My great-grandfather Joseph, who was 37, and his son George who was 16, they both
got jobs on the Lusitania, initially it was George who got his father the job.
He was out of work and although his mother wasn't very happy
about him joining him, because they'd be together, she was quite
reluctant but she said "okay that's fine you have to sort it out.
I don't like you not being home but we will manage."
He didn't like the job at all - his father.
He just couldn't take to it, and on his first trip he was more or
less saying "I don't think I'll be coming back".
When the torpedo struck the Lusitania
George went to find his dad and they met on deck.
His father suddenly realised that George couldn't swim and he also didn't have a life belt.
So he gave him his and he said to him "I'm gonna find another one, you just wait here."
But George never seen him again and he ended up having to bail, he waited til
the last minutes, and in the end somebody said "you're going to have to go".
So he launched himself into the water, eventually he became unconscious,
somebody had strapped him to some wreckage.
After a good while, it was about six or seven hours I
believe, the Indian Empire, which was the rescue vessel, hauled him on board and apparently
he was really, really bad, not far off dead, I believe was what I was told.
They managed to pump him and get the water out and brought him round.
Then the went into Cobh which was a small town in Ireland
where they ship the survivors from and where the ones who were rescued went.
And he searched everywhere for his father to no avail, they couldn't find him anywhere.
He went round all he makeshift morgues but it was no use.
But in the meantime the crew were all given one chance to telegraph home.
So he sent a telegraph to his mother saying that they were both safe.
And later on when he realised he still couldn't tell his mother what was happening
and it was not until he got home, they sailed
a few days later, and even on that sail and they were warned about
putting the lifebelts on because of submarines again on the trip back home to Liverpool.
When he eventually got to Liverpool Lime Street station, which is
the big station in Liverpool, he couldn't face his mother.
She was standing there with the youngest child and he dodged her and he ran over
to St George's Hall, which is directly opposite Lime Street station.
And he just sat there for a while and the local parish priest was about and he
spotted him and he poured out his story and he took him round to his mother and
that was when she found out that her husband was dead.
Some of the things that I do know about George and his father; they worked 14-hour
days in the kitchen, so many hours, 14 hours usually with a couple of breaks in between.
They were happy talking about football and
stuff, George was particularly trying to keep his dad on track,
because he wasn't feeling too good, but they were just some of the normal things.
They were happy with the wages, they sent quite a bit of wages home to the family.
And then once the tragedy was over, within weeks, George
literally had to go back on another ship because in them days there was no money.
If you didn't go back to sea you just had no money to feed the family.
And they were worn down obviously, so literally within weeks George was back on another ship.
Within Liverpool, I mean, the Lusitania was affectionately known as Lucy.
Everybody knew as her as Lucy. "Lucy's in in next Friday or Lucy's on her way out".
From what I'm lead to believe, on the maiden voyage from Liverpool
there was a couple of hundred thousand people to see her off.
Within the family, as I say, it's always been a story and it did inspire me,
but other than that I think it's a big story for the city of Liverpool.
Titanic always takes the glory and just for the very fact that it went down on its maiden voyage.
But the Lusitania had done 200 trips there and back to New York over 7 years.
So she did have a good history of sailing the Atlantic and it was just a tragedy
that's the way it happened to her.