Titanic: Ship of Dreams - 3. Into the Atlantic…

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Titanic stops off in France and Ireland to pick up more passengers, and wine. Economic migrants from Sweden and the Middle East come on board, setting out for a new life in America. Dinner is served, as Titanic’s very own ‘ice man’ helps out with cocktails and desserts. And the passengers settle down to their first night at sea. But one woman - wracked with dread - has no intention of sleeping… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Josyann Abisaab, Stephanie Barczewski, Ray Hanania, Veronica Hinke, Clifford Ismay, Tim Maltin, Claes-Göran Wetterholm. Special thanks to Southampton Archives, Culture and Tourism for the use of the Eva Hart archive. Visit SeaCity Museum for an interactive experience of the Titanic story (seacitymuseum.co.uk) Written by Duncan Barrett | Produced by Miriam Baines and Duncan Barrett | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by Miri Latham | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann | Nautical consultant: Aaron Todd. Get every episode of Titanic: Ship of Dreams two weeks early, as well as ad-free listening, by joining Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's March 1912. We're in Thoum, a village in rural Lebanon, 30 miles north of Beirut. It's a serene spot, dotted with olive and almond trees. The village is perched on the easternmost edge of the Mediterranean. There are spectacular views across the sea towards Cyprus. But the four men and two women gathered in Thun today are looking a lot further west than that. They're at the start of an epic 6,000 mile journey. A journey only some of them will survive. It begins in time-honored fashion, on the back of a donkey. Trekking slowly up the coast by day, sleeping in tents by the side of the road at night. In Beirut they board a freighter that will take them across the Mediterranean, all the

way to the south coast of France it's a five-day voyage and conditions are basic this is no luxury liner but eventually after almost a week at sea the travelers arrive in Marseille next comes a train journey from one end of the country to the other. They reach the northern French port of Cherbourg in early April. By now they've joined up with fellow countrymen and women, more than 150 Lebanese travellers, ready to begin their voyage across the Atlantic. At Cherbourg Harbour, the migrants are bundled into a small boat.

Its name is SS Traffic, and it does what it says on the tin, ferrying passengers a couple of miles out to sea, where the real deal will be waiting for them. But there's a delay, an hour of bobbing up and down by the harbour side, waiting for their ride to come in. The Grand Ocean Liner is en route from Southampton, they're told, currently running behind schedule. Eventually the little boat sets off. It's a half-hour journey to the meeting point. Finally, the migrants get their first glimpse of the new state-of-the-art vessel they'll be travelling on.

It's big. Bigger than they could ever have imagined. As they approach this leviathan, gazing up at the looming black hull, they can just about pick out the name emblazoned on its starboard bow. Titanic. The name means nothing to the Lebanese travelers. Most of them don't speak a word of English. As far as they're concerned, this ship is just a means to an end. The final leg of a month-long journey from their rural villages to the bustling metropolis of New York City. As the weary migrants traipse along the gangplank, they can have no idea what awaits them, least of all the sobering fact that of 154 Lebanese men, women and children on board Titanic,

only 29 will make it to America. From the Noisa Podcast Network, this is Titanic Ship of Dreams, Part 3. They'd never seen anything as large as this. Author and curator, Klaus-Johan Wetterholm. There were two immigrants from South Sweden, Gerd and Edvard Lindbl. They were Third-class immigrants. And she wrote back to her brother saying,

you can't imagine what a monster it is, what a beast it is. She uses that Swedish word, best, which is beast in English. Titanic's first-class ticket holders tend to be seasoned travelers. Many of them have made the voyage across the Atlantic several times before. Some, in fact, on Titanic's almost identical twin sister, Olympic.

