Remembering Fred Benham, Titanic saloon steward

My great-uncle Fred Benham was a saloon steward on the Titanic, in second class.  He went down with the ship, along with the majority of the crew (and of the less wealthy passengers).  We went to the Titanic exhibition in Belfast today, with Diana, R's sister. We'd been once before, but there's so much interesting material there that another visit was welcome.  R's wry comment: only in Northern Ireland could you make a tourist attraction out of one of the worst-ever shipping disasters.

While I remember my maternal grandmother - Fred's sister - very well, I never knew her many siblings really, other than by name.  No one in the large family had much money; my grandmother was a servant in a 'big house' before she got married (to young joiner Jack, who went on to develop a sound house-building business). 

Fred lived on in a  family story, to the effect that after his death, three women turned up with engagement rings given to them by him.  The implication was that he was a bit of a lad, and had good reason to sign up on the Titanic and leave the country.  Who knows? I've always felt that this story had the air of something that family members told themselves as a way of lending  a little dark humour and comfort to a tragic tale of a young man's avoidable death. Both times when I've been to the exhibition, I've looked up his name on the list of crew and passengers, and pondered it. (Extract from the list added in the extras).

The main image is from the entrance to the building. It's a wonderful edifice, mirroring the shape of an enormous ship in an abstract style.  The extras include the inside of one of the Harland and Wolff drawing offices - now a hotel and restaurant - and an image of one of the displays. There's something in that last one, with shipyard workers forming the backdrop to today's distracted visitors, that I particularly like. The exhibition does a great  job of presenting the social and economic history of Belfast industry, including linen and rope manufacture as well as shipbuilding.