Titanic: An IIlustrated History

[Bob Read]

Since Don Lynch is one of the copyright holders, he would have to either make or authorize any changes to his work.

 

[Steven Christian]

I might be pilloried for suggesting this, but would there be any mileage in Jason or Phil writing a letter to the publishers, point out the situation and request them to make the necessary changes? Surely, their position with the Admin of the respected ET would carry some weight and might appeal to the publishers' good sense if not anything else?

That might even persuade the publishers to cross check with Don Lynch, to whom Jason has spoken recently.

Would depend how far along they are with the process. If they are already printed I don't see any changes happening. But something seems to be holding them up so who knows.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

would there be any mileage in Jason or Phil writing a letter to the publishers, point out the situation and request them to make the necessary changes?

Unless there were some copyright violation, or some such matter, the only thing that the publisher would do is pass that letter of concern to the author. It is the author who would have to make any changes and then convince the publisher to revise the content. As Robert said above, it would be up to Don Lynch.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Unless there were some copyright violation, or some such matter, the only thing that the publisher would do is pass that letter of concern to the author. It is the author who would have to make any changes and then convince the publisher to revise the content. As Robert said above, it would be up to Don Lynch.

I guessed as much but was not totally certain where this stood. OK, I am sure that Don Lynch is aware of the protests and comments from Alice Cleaver's descendent relatives (I heard that one of them even met Lynch about the false accusations but I'm not sure if that is true) and from others. If the publishers do refer back to him about the (still hypothetical) letter, Lynch would know that it came from ET; so, would he still ignore the contents or make the necessary changes?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

would he still ignore the contents or make the necessary changes?

Who are you asking? I know that Don is a member of The Titanic Bibliophile Page FB group. You can join that group and post the question directly to Don. I'm quite sure you will get a response.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Who are you asking? I know that Don is a member of The Titanic Bibliophile Page FB group. You can join that group and post the question directly to Don. I'm quite sure you will get a response.

Err, no thanks. I think I'll just wait and hope for the best.....whatever that is.

 

[RonJF2]

On p30 of this book, Don Lynch claims that "Alice Cleaver's lack of experience was obvious. Mrs Allison often had to repeat instructions and assist in caring for the two children"

My question is, how did Lynch know that? He does not quote any source and in any case, none of the 3 adult survivors from the Allison entourage are mentioned in the Acknowledgements section of the book. No one is clear about Sarah Daniels' whereabouts soon after the disaster and there is no known interview with her; so she could not have told Lynch even if she had been alive at the time of his research. Mildred Brown lived till 1976, but here on ET it is quite clear that after her return to England Mildred lived out a quiet life and as far as is known, never mentioned the Titanic. The bio confirms that no interviews with Mildred have ever come to light and so Lynch could not have got the information from her. Moreover, Mildred Brown was berthed on a shared F-deck cabin F33, 3 decks below where the Allison family, Sarah Daniels and Alice Cleaver were accommodated. Obviously, Alice Cleaver herself would not have told Lynch that; as a matter of fact, despite her young age, Alice Catherine Cleaver had worked as a nursemaid for rich, fashionable families since her teens and so had plenty of experience. Also, she was the designated nurse for baby Trevor Allison only and had no responsibility towards Loraine Allison.

This so true, Arun. Lynch makes so many assumptions without any documentation to back it up. It really is disingenuous and dangerous to history to do this. However in the 90s the public and unfortunately James Cameron believed everything Lynch said. Cameron's taking Lynch's word as gospel has wrongly shaped several things that the general Titanic populace takes as fact. His treatment of Captain Smith was also baseless. I can't believe no one ever called him out on this garbage back in the 90's. Lynch, to my knowledge, has never explained his numerous errors or apologized. It's very disheartening as a historian to see this man be able to distort history and be treated as a legend in the Titanic universe.

 

[True_Heart_Titanic]

To be fair, there are several things that Cameron included in his movie that he acknowledges 'historians' (presumably Lynch and maybe Ken Marschall) told him were not accurate, but he kept for 'dramatic license'. I believe the gates are one of those things. He repeated that sentiment at a recent speaking engagement when someone asked if there's things he'd change about how they were shown in his movie. He said some things, like the portrayal of Murdoch, he'd show differently, but that others were 'for the plot'. Couldn't have that dramatic key scene with the steward with a waist-high gate, obviously.