But down in steerage, as third class is colloquially known, a transatlantic crossing is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A ticket to America was very, very expensive. An ordinary third-class ticket from Scandinavia was around 1913 throughout a whole year, 179 kroner. So, eight pounds is more or less what a flat cost throughout a whole year. And then you can compare with Helen Baxter who had this suite for which she paid £247. We're speaking of different worlds, different universes. Nonetheless, as far as Titanic's owners, the White Star Line, are concerned,

the steerage passengers are an important part of the financial equation. Clifford Ismay, biographer and fifth cousin of White Star chairman Bruce Ismay. It was the third class passengers that made the bulk of the profit for the White Star Line. Though they were paying the least amount of money for the tickets, they were in much larger numbers. And again, White Star Line was very popular because even with the third class,

the facilities that were available on the Titanic were far superior for the third class than was available on any other ship. Everything was very much appreciated, I would say. Once we described where Einar Sandström said later on in interviews that we couldn't have had it better here in third class. Everybody looked after us well. The food was fantastic, the seating, the living conditions.

It was clean. It was nice. So that was her impression. Even so, not all Titanic's passengers are treated equally. Those traveling in steerage are subjected to medical inspections that are not required for first or second class ticket holders. Their hair is searched carefully for lice, and their eyelids peeled back to check for signs of trachoma. These intrusive procedures are not up to White Star, however.

They are mandated by the U.S. authorities. As are the physical barriers between the classes that stop steerage passengers from mingling with their supposed betters. Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't possibly have been able to come up to first class

and walk around like that. He couldn't. There were guards, of course, sailors, making sure that nobody stepped over the borders. I know that quite a few people believe there were these enormous gates from floor to ceiling. I've never seen any sign, any written document about big gates dividing the classes.

I haven't. They were sort of half a meter high, but they said something like no trespassing or crew only or only first class or whatever. And so people did not pass. And if they did, they would certainly very soon be discovered by a steward or a sailor and then shown back to where they, so to speak, belonged. Professor Stephanie Baczewski. We don't want the diseased people communing with the healthy, the presumably healthy people, right, the healthy upper class people in first class. So we have to keep them away. That's why those barriers are there and they're still there.

I mean, if you've ever flown transatlantically, when they do that thing that always makes you feel when you're back in, you know, sort of cattle class, right, as most of us are, and they pull that curtain across from first class, right, that's a remnant of the same American laws. Those physical barriers that are required to be between first class or business class and the rest of the airplane, that's the same, those locked gates that we talk about on Titanic, that's the same laws that created those. Titanic steerage passengers have come from all over the world. The large Irish contingent are well known, thanks in part to James Cameron's hugely successful 1997 film, with its memorable depiction of a raucous party down in third class. But, in fact, there are more Swedes on board than there are Irish people. The White Star Line was the second most popular shipping company in Sweden then.

One must remember this is during the immigration times when 25% of Swedes left for America. There were more Swedes living in Chicago in 1912 than in our second largest city, Gothenburg. Actually, Chicago was Sweden's second largest city. The second largest language on the Titanic was Swedish. The third largest language on the Titanic is Arabic. Dr. Josiane Abisar is the great-granddaughter of one of the Lebanese migrants who boarded Titanic at Cherbourg. His name was Gerios Yousef Abisab. At age 45, he left his village, his wife Marta, and his six children to go on Titanic and come to the United States to work in the steel mills of Youngstown, Ohio.

So he was traveling with Shanine, his cousin, and a young girl called Banura Ayub. And Shanine's brother, his name was Joseph Abisab, he was already established in Youngstown, Ohio. A lot of these immigrants at the time used to kind of come and go from Lebanon to the New World, to America, kind of sort of like the economic migrants that we see today in the world. It was the same thing. You know, Mount Lebanon was extremely impoverished and there was also famine at the time. So a lot of people just left seeking a better future for themselves and for their families. There were 154 Lebanese immigrants on Titanic. They made up about 10% of the Titanic passengers. The Chevrolet employee pricing event is on now. Get a big cash purchase discount of up to $11,300 on the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado LDZR2 and Silverado HDZR2.

