted in the water for some time, the survivors were rescued

and taken aboard the Carpathia, a ship that answered the Titanic's distress call. They arrived safely in New

York City on April 18.

Later it would be discovered that 705 people survived the disaster. Millvina's father, however, the 25-year-

old Bertram Frank Dean, was one of the 1,500 who perished. Like many of the men aboard, he stayed on the

ship and died when it sank early the following morning. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

At first, Millvina's mother, wanted to go on to Kansas and fulfill her husband's wish of a new life in America.

But with no husband and two small children to care for, she decided to go home. After two weeks in a New

York hospital, Millvina, her mother, and brother, returned to England aboard the Adriatic.

Memories of the Titanic

Ironically, her older brother died April 14, 1992, exactly 80 years after the Titanic

struck the iceberg.

Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97 at a

nursing home near Southampton, England. Coincidently, the day of her passing was

the 98th anniversary of the launch of the Titanic's hull on May 31, 1911.

▪ TASK:

Your task today is to write a diary entry as if you are a survivor of the Titanic tragedy.

You will need to consider:

- What class you are;

- What it was like to see the ship sink;

- How you felt being on board a lifeboat and saved;

- Using your senses;

- Rhetorical questions to show thoughts running through your mind;

- Use evidence you have gathered from your research.

▪ TOP TIPS

- Dear diary and a sign off

- First person

- Past tense

- ISPACE and adventurous word choices

- ROSL (Remember long and short sentences)

- ROP (. , - : ; () ‘ ! ?) No direct speech

- Rhetorical questions

- Emotions

- MAPS (Metaphor, Alliteration, Personification and Similes)

- Avoid word repetition unless for effect eg for Titanic – The ship of dreams, floating palace, unsinkable ship, mighty vessel etc

- Historical element for setting

- EDIT (you may do this in your school pen - don’t use green)