Today is the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the great passenger liner the Titanic.
Back in 2017, the Liverpool Echo spoke to Liverpool actor Stephen McGann, brother of Paul McGann, about his family connection to the tragedy in which more than 1,500 people lost their lives. Stephen revealed his great uncle Jimmy was the Titanic's last survivor.
Born in 1882, Jimmy from Liverpool was employed as a fireman in one of the ship's boiler rooms. His incredible story was saved for posterity thanks to an interview he gave to the New York Tribune after he and fellow survivors arrived in the city on the Carpathia.
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Speaking to the ECHO in 2017, Stephen said: "I had no concrete proof about Jimmy until five years ago. I cried when I read his quotes. It felt like two members of the McGann family were talking to each other 100 years apart – and he was the first member of our family to make the newspapers."
Jimmy's account from the New York Tribune interview was printed in the Yorkshire Post on April 23, 1912. Recounting what he witnessed that day, James (Jimmy) McGann describes still being on deck alongside some thirty other men as well as the ship's captain Edward Smith. He said: "When the water reached Captain Smith's knees, and the last boat was at least 20-feet from the ship, I was standing beside him. He gave one look all around, his face firm, and his lips hard set.
"He looked as if he might be trying to keep back the tears, as he thought of the doomed ship. I felt mightily like crying myself as I looked at him. Suddenly he shouted. 'Well, boys, you've done your duty, and done it well. I ask no more of you. I release you. You know the rule of the sea. It's every man for himself now, and God bless you.'
"Then he took one of the two little children who were on the bridge beside him. They were both crying. He held the child, I think it was little girl, under his right arm and jumped into the sea.
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"All of us jumped. I jumped right after the captain, but I grabbed the remaining child before I did so. When I struck water the cold was so great I had let my hold of the kiddie."
Jimmy goes on to recall being swept towards the last collapsible boat which had been launched and clambered onto its upturned hull. Around 30 people, including Jimmy and Captain Smith, clung desperately to the boat all night until they were picked up by the Carpathia.
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Speaking in defence of the captain's actions aboard the stricken liner, Jimmy is reported to have said: "How did he act on the bridge while I was there? Always directing the lowering of the boats himself, and he was always shouting, 'Women and children first.'
"I think when he struck the water the cold made him let go his hold of the child, and he must have been swept away from the boats. Anyway, I don't think he wanted to live after seeing how things were. Dead bodies were all around, floating in the water when he jumped, and I think it broke his heart. I wasn't keen on living myself."
Jimmy McGann's account was corroborated by two others that had been on board the ship. Suffering from frostbite, he was later hospitalised in New York upon his arrival there aboard the Carpathia.
Jimmy died of pneumonia six-years later, aged just 36. His brother Joseph served in the First World War and was married in 1918 to Elizabeth Walls.
Four of their grandsons, born to their son Joseph, would become actors: Joe (b. 1858), Paul (b. 1959), Mark (b. 1961) and Stephen (b. 1963). Paul would go on to be the most famous of the brothers, appearing in films such as Withnail And I and Alien 3 and would also later be cast as the eighth Doctor Who in 1996.
The Doctor Who actor has also recently narrated an account of personal stories of those aboard the Titanic for a Short History Of podcast by Noisier. You can listen to the Titanic history podcast by clicking here.