With a factory-installed lift kit and Multimatic DSSV dampers on both the Silverado LD and HDZR2, you'll have all the capability you need to leave the asphalt behind. Hurry in. Employee pricing is on for a limited time. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer for details. By the evening of April the 12th, when Gerios and his traveling companions board the ship in Cherbourg, the sun is beginning to set on the horizon. In fact, they've arrived just in time for dinner

they make their way along scotland road the broad corridor that runs the length of the port side of edec named after one of my great uncle jimmy's old haunts in working classclass Liverpool. From here, the third-class passengers descend a small stairwell to the dining saloon, taking a seat at one of the long communal dining tables. With white tablecloths and solid wooden chairs, the decor is basic, none of the elaborate ornamentation of the first- and and second class dining rooms up above. Down here the ceilings are low, with visible pipes running across them. There's no fancy wood panelling on the walls, only painted steel. But the room is clean, light and airy.

It even has portholes, so the passengers can glimpse the sky while they eat. All in all, it could be a lot worse. And as for the food? Well, it's hearty and plentiful, though what the Lebanese make of the stodgy English dishes on offer is anyone's guess. When I found a third-class menu and I saw what was on it, it's just very foreign to typical Lebanese Mediterranean cuisine. The breakfast consisted of oatmeal and porridge and smoked herrings,

jacked potatoes, ham and eggs, and marmalade. And for dinner, they had roast beef, brown gravy, sweet corn, boiled potatoes, plum pudding, and fruit. So I wonder whether they brought some of their own food with them. I'm sure they probably did, because even today, Lebanese, when they travel, they always bring with them either condiments or spices or, you know, typical foods from their home country. I know that I do it myself, so they probably did it back then. Food historian Veronica Hinke.

The Syrian passengers, I would imagine, very likely brought with them things like tabbouleh, which is a very traditional meal for them, and probably some breads they would have brought that they were familiar with. So I think they probably would have brought a few things with them to, you know, start the voyage off with something they're familiar with. In fact, until very recently, only passengers traveling in first and second class on a transatlantic voyage would be catered for on board. Before the Titanic sailed, people in third class on a ship would have had to bring their own meals. Enough food so that if the journey got delayed because of whatever, weather, you know, mechanical delay, coal strike, whatever it might be, they'd have enough to eat.

And they'd have enough for their family to eat too. So if you can imagine packing all that food. But they had to because there were not dining opportunities for third class prior to Titanic. White Star, it seems, take customer satisfaction seriously regarding both the quality of the food itself and the behavior of those serving it. At the bottom of the menu, it was spelled out very clearly, any complaint respecting of the food supplied,

want of attention, or incivility should be at once reported to the purser or chief steward. For purposes of identification, each steward wears a numbered badge on the arm. Almost all the notes, all the stories that I found afterwards from steerish passengers is that they were very happy, very comfortable. Those who wrote back about the ship, they were all in awe that it was a fantastic ship. So they felt very, very safe and secure on the Titanic.

Two decks above steerage, in the first-class dining saloon. Both the food and the decor are much more elaborate. The portholes here are hidden behind stunning stained-glass windows. Exquisite cornicing covers the ten-and-a-half-foot-high ceiling. Diners sit at private tables on tasteful padded green leather chairs. It was supposed to make people feel a sense of warmth and coziness as well as elegance. There would have been flowers on the tables, lots and lots of beautiful plump, fluffy roses.

You would be watching your P's and Q's in here very carefully because everything about the way this space is laid out and designed, it's a very discreet space and it demands respect. On Wednesday evening, Titanic leaves Cherbourg for the 300-mile journey to Queenstown in Ireland, the final stop before the real voyage begins. The ship's wealthiest passengers are just settling down to their first dinner on board, a sumptuous 11-course feast. The dining saloons on the upper decks are heavily indebted to French haute cuisine, In particular the work of celebrated chef Georges-Auguste Escoffier, known for his kitchens

at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the Savoy in London. Fortunately for us, some survivors of the disaster kept their first night menus as souvenirs, so we know exactly what they were eating. The dinner went for hours. There were hors d'oeuvres and oysters, probably oysters with a mignot sauce, a nice light sauce made with shallots and a nice little bit of crushed black pepper, consomme olga, cream of barley soup. There was salmon with mousseline sauce. And that was just to start. There were things on this menu that really revealed the

incredible decadence even further than what we knew before this menu was discovered. There were tornadoes of beef, a la Victoria. There was cream of asparagus soup and squab a la Goddard. Mallard duck with port wine sauce. And the desserts are really interesting too. Victoria pudding, which is very similar to like a regular plum pudding, but Victoria pudding is a little bit different. It's topped with a nice, big, fluffy meringue. There were apricots bordelou, which was almost like a tart.

