Open Writing

My sister Joy and I loved listening to our grandfather's stories when we lived with our grandparents at 69 Leicester Street, in Melbourne.

Our favourite was his story about the Titanic.

We would sit at his feet, or perhaps one of us might be allowed to sit on his knee if we didn't wriggle.

"Tell us about the Titanic, Grampa," we would plead.

He would take his pipe out of his mouth, carefully tap out the spit, and refill it with tobacco, tamp it down until he judged it was ready for lighting. We waited patiently, fascinated by this ritual. Sometimes he would let one of us strike the match. When it was alight to his satisfaction, he would settle back comfortably, ready to begin.

"You know I've told you how the Titanic was the biggest thing that could move that man had made at that time?" he asked.

"Yes," we both said obediently.

"And I was supposed to be on it, working in the engine room?"

We waited patiently. My grandmother sat darning a sock. She was listening too.

"Well, that was a lucky day for me, the day that ship took off without me. Took off and left me standing on the pier."

"Why couldn't they come back for you, Grampa?" I asked. "Eh, well, first of all they wouldn't waste their time for one person, besides I don't suppose anyone gave me any notice. I wasn't about to make any fuss, you understand."

"But why didn't you get there on time, Grampa?" We always asked this question, and the story always seemed to become a bit vague at this stage.

"Well, she sailed on a different tide," he said once.

Another time, he said, "I think I got the time mixed up.”

"I only know my trunk went down with her that day she hit the iceberg. With all my belongings in it. If I'd caught the ship, my skeleton would be lying deep under the sea, with the flesh all nibbled away by the sharks."

"Oooh," we shivered in delight.

"You're frightening them, Father," said my grandmother.

"No, he's not," said Joy, "we like this story."

"One day, if they ever find her, you'll be able to ask, 'Did you find my Grandfather's trunk, with all his belongings in it?'"

My grandmother laughed, "All rotted away, no doubt."

"Did you have any treasure in it?" I asked.

"Well . . . " he paused, and looked at my grandmother. She shook her head.

"No, just my clothes, my bits and pieces, and my Bible," he said.

"Well, if they ever find it, I'll ask them to bring up your trunk, shall I?" I asked. "The Bible will be soggy, won't it? And the clothes will be rotted away. Just think, we wouldn't be here, Joy and me, if you'd been drownded on the Titanic."

"Drowned," my grandmother corrected me. "Now, that's enough stories for the time being. Shirley, take Joy, and off you go and play, and give your Grandpa a rest."

We went off obediently, to play with our dolls, and the dolls' houses he had built for us.

I don't know what the truth is about my grandfather missing the Titanic.

He was a boilerman, I believe, while he was at sea, stoking coal into the boilers.

He told the Titanic story to everybody, in Australia, and then in New Zealand, when he came to live with us. He told the minister of the church we attended in Auckland. The Rev Wesley Parker was fond of repeating the story from the pulpit, much to our embarrassment, by this stage. My father always thought my grandfather must have either jumped ship, or got drunk, and was asleep when the ship left.

I only know that the crew list of the Titanic has one Hesketh, not Ezra, his name, which he disliked and didn't use, (most people, except my grandmother, called him Ted) but the name James Henry Hesketh, listed as Second Engineer, Not Saved.

© Shirley Henwood