IT'S been just over 112 years to the day since the RMS Titanic crashed and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, taking around 1,500 lives with it.
Among those on board was 26-year-old Marion Wright, from Yeovil, who survived the disaster.
She boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a second class passenger following her recent engagement to eventual husband, Arthur Woolcott, who was due to meet her in New York.
Speaking to the County Gazette, she said: "The stopping of the engines on an ocean liner creates such a calm, such a painful silence, that it inspires passengers that something is not exactly right.
"When she [The Titanic] broke in two, which she did a few moments before she sunk, going down with a huge explosion, the cries of the people left on board were heart-rending."
At around 6.30am on April 15, the boat tied up alongside the Carpathia and Marion clambered on board.
She eventually arrived in New York and was reunited with her fiancé.
Marion said: “I don’t think I shall ever want to cross the ocean again just yet. It has been sad losing all I had, wedding presents and everything I had worked so hard at, but they’re nothing in comparison to all the lives lost.”
The couple married and successfully ran a farm in Oregon.
Ashbrittle teenager Richard Parsons was just 18-years-old when the ship crashed, and was believed to have been killed in the incident.
He travelled to Belfast to help prepare the Titanic for her maiden voyage, and the County Gazette reported in 1912: "He was particularly pleased to be accepted to a post on the largest ship in the world."
Two residents from Weston-super-Mare, Emily Badman and Charles Louch, were also tragically lost due to the crash.
In 2012, descendants of a man from Burrowbridge who lost his life in the incident spoke to the County Gazette.
William James Elsbury was a third officer on the ship when it hit the iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.
William’s great niece, Valerie Board, 64, who was brought up in Stoke St Gregory, moved to Burrowbridge 47 years ago.
Valerie’s brother, David Palmer, of Westonzoyland, is William’s great nephew. Valerie and David’s mother, Ruby Palmer, was the sister of Clarence Elsbury – William’s nephew.
She said: “We only really found out about it 15 years ago, but we have photos of him.”
William emigrated to Illinois in the United States in 1884 where he married and had four children before boarding the Titanic in 1912.
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