They sang 'Nearer My God to Thee' as the Titanic went down
To me, history has always had a double magic. On the one hand it is a remorseless, objective account of what actually happened, brutally honest, from which there is no appeal to sentiment. On the other, it is a past wreathed in mists and half-glimpses, poetic, glamorous and sinister, peopled by daemonic or angelic figures, who thrill, enchant and terrify. I like both, and see them as complementary. My father taught me the first, under his maxim: 'Never believe a historical event as fact unless you can document it.' My mother taught me the second, when I was a child cradled in her arms, listening to her soft, musical voice discoursing of heroes and heroines, and strange, uplifting events. She had, and conveyed to me, her own version of history, in which curiously enough women were prominent, indeed predominant. For her, Boudicca was a wronged mother, seeking not revenge but justice. Joan of Arc was a bewildered teenager, a reader of stories, burning with the desire to sacrifice herself on the altar of romantic patriotism. This girl said: 'My armour is my beauty.' She told me of Queen Matilda, persecuted by the wicked Stephen (a typical 12thcentury man'), of Mary, Queen of Scots (rather too fond of dogs for my taste'), of Grace Darling, Florence Nightingale, and of the sharp-eared lady who, in the Siege of Lucknow, first heard the pipes of the rescuing Highlanders.
One of my mother's finest stories, of which I remember every syllable to this day, concerned the sinking of the Titanic. This had occurred in 1912, when my mother was just 18, and had left an immense impression on her. 'I would have loved to have gone on the maiden voyage of that tragic liner, if only to discover whether I had the courage to behave nobly.' The Titanic has generated many travesties, notably an infamous anti-British movie, presenting the tale as an example of the evils of English upperclass imperialism. My mother's version was essentially religious. According to her, many of the rich and famous people in the new luxury ship had lost or neglected their religious faith, and committed many mortal sins. After the ship struck the icebergs there was panic. Many of the lifeboats were swamped or wrongly launched, until the tilt of the sinking ship ruled out any possibility of rescue. Those who were left despaired, and some of them retreated into the grand saloon, and sat forlornly in the sloping armchairs. At that point, said my mother, a young woman called Angela took charge. She was 'a graduate of the Royal College of Music', to my mother's mind the highest accolade then open to a woman, and a brilliant pianist. She sat down at the Bechstein grand on the concert platform of the immense room. The band or orchestra had fled, and that was not surprising, said my mother, for 'some were very young — the piccolo-player was only 12'. Angela struck half a dozen tremendous chords on the piano, to get the attention of those present. Then she said: 'I am going to play to you a wonderful hymn, and I want you all to join in, and sing it.' She added: 'We may not save our mortal lives, but we can all save our immortal souls.'
She then began to play that wonderful, and in the circumstances splendidly apposite hymn, 'Nearer My God to Thee'. The first verse goes: Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me: Still all my song shall be, 'Nearer my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!'
My mother said that Angela first played alone. Then, one by one, the stricken passengers joined in. Gradually their voices rose in power and confidence, and other people from the decks came into the saloon, and the despairing crew. As their voices rose in volume, so did their courage in facing inevitable death. They confessed and repented their sins, joined hands, turned their faces to God, and as the rising waves lapped into the room, roared out the words and embraced their salvation. 'Of course,' said my mother, 'the lady who played the piano was not an ordinary human being but a celestial spirit. That is why she was called Angela.'
What my mother did not know, I think — otherwise she would have featured it in her saga — was that the writer of the hymn was also a woman. Sarah Flower (1805-48), sometimes to be found under her married name, Adams, was a poet, actress, singer with a rich contralto voice, and occasional essayist. She came of a remarkably gifted family. Her father, Benjamin Flower, was editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, a much-respected journal of the early 19th century. He published Coleridge's poem 'Ode on the Departing Year', and several works by Wordsworth and Southey. Her sister, Eliza Flower, was a musician and composer, who created the Musical Illustrations of the Waverley Novels. She set most of Sarah's hymns to music, including of course 'Nearer My God to Thee', whose splendid and moving tune is a vital element of its power to exalt. Sarah's husband, William Bridges Adams, was a first-class engineer and famous in his day as an inventor. Sarah could speak poetry with great force and pathos, and she could act. That valuable ragbag of early 19th-century artistic gossip, Recollection of Writers by the Cowden Clarkes, describes a splendid dramatic performance she gave of Shakespearean heroines, in a private house. She was especially good as Lady Macbeth and Portia. She could do comedy roles too. On a few occasions she appeared in professional theatres, too, in Bath and Richmond.
Sarah Flower was a friend of many of the literary stars who adorned London in Regency times and the 1820s. She knew Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Southey and the young Robert Browning. In 1835, the Monthly Repository published a fascinating account by her of an evening spent with Charles Lamb and Coleridge at Lamb's cottage in Colebrook. It is reprinted in a rare and delightful volume, Sidelights on Charles Lamb, compiled by the antiquarian bookseller Bertram Dobell and published in 1903. I would like to know more about this remarkable and versatile woman, the author of a verse drama or dramatic poem, Vivia Popetua, which appeared in 1841. Odd to think of the Titanic people singing her verses. What would such doomed passengers sing now, I wonder? Pop ditties?
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