Here is a photograph of Bruce Ismay's wife, Florence.

After the birth of the couple’s last child, George Bruce, born in June 1902, Florence began to suffer from an early menopause at the age of thirty-seven and, over the course of the next three years, she gradually absented herself from the marital bed until sexual relations between the couple ceased in 1905. 

‘Her relief was still plain,’ says Ismay's granddaughter Pauline Matarasso, recalling a conversation she had had with her grandmother about her marriage, discussing the intimate details of her life while finishing a tapestry.

After yesterday's blog showing a photo of Edith as a young woman, I thought it would be interesting for people to see a picture of her later in life. Here she is standing next to Bill MacQuitty, the director of the wonderful film A NIGHT TO REMEMBER....

When Edith first heard about the project she telephoned his office.

 ‘Are you Mr MacQuitty, the producer of the newTitanicfilm?’ she asked. Indeed he was. ‘Mr MacQuitty, I can be of great help to you in making this film. I am in the dress business.

This is a photograph of Edith Rosenbaum - later Edith Russell - who said she was saved from the Titanic by a toy pig. 

When Edith Rosenbaum was told to put on her life jacket and leave her cabin she didn’t have time to get fully dressed. She was still wearing her evening dress – a style which the women of the day called ‘potato sacks’ or ‘hobble skirts’– her velvet slippers and thin silk stockings. She donned a fur coat, fur scarf and a knitted wool cap and, before locking her trunks, rushed up to the lounge.

Here is a rare photo of Lady Duff Gordon leaving the Titanic inquiry. Below is an extract from the question and answer session that centred around the reasons why she, and her husband, Sir Cosmo, rowed away from the dying.

The Attorney General: Now after theTitanicsank you still continued to be seasick, I understand? 

Lady Duff Gordon: Yes, terribly.

The Attorney General: I only want to ask you one question about that. Tell me first of all do you recollect very well what happened when you were in the boat?

Here is a photo of Titanic survivors Washington Dodge (right), together with his wife, Ruth, and son Washington Dodge Jr. 

Washington Dodge senior later described the sinking from the safety of one of the lifeboats:

"Suddenly, when I was looking at the dark outline of the steamer, I saw her stern rise high from the water, and then the vessel was seen to completely disappear from sight with startling rapidity. A series of loud explosions, three or four in number, were then heard, due, as we all believed, to bursting boilers.

This photograph was taken by Lawrence Cowles Stoudenmire, a passenger on the Carpathia, the ship that picked up the Titanic survivors. He took this photo from the deck of the Carpathia on 15 April 1912. Can you see the large gash that appears on the left hand side of the iceberg? Can this really be the berg that was responsible for the sinking of the Titanic and the loss of more than 1,500 lives? This is what Stoudenmire (top left) said later....

"The Titanic was gone, leaving no traces except some floating debris and chunks of ice sheared off the iceberg with which the ship had collided .

Here is a photo that I took of Millvina Dean - the last Titanic survivor - when I interviewed her for the book on 12 November 2008. She died on 31 May 2009, age 97. She was a spirited, intelligent woman - half way through the interview she asked me how much I was paying her for the privilege  - she normally got £500 for talking to a journalist or TV crew! 

Here is Millvina when she was a little girl, with her brother Vere and her mother. Funny to think that although she had no memories of the Titanic, she had already been something of a Titanic celebrity. When the three month old sailed back from the US to Britain, people queued up to have their photograph taken with the baby girl. Later in life, after the Titanic had been discovered in 1985, she became a celebrity once more. 

Louise Jury's Evening Standard news story on Shadow of the Titanic....

Was there anything new to say about the Titanic? What could be left to say? After nearly 100 years countless books had been written, films had been made, etc etc. But the more I researched the subject the more I realised that little had been written about what had happened to the survivors after the disaster. How had they coped with the tragedy? Did they ever talk about it? Did they leave behind memoirs and letters? What was it like to be a survivor in 1912? How would the event shape their lives?

Here is a letter written by William MacQuitty - director of the film A Night to Remember - to J.G Boxall asking about the existence of a stowaway on board the ship. And here too is Boxall's reply. Both documents are from the treasure trove that is the Lord/MacQuitty archive at the National Maritime Museum, London.