Titanic secrets go under the hammer (From Swindon Advertiser)

Titanic secrets go under the hammer

7:10pm Friday 28th March 2008 in News

THE treasured possessions of the last survivor of the Titanic disaster, including a pocket watch found on the body of her dead father, are expected to fetch a world-record price at auction in Devizes.

Lillian Asplund was just five when the liner struck an iceberg and sank, killing her father and three brothers, including her twin.

She was the last Titanic survivor with actual memories of the sinking, But she shunned publicity and rarely talked about the tragedy before she died aged 99 in 2006.

The never-before-seen Titanic artefacts, which were found in a locked box in her home, are expected to fetch more than £120,000 when they go under the hammer on April 19.

The vast collection - which includes a rare emigration ticket, dozens of letters and photographs and even her parents' wedding rings - is a sad reminder of the night of April 15, 1912.

The hands of Lillian's father's goldplated pocket watch are frozen in time at 2.19am, a moment before Titanic, pictured, was lost to the North Atlantic.

According to an interview with Lillian's mother, the Asplund family had huddled together on Titanic's deck as the ship went down. They were preparing to die when Lillian, her three-year-old brother Felix and mother, Selma, were suddenly thrown into one of the last lifeboats.

Only her father's body was recovered, while her brothers, Filip, Clarence and Carl, were never found. Neither Lillian nor her brother ever married and never had children, while their mother died aged 91 on the 52nd anniversary of the sinking.

Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Sons in Devizes, said the collection held some of the most significant Titanic memorabilia to ever go under the hammer.