A Small Part In History.

I had quite forgotten about this. Sometimes in a cameraman's career you get to train your lens on a special occasion. Not a worldwide story, but a small local gathering to commemorate the life of a person who at one point in their life, was a part of one of the biggest news stories of all time.

Everyone reading this will have heard of the Titanic, and it's fateful voyage across the Atlantic. It never arrived at it's destination of course, and a great many people died as it hit an iceberg and sank. You are right in thinking that i was not around at that time, but i found myself at a small church in Hampshire to remember the life of someone who was.

Her name was Millvena Dean, who died on 31 May 2009, and she was the last living link to the Titanic. The final living link to an awful tragedy that was reported around the world, and still makes news even today. Films, Documentaries and more have been made, remade, and talked about ever since the sinking took place and is now a pivotal moment in our modern history.

Filming the scattering of the ashes ... Southampton.

Millvena was a small child at the time and freely admitted that she remembered little of what happened on that night. The fate that was to befall her and her family. But over the years, as other survivors passed away, she became the last living link to the Titanic and the celebrity of sorts that went with it.

But on the day that i got to hear her story was when we were to scatter her ashes in the sea at berths 43 and 44 at Southampton docks, from where she sailed aboard the Titanic. A fitting end i think. Now i have seen the films and watched many documentaries about the Titanic, but on that day, i filmed a small part of history as we said our goodbyes to the last link to a worldwide story that will, without doubt, outlive the rest of us.