Some years ago I visited Jack and Mabel Mew, an elderly couple who lived in a little thatch cottage at Back Lane, Herriard, Hampshire. Jack was disabled having lost both his legs. He recalled to me a story of the time when he was working as a telegraph messenger boy in Southampton. He was called into the office and handed a hand-written telegraph which was to be delivered with all speed to the dockside where a ship was due to leave its berth. Jack arrived just too late, the ship was pulling away from the dockside but the tail line attached to the ship’s hawser had not been released. On the suggestion of one of the dock workers, Jack tied the paper to the end of the line and the telegraph was safely hauled aboard. Jack concluded his story with the proud claim that he had the last physical contact with the Titanic before it left Southampton on it’s fateful maiden voyage.
Jack was born Henry John Mew, on 11 Oct 1896, at Boldre, in the New Forest and died in 1986. The 1911 census confirms that, like two of his brothers, he was working as a telegraph messenger, living with his parents and siblings at No 1, Pine Cottage, Newton Rd East, Bitterne Park, Southampton.