And then petite mocha, which was probably petit fours or small little cakes of a mocha-flavored cake. And then there was something that we see again and again on first-class menus in the Titanic menus. French ice cream. French ice cream is made with eggs, whereas American is not. In fact, somewhat ironically given the ship's ultimate fate, Titanic has its very own Iceman on board. Adolf Mattmann, a 20-year-old confectioner from Switzerland, works in the Alucard restaurant on Bedeck, just off the ship's aft grand staircase. He is one of 400-odd catering personnel on board, and he's a man with plans for the future.

He was a really ambitious young man, like so many of the people who were aboard the Titanic. He told his friends and family, if I can do this in two crossings on the Titanic, meaning across the Atlantic Ocean and back again, which unfortunately in his case did not happen, he said that he could get a job in any of the finest hotels in London.

So he was a really ambitious, interesting young man. He was in charge of all the different ice creams and the ice, ice that would have gone into the cocktails and all the different things that would have needed ice. With food that could easily pass muster at the finest hotels in Paris and London, Titanic's luxury credentials are secure. But fine dining is nothing without something to wash it down. During the stop at Cherbourg, it wasn't just migrants brought on board. The ship also took on a very important delivery. During the stop at Cherbourg, it wasn't just migrants brought on board. The ship also took on a very important delivery – 10,000 bottles of French wine.

That's in addition to the ship's 850 bottles of spirits. First class passengers expect to be able to order all the latest cocktails. There's the Clover Club, an exotic pink concoction featuring a dash of raw egg white. The Robert Burns, a warming whiskey cocktail that comes with a side of shortbread. The Punch Romaine, featuring champagne and shaved ice, often served as a palate cleanser before dessert. And most popular of all on Titanic's maiden voyage, the Bronx. The Bronx was created at the Waldorf Astoria. It's an orange juice-based drink with gin.

If you like a mimosa, which is champagne and orange juice, this is a little drier, of course. It still has orange juice in it, but it doesn't have the bubbles and the sweetness. One of the things so special about the Titanic now is that it's a time capsule. There were many cocktails that were popular around that time that literally got lost with prohibition. Drinks like the Bronx and the Clover Club, they literally lost their hold and became forgotten. Titanic's caterers have brought more than 30,000 oranges on board, partly to meet demand for the new Bronx cocktails.

Though it's unlikely that all the passengers ordering them know the reason behind the drink's name. One of the bartenders at the time, he had been to the Bronx Zoo, or so he explained. When he was making this new cocktail, he thought of the animals he had seen, and he thought, I'm going to call it the Bronx because I was just at the Bronx Zoo, and the animals there reminded me of how people can behave when they've had too

much to drink. How much is too much, at least as far as Titanic's classiest passengers are concerned, is a question best left to the imagination. I don't think it was necessarily a bunch of people getting drunk. I think there was a lot of consumption, but I never have come across anything that implies that there was any debauchery or anything out of hand. But experiences vary. Some steerage passengers are shocked at the amount of alcohol consumed, much of it by men for whom the prospect of six consecutive days off work is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

They might not have access to the fine wines and cocktails served in the first-class lounge, but there's no shortage of Wrexham lager. One Swedish survivor said that this is the last time we travel over the Atlantic because they didn't like how people behaved and appeared There's drinking and dancing every night, she said And this woman thought it was going far too far with this drinking, far too far Titanic's first-class ticket holders can make use of an array of luxury facilities, from the squash court down in the bow of G-Deck to the gymnasium seven levels above.

