Mrs. Barbara Dainton (nee West)

[Since this article was published Mrs Dainton has died (16th October 2007).]

Mrs West (above left) is now 96 years old and is living in the English County of Cornwall. Mrs. Dainton has had a very busy and full life and at one time was a visitor guide in Truro Cathedral where there is a memorial to her father who was lost in the disaster. Sadly she is now incapacitated and needs full care.

Mrs. West always refused to discuss the Titanic disaster and with just a couple of exceptions she wanted ‘’nothing to do with Titanic interested people’’. Luckily I am one of those exceptions and it has been a pleasure to meet and to correspond with her over many years.

Miss Millvina (Vera) Dean

[Since this article was published Miss Dean has died (31st May 2009).]

(above right) is now 95 years old and residing in a Nursing Home in the New Forest also in England. On a very recent visit we found her to be very bright and cheerful but not able to walk at all.

Millvina also has had a very active and full life. Up until 1987 she avoided any publicity, but at that time I was helping organise a Commemorative Church Service in Holyrood Church, Southampton and I, along with others, persuaded her to attend. She was of course the centre of attention and came to love all the fuss and really enjoyed the celebrity status, and with her long time companion Bruno Nordmanis has travelled the world as an ambassador of the Titanic tragedy that was TITANIC.

I am sure that you all - at this anniversary time - will join me in sending best wishes to these two unique ladies and long may they live. They have both been a credit to the Titanic and to their generation.

The photographs are from earlier times when life was kinder to them both.

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