Losing the Empress: A Personal Journey: The Empress of Ireland’s Enduring Shadow

260 Pages·2000·4.65 MB·English

by  David Creighton

LO S I N G T H E
EMPRESS
A Personal Journey
THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND’S ENDURING SHADOW
DAVID CREIGHTON
LOSING THE EMPRESS
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LO S I N G T H E
EMPRESS
A Personal Journey
THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND’S ENDURING SHADOW
DAVID CREIGHTON
Dundurn press
Toronto • Oxford
Copyright © David Creighton, 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Copyright
Licensing Agency.
Editorial Co-ordinator: Anthony Hawke
Editor: Barry Jowett
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Transcontinental
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Creighton, David
Losing the Empress: a personal journey
ISBN 1-55002-340-3
1. Empress of Ireland (Steamship). 2. Storstad (Steamship). 3. Shipwrecks — Quebec
(Province) — Saint Lawrence River Estuary. I. Title.
G530.E4C73 2000 910’.9163’44 C00-931883-6
1 2 3 4 5 04 03 02 01 00
THE CANADA COUNCIL LE CONSEIL DES ARTS
FOR THE ARTS DU CANADA
SINCE 1957 DEPUIS 1957
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our
publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program, The Association for the Export of Canadian Books,
and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The
author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or
credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper.
e
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE PEOPLE LEFT ON THE SHORE
Sentiment 11
Soul of a Machine 12
The Army’s Card 22
In Fear for Your Life 24
Losing the Empress 32
The River 34
Diving the Empress 47
PART TWO BLESSINGS
Crazy Life of Man 53
Chocolate Titanic Ship 59
Another Titanic Disaster 65
Old Times on Trout Creek 68
Free and Easy 88
United for War 96
Toronto is in Tears; Canada Mourns 108
PART THREE THE POWER OF MYTH
The Real End is the Journey 125
Somebody’s Bad Luck 135
Remember Them in the Eternal City 145
PART FOUR THE BLACK DINNER
Crystal Palace Day 149
The Empty Chairs 158
Somewhere in France 159
The Shock of the Ships 168
Like Cordwood 169
Surreal 176
Our Lady of the Sick 178
Then We’ll Anchor in the Harbour 184
When the Plot Starts to Drag 185
PART FIVE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
Damned Good Show 195
The Most Perfect Rainbow 208
From the New World 218
In the Cabin for the Night 225
The Head and the Heart 230
Lost Liners 242
The Farm 245
Acknowledgements 254
For Fred
We are now oriented to the future, and those of us who have been
shaped by the rationalism of the modern world cannot easily
understand the old forms of spirituality. We are not unlike Newton,
one of the first people in the Western world to be wholly imbued by
the scientific spirit, who found it impossible to understand mythology.
However hard we try to embrace conventional religion, we have a
natural tendency to see truth as factual, historical, and empirical.
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God
PART ONE
PEOPLE LEFT ON THE SHORE