A record of our participation in the 96th Anniversary in Southampton 2008



Considering that we were but a handful of people who could not, or were not willing to make the trip to Halifax in 2007, we have grown quite significently following our independant experiment to participate in Southamptons 95th anniversary commemoration of the sinking of the Titanic.

Last year I phoned John Creamer to tell him that I was going down to Southampton during the "Titanic Weekend" and after a lot of research I had chosen The Southamton Park Hotel, just across the park from the Civic Centre so he booked in there as well. Thanks to modern communication, it was like cells multiplying so by the time we arrived in Southampton we had a nice little group. We had had information sent to us as to what was planned by the Southampton County Council so we endeavoured to attend as many programmes that we could, as shown in my extensive website for 2007.

We enjoyed the hospitality and facilities at the Southampton Park Hotel in 2007 so we booked in 2008 to go there again. Our group is much larger this year since our enthusiam reached out to other people.

In the meantime, John Creamer who had also enjoyed 2007, made it his project to turn Titanic 2008 into another unique weekend. He contacted a number of influential people, not least Genevieve Bailey of the BBC who we met in 2007 and who had promised us help us if we needed it, has given John her unique and advice, so the programme for our weekend in Southampton is second to none.

Southampton County Council appeared to like my web write-up in 2007 so they have extended invitations to visit places not usually open to the public and we are honoured and privileged to see rare items associated with Southamton and the Titanic.

I would like to thank the extra people who have joined our party this year and I hope we will continue to grow in size.
Also, some of the extra people have proved to be good photographers and have sent me their jpg pictures and scanned souvenirs by e-mail so I can add them to my website. As a consequence I have added some more pages which will display photographs taken by the rest of our party.

Last year my 2007 Commemoration Website was active within 24 hours....this year I slipped and fell off a low wall at the Engineers Memorial while taking photos and I have been in a neck brace since I came home, so it is taking a bit longer to load up my 2008 version...Please be patient..It's worth waiting for the finished item.




- THE SOUTHAMPTON PARK HOTEL -





Our thanks to Shelly in Reception who helped us during the weekend

10/04/2008 - First Day

Lucy Dhillon came down from Scotland again, so Southampton is not too far away for most of us to come to this City associated with Titanic.However most of us travelled from Reading, London, Torquay and other places in the South..We all sat and chatted and got organised for the weekend. John Creamer had got us all tickets for the events to come so we spent some time re-imbursing John and reading his excellent itinery.

We then decided to go out for an early evening meal and went to the "OLD FAT CAT" on the edge of the Park.



Our hunger satisfied, we walked across to the Library to our first function, The Titanic Quiz.

This consisted of a sheet of 46 questions and we were given the facilities to use reference books and the like, to answer these questions.
There was a large group participating so we met even more people interested in the Titanic. The "exam papers" were marked and the winner was Genevieve, John was second and a group of four shared third place.



Genevieve, John and Maria unpack our White Star Pennants


David Hollingsworth presents Genevieve with First Prize


All the winners with David Hollingsworth

Genevieve won a statuette of Captain E J Smith, John a plate and the girls shared "Titanic Voices" the latest edition of this book.

We were all fairly tired by now, the "travelling" having caught up so we all had an early night.

Just before going to bed we heard the sad news that Millvina Dean had contracted a chest infection and was having to cancel her talk on Friday at the Turner Sims Concert Hall.



A great shame but we all hope for her quick recovery.......

Elsewhere this evening there were lectures at the National Oceanography Centre, Waterfront Campus on European way.

7-30 to 10-00

"Diving on the Titanic" by Brigitte Saar

followed by Steve Hall and "Submersibles and Marine Disasters"
11th April
DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED BY BBHMG2008
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