There's even a spa complex, with a heated saltwater swimming pool and elegant Turkish baths, decorated in traditional Moorish style, with chaise longue dotted around the cooling room. That's in addition to the mahogany-panelled smoking room on A-deck, which evokes a gentleman's club. The stylish first-class lounge, modelled after the Palace of Versailles. The airy Georgian-style reading and writing room, complete with silk upholstered chairs. In short, there's more than enough to keep the first class passengers occupied during the six day voyage. Those in steerage are expected to make their own entertainment. There was not much to do but to sit and talk.

There was a piano in the common room, but apart from that, they could not use a gym or whatever. But actually, many of them brought musical instruments. So it was quite a lot of music anyhow. And people could dance and so on. The biggest party animals down in Steerage appear to have been the Lebanese migrants. Music is a big part of Lebanese culture. There were four weddings that were celebrated by the Lebanese on Titanic, and it was actually reported that the weddings were so popular that many of the other nationalities joined in the celebrations, especially the Irish. Ray Hanania is a journalist and broadcaster who has researched Titanic's Lebanese passengers. There was a big area where people could celebrate. A lot of dancing, a lot of music. A lot of these people carried their ouds, you know, with them or their darbeqis, their little drum. And that's all you'd need in somebody to sing. And you could have 40 songs, you know, they'd be singing. I think one of the popular Lebanese, Baburi Raya,

means my boat has gone. That was a very popular song that they might have been singing, ironically, on the Titanic. But most thrilling of all is the traditional Lebanese dance known as the Dabke. It's a circular dance where you move with the music, you hold each other's shoulders or arms, you dance around in a circle. The Jews do it, the Arabs do it, they have different versions of it. The beat is a certain pattern with your feet when you're dancing and you're moving around and the circle is kind of turning. You know, what else are they going to do on the ship down in third class for the steerage passengers lights out comes early at around 10 pm

and while families might have their own cabins single passengers are strictly segregated by gender men at the front of the ship women at the back this was still the Edwardian-Victorian times, so nothing should happen. But there was this long, long corridor on Ideg, the Krukholitskovlan road, that connected these parts. But of course there was romance going on, like in the rest of the world. And they befriended each other,

and some of them stayed friends throughout the life. are all taking part, and you can watch every match for free on DAZN starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at DAZN.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. With Titanic plying the 300-mile route from Cherbourg to Queenstown, the thousand-odd passengers on board settle down to their first night at sea. The poorest of them unfold out bunks in shared cabins the wealthiest on four-poster beds in luxurious suites

but there's one person on board who has no intention of sleeping Esther Hart my mother said to my father that she had made up her mind quite firmly that she would not go to bed in that ship. She would sit up at night, and I remember my father saying to her, Well, if you want to be so stupid, I can't stop you. But I don't know what you think people will say.

And she said, I don't mind what they say. That's what I'm going to do. And there was no further argument about it. She decided that she wouldn't go to bed at night and she didn't. The Harts are sharing a four-berth second-class cabin on the port side of the ship. With only three of the beds made up, there's plenty of room for Mrs. Hart to sit up reading at a little table while her husband Benjamin and daughter Eva sleep soundly.

The next morning, when Eva and Benjamin rise for breakfast, Mrs. Hart finally turns in. My father was so excited about it, and of course I was a real daddy's girl, and if it was a wonderful big ship, and my father was so enthusiastic about it, that I got enthusiastic about it. I was about all day with my father because, as I say, my mother was sleeping.

And to my great joy, I found there were some dogs. There was one little French bulldog that I took a great fancy to and my father was quite friendly with. I think one of the crew who looked after them, and every day he used to let me go down and play with this little dog. I had such a fuss with him. Now, my father, he was so good to me. I was very content to play with him and go all over the ship with him.

Meanwhile, down in the boiler rooms, where my great uncle Jimmy is working, an important safety test is taking place. Titanic's designer Thomas Andrews has joined the maiden voyage to check that everything is working correctly on board. Together with a nine-strong team from Harland and Wolff, electricians, carpenters, decorators and more. He is ensuring the new liner is not just ship shape, but Bristol fashion as well. For the most part, Andrews is sweating the small stuff, remedying minor aesthetic snags or adding the odd extra coat hook.

