Titanic Survivor Account: Kathleen Pilkington

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Ronak Punjabi 10N

Titanic Survivor Account: Kathleen Pilkington

The day was April 10th 1912. It had finally arrived. Not only was I embarking on a journey on the sea, but also on a new stage in my life. Only my mother had known the real reason why I had wanted to go to America – to be a singer. Everyone else had just assumed that I was going to become a governess. That was what my mother had been, and so had her mother. I was quite good with children and so it seemed like the perfect job for me. But I wanted to do something different. Something more interesting and challenging. There were so many opportunities in America – not in England. That was why I wanted to leave Southampton.

It had been hard to say goodbye to my family. My dad, who never seemed to show any emotions, had been in tears when the time had come for me to leave for the dock. They knew that the ship was deemed to be unsinkable; they weren’t worried about my safety. Obviously they had just felt sad to see me go. After all I was only a young girl at the time with the vast unexplored world ahead of me.

The price of a third-class seat on the Titanic had cost five weeks of our family’s income. Therefore I wanted to show my parents that I could do something with their hard-earned money. I would prove to them that I was reliable and that they could depend on me. It would be a great disappointment in their eyes if I returned empty-handed.

It was two p.m. that day when the grand vessel entered the harbour with an air of majesty. She was like those hotels that my brother Paddy had always been talking about in his stories of places that he had travelled to. No, they could not have possibly been as fine as the RMS Titanic was. In the brochures she had looked amazing; seeing her in front of my very eyes was something else. She was undoubtedly twice as big as any ship I had ever seen. There were about a million people watching the whole event. I felt truly lucky that I was going to be experiencing the real thing itself very soon.

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The minute I stepped into the ship, it felt somewhat bizarre. I didn’t know what it was, but something did not feel right. I guessed it was the whole notion of leaving my hometown and ending up in a country I had never been to, all by myself. I had often wondered privately if I would manage. Of course I would: I was a grown up adult of 19 years of age at the time. After all, I did not have another option.  

The floors were made of expensive white marble and the staircases were carved out of beautiful ...

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