The son and daughter of a Titanic survivor gasped when an Antiques Roadshow expert told them the value of their father’s letter that made it off the ship – but the siblings refused to sell.
Antiques expert Hilary Kay met with the children of Sidney Daniels, who was hired as a plate washer on the Titanic at the age of 18.
When the ship began going down, Sidney was instructed to help guests out of their cabins and into life jackets.
And when the time came for him to leap off the vessel, a handwritten letter to his family remained intact in his uniform pocket.
More than 100 years on from the nautical tragedy, Hilary spoke to Sidney’s children about his story.
‘It was a Sunday, he was sound asleep, there was a banging and shouting and it was the night watchman,’ said Sidney’s daughter in an older episode that re-aired on the BBC this weekend.
The son and daughter of a Titanic survivor (pictured together) gasped when an Antiques Roadshow expert told them the value of their father’s letter that made it off the ship
Antiques expert Hilary Kay met with the children of Sidney Daniels (pictured), who was hired as a plate washer on the Titanic at the age of 18
‘They were all a bit bleary-eyed because, at first, they thought it was a drill.
‘It wasn’t until he got up on deck, there were hardly any people around at first and then officers came and turned to him and said, “Go to these cabins”.’
Sidney’s daughter explained how exhausted guests, roused from a deep sleep, didn’t believe the frantic teenager urging them to leave their cabins.
‘Of course it was hard to wake people, they were asleep,’ she continued. ‘Some reacted in different ways.
‘One or two said “What does this young man know? He’s 18, the boat is unsinkable. We’re not going up on deck.”
‘Others were saying, “We’ve got children, they’re going to get a chill if they go up on deck.”
‘So he helped the children with the lifejackets and ushered them up on deck.’
Moved by the tale, Hilary painted the picture of ‘chaos’ and ‘despair’ when those on the ship realised there weren’t enough lifeboats.
Hilary (pictured) estimated the letter’s value to be in the region of £10,000 – given it’s a memento from a tragedy that continues to move the nation
‘That was his job, to try and get people into the lifeboats and the water was rising all the time,’ said Sidney’s son.
‘When all the lifeboats had gone, the water was up around his knees and he thought, “It’s time to go.”
‘So he dived off the side of the boat, swam away from it, came to a lifebelt and to my Dad’s mind, it was too close to the boat, he was afraid when the boat went down, the suction would take them down so he said to this chap, “It’s no good here, let’s swim away.”
Sidney’s son told how his father and the other man kept swimming together in the darkness.
‘He said he saw a star in the sky which he thought was his mother,’ he continued.
‘And he swam towards this star and eventually came to this life raft which was upside down and he managed to cling onto that.
‘When he was on there, he said, “I’m tired, I want to go to sleep,” and the chap next to him said, “Don’t go to sleep lad, if you do, it will be your last.” So they sat there singing hymns trying to pass the time away.’
The presence of the letter, Hilary pointed out, means Sideny was rescued and brought to safety.
But the siblings insisted they had no plans to sell the letter (pictured) and instead were going to give it to a museum
The letter lay on the table between Sidney’s children and Hilary – the ink smudged and the edges frayed but, despite its journey, in good condition.
Of the letter’s value, Hilary said: ‘We’re talking around £10,000 – is the realistic value.’
At this, the siblings gasped, before immediately responding: ‘It’s very nice but it’s not going out of the family, it’s going to a museum.
‘Dad would have been pleased to know it had gone in there.’
The letter was addressed to Sidney’s family and contained mostly ‘tittle tattle’. Water damage had caused the stamp to fall off.
Hilary was ‘delighted’ at the siblings’ decision, which meant countless more people could enjoy the miraculous memento from the historic event.
‘It’s an extraordinary item and anything related to Titanic has this extraordinary effect on people,’ Hilary said.
‘It is an extraordinary moment to behold something which is so linked into an extraordinary moment in history.’
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and to stream on iPlayer
