Remembering the Titanic

It's April 1912 and the Titanic's Captain, Edward John Smith, is preparing for the maiden voyage of the world's greatest liner.

The ship is equipped with everything from an emergency telephone to lifeboats ...... little did they know how important these items would become.

Considered unsinkable, the White Star Line's Titanic was four days at sea when it scraped against a mammoth iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912.

Within two and a half hours the ship had sunk and taken 1,522 of the 2,227 people aboard to their deaths.

Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean was just 9 weeks old when her mother carried her into a lifeboat, shortly before her father drowned in the dosaster 97 years ago.

Ahead of the April 14 anniversary of the disaster, Millvina attended the Titanic Convention in Southampton (April 4, 2009).

She boarded the Titanic with her parents Bertram and Georgetta and her 1-year-old brother in Southampton, southern England, for the ship's maiden voyage to New York City.

The Dean family was headed for Wichita, Kan., where Bertram planned to open a tobacco shop.

Millvina, her mother and brother were picked up from the lifeboats, taken to New York, then returned to England with other survivors aboard the Adriatic, a rescue ship.

Southampton, still an important port for cruise liners, retains a close connection with the disaster, as many residents joined the voyage, hoping for a new life in America.

Millvina is treated like royalty here, as she is the city's last living link with the story of the Titanic.

Whether she likes it or not, it's something that has dominated her life.

For many visitors to the Titanic convention Millvina's appearance was the highpoint of the weekend.

Bob Prior is the Founder of the British Titanic Society who organized this exhibition, and who acted as advisors to the Hollywood blockbuster film.

Among the items on display, the Titanic's crew log.

At the top is the signature of the Captain, Edward Smith.

And 3rd down is First officer Murdoch who was on watch at the time the vessel struck the iceberg and gave the order to take avoiding action.

There are also copies of the telegrams sent by the Titanic, as she sank.

This telegram sent from the Titanic to the Baltic, at ten minutes past eleven on the night of the 14th April giving her position, and stating "sinking wants immediate assistance".

And this from the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the survivors to the Associated Press in New York, stating "Titanic struck iceberg sunk Monday 3am."

Visitor Graham Oates says it brings the tragedy alive.

There are many photos of those who never made it home, this is Isa and Isidor Straus.

And photos of those who did.

This is J. Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line.

He never lived down the shame of being a survivor while so many perished.

This silverware used in the first class restaurant, was recovered from the Olympic, the Titanic's sister ship, and identical in every detail and fitting.

Also an original menu card, dated a week before the Titanic finally set sail.

But for Retired Commodore Ron Warwick, who served as Master of Cunard's QE2 and the Queen Mary 2, the Titanic's story left a great legacy.

He says the Ice Patrol is an example of something posititve that came out of the disaster.

The Ice Patrol, operated by the U.S. Coast Guard on behalf of 17 countries, has been looking for icebergs since 1913, when a horrified world resolved that it would never again allow the kind of accident that sent the Titanic to the Atlantic's floor.

Despite Millvina Dean's celebrity status, she struggles to pay for her nursing care.

Last year she had to auction her own artefacts and mementoes.

Dean has lived at Woodlands Ridge, a private nursing home, since she broke her hip three years ago.

Rooms at the nursing home cost between $1,000 and $1,550 a week, depending on the level of care the resident needs.

Although Britain has a free health care system, private providers offer more comprehensive services for a fee.

Local authorities often pay a portion of the costs of private nursing home care based on an individual's assets; anyone with more than $39,000 in assets has to pay their own fees.

Now 97, and the last survivor of the disaster, once Millvina Dean passes away, the Titanic will move from being something that happened within living memory, to history.