But today, one of Titanic's key safety features is being put through its paces. The watertight doors, designed to seal off a flooded area in the event of a collision at sea. As the drill begins, bells ring out for ten seconds and red lights flash above the doorways, a warning to workers to stand well back. Then, right on cue, the automatic doors fall into place. It's an encouraging sign. One of Titanic's celebrated safety features appears to be operating flawlessly.

The ship is now divided into a series of sealed watertight compartments. Thanks to this technology, even four separate hull breaches wouldn't be enough to sink her. At 11am on Thursday morning, Titanic makes her final scheduled stop before the voyage proper begins. Passengers look on admiringly as the rugged coast of Ireland comes into view. Titanic anchors two miles offshore. From the port of Queenstown, the final 123 passengers are embarked. 63 men and 60 women, along with a number of temporary visitors,

local peddlers who come on board and set up their stall fronts on the promenade deck, touting their arts, crafts and souvenirs. Most popular are some exquisite examples of traditional crocheted Irish lace. But amidst the cheerful atmosphere of this impromptu marketplace, a sinister omen is spotted. At the top of Titanic's fourth funnel stands a figure, soot black from head to toe. Some of the more superstitious Irish visitors are convinced it's a harbinger of death. In fact, the ghoulish figure is just one of the engine room workers, the aptly named Black Gang.

For all we know, it might even have been my great-uncle Jimmy. Author Tim Moulton Being a stoker on Titanic was extremely hot work, very dusty, very physical work. It was an extremely exhausting job, and in fact they didn't have access to any of their own deck space. What they did have though was Titanic's fourth funnel was, in fact, a dummy funnel. It wasn't real, but it was used for what we would now call air conditioning. And the Stokers were able to climb up inside the fourth funnel, and there was a gantry that you could walk around inside the fourth funnel.

And, in fact, there's quite a famous picture of Titanic in Ireland where a Stoker is going up for what was probably a cigarette break, and they're looking down, and this black face of this stoker was regarded as a bad omen, of course, at events that happened later on. For some Irish people, Titanic has already weighted with symbolic significance. The ship was built in Belfast, at the height of sectarian tensions between Protestants and Catholics. Ireland is kind of on the brink of civil war. Very, very few Catholics have any work to Parliament and Wolf.

It's a heavily Protestant workforce. Everybody knew that. And so when the Titanic sinks, all these stories arise. And probably the most famous one is that there's a rumor that the whole number. It's a vengeful Catholic God who sinks the ship for this sort of Protestant effrontery. It's a slight complication with that theory, right?

Is that there were a significant number of Irish Catholic immigrants on that ship, right, in the steerage class. How can you get even more of everything you love about Porter? With the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard. Enjoy more freedom, more flexibility, more rewards,

more of all the things you love. Need I say more? Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash viporter to learn more. At 1.30 p.m. with the Irish merchants back on dry land, Titanic weighs anchor for the last time. The 2,240 passengers and crew on board settle in for the 137-hour voyage to New York. One of the newest arrivals is Eugene Daly, a 29-year-old Irishman who's travelling to America in search of work. He's timed his journey carefully.

There's a Gaelic festival in Queens the following month, and he intends to compete in the Ulam Pipes competition. Eugene is an accomplished musician, and has brought his own set of pipes on board with him. Over the next few days he'll become a popular figure down in steerage, providing the soundtrack to many a lively Irish hoolie. But as Eugene and his fellow migrants bid farewell to their homeland, many of them for the last time, it's a sad tune that seems to fit the occasion. Erin's Lament Woe is to me in my grief that my sons are not here.

Deep is the gloom in my soul, deep my fear. Lonely my cry brings no child to my side. Tis for others, not me, have they died. Eighty-one years later, during an expedition to the Titanic's wreck site, Eugene's pipes will be discovered on the ocean floor, nearly 4,000 meters beneath the surface. In the next episode, as ice warnings begin coming in over the radio, Captain Smith must decide what to do about them. Titanic's engines are put through their paces, as passengers place bets on how fast the ship can go. And at 11.39pm on Sunday, April 14th, something large is spotted dead ahead. That's next time. To be continued...