Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my web site, one dedicated to the Great Ocean Liners of yesteryear. My name is Alex and I am one of the millions of Ocean Liner buffs throughout the world. How this came to be? I don't know, but what I do know about these grand ships is incredible. I can stiill remember when I first learnt of these ships. When I was very young, I was facinated by rail locomotives, and still am. Every now and then, my family and I would go up to the famous Echuca river port in Australia and would travel on one of it's famous paddle steamers. I became interested in these old beasts over time, and learnt how they were built and worked, particually the PS. Adelaide, the oldest wooden hulled paddle steamer still opperating in the world. On April 15, 1995, my father showed me the news paper, and on the second page was a painting of a great ship, the ship you see above. My father told me that this ship was the Titanic, "and that she sank, killing lots of people." I didn't pay much attention to this, prefering my trains over the ship any day. A year later however, on the same date, I was listening to the radio in my parent's car while on the way to a family function out of town. As usual, nothing interesting was on as my parents had the radio tuned to one of those boring news channels where they play jazz music from the 20's. That all changed when I heard the word Titanic. Remembering how my father told me about her, I listened. A woman, obviously elderly, was talking about her experience on the doomed ship and how she lost her father. As I listened, I learnt many new things and became enthusiastic about the ship, often telling friends about it until they paid me to shut up, because I was repeating the little knowlege I knew, keeping in mind I was only 8. In 1997, I saw the adds for James Cameron's movie, but as I was too young, I never got a chance to see it on the big screen. My friend, however, invited me over to his house where I was shown a book of his parent's; Great Disasters. Inside were some paintings of the Titanic, painted by the world famous Ken Marschall. One of the stern of the ship rearing out of the water spooked me, and when I turned the page, I saw another of his paintings; the bow section of the once proud liner sitting upright in the mud at the bottom of the North Atlantic. Seeing that liner, crippled beyond belief, with the jagged, severed end of the ship sticking out where the stern broke loose was terrifying, and I immidiatly closed the book. It didn't set in right away, but after a few months, I couldn't stand the thought of Titanic. I couldn't even look at a book I had that mentioned the word as an adjective, not even mentioning the ship. At one stage, I refused to walk passed the cinema's in Geelong, south of where I live, for fear of catching a glimpse of the movie poster. However, when I was given information on the ship, I always payed attention to it, learning as much as I could. In 1998, we studied the sea in class, and I had to read a piece on the Titanic written in 1979 about the ship, which had much information incorrect. That teacher later asked us to draw the Titanic as what we thought it looked like. I have collected a few of my friends works, and they are still in my cupboard, and it is interesting to look at them. Mine at least had some contrast to the liner, seeing I had seen some pictures before hand, even though it looked nothing like the ship in real life (it had one black hull deck, and seven decks of the white superstructure. The rudder also was tiny, the funnels short and stumpy (and red) and a huge keel running down the bottom of the hull. Even though it looks pathetic to me now, it was here that I discovered my artistic ways of drawing ships. All over my rooms were pictures ofm steam locomotives I had drawn, but now I realised I had a new talent. A year later, I drew a ship for the White Star Line which I named the Princess. Looking at it now, it looked kinda lame, and I had to take it down. Not bacause of its size being over 8 A3 pages long, but bcause it reminded me of Titanic. Not long afterwards, my mother told me that her grandfather worked for Cunard, and was aboard the Lusitania, another ship that sank, with many people perishing. I researched this, but finding nothing of significance (mainly because I couldn't spell nor pronounce Lusitania, so people didn't know what I was talking about) I gave up. Months later found myself watching documentaries on the Titanic with my family and Titanic movie crazed Japanese Exchange Student. None of them knew about my fear, but thinking I liked ships. Eventually, I realised that the fear was controlling my life and slowly but surely, I overcame this, and since the age of 11, have grown to love Titanic, and many other ocean liners, enough so that I have been able to present you with this web page. Recently my interest was sparked even further by travelling to Southampton for Titanic's 90th anniversary and meeting many ocean liner buffs from around the world. I also saw the White Star Tender, Nomadic, to my knowledge the only surviving ship built for the WSL. I hope you haven't minded me going on, but this is how this page came to be, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Your truely,
~Alex |
