M
monica e. hall
Member
I think, that in those days, Smith would not have necessarily been considered close to retirement age. He wasn't quite 60, and age and experience meant rather more then than it does now. Consider the amount of shipping around then. There was ample opportunity for an ambitious man to become skipper of a small ship and work his way up, but it would take time. Prestigious captaincies would be expected to go to venerable seamen, surely. Maybe, if he was making the odd remarks about retiring, it was because he wasn't sure he wanted to wait for the Britannic, which was a couple of years away. Maybe he made noises about considering retirement to please his wife in company - who knows? The unfortunate Capt. Haddock doesn't seem to have been a Smith-in-Waiting, from WSL's viewpoint, so I think it very likely they would have wanted him to continue, and that he would have responded to such pressure. It's always good to be wanted.