April 1912

Extract ‘…anxiously we have waited for tidings, and now they are come. George (Hocking) a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association Choir, was accompanied on the voyage by his widowed mother and two sisters, one of whom was rejoining her husband with two infants. The three boys, Percy (Bailey), Harry (Cotterill) and George (Hocking) assisted the women and children into the boats. George’s mother was last, and she begged him to come with them. ‘No mother’, he said, ‘the men are good enough to stand back for you and I must do the same and let their wives and mothers go.’ He kissed her goodbye. So the three were left, with a number of Cornishmen, not one of whom was saved; indeed, Mrs J H Chapman of St. Neot, Cornwall, chose to stay beside her husband, refusing a place in the boat.’