The RMS St Helena (1989)

[johnnyp]

http://mattwillschinablogger.blogspot.c ... -1989.html
A very ordinary title for a blog...

Sunday, 5 October 2008
The RMS St Helena (1989)
Today's blog is, in a word, a bit....random. Yesterday, while browsing a short book about the Titanic, i noticed that it was officially called the RMS Titanic. Further digging revealed that the 'RMS' stands for 'Royal Mail Ship'- only ships that carry the RMS prefix can carry Royal Mail postage by water, and these ships also have the right to fly the Royal Mail insignia when at sea. Some ships are used as postage vessels and as ordinary ships, and so only carry the prefix 'RMS' when actually chartered to carry mail. The Titanic, run by the White Cross Line, was an RMS and it was planned that it would carry post between England and America.

There are very few RMS ships left in existence, as most post is sent par avion rather than by sea. However, one of the RMS ships still operating is the RMS St Helena. This ship specifically services the British overseas territory of St Helena,a small island that has no airstrip and therefore can only receive mail be sea. The RMS St Helena regularly sails from Capetown to St Helena carrying mail. The ship also docks at Portland in Dorset [UK] twice a year, and occasionally visits Ascension Island [a St Helena dependency] too. The vessel is fairly small, with a compliment of only 56 officers and crew, and 128 passenger spaces. However, it remains an essential part of the fleet.

The current St Helena is due to come to the end of its sailing life in 2010. In 2005 the UK government announced its intention to build an airfield on the island of St Helena, with it becoming operational by 2010. It seems that the current RMS St Helena will not be replaced by another ship, but by airmail services.

Posted by Matt Wills at 18:07

[baldrick]

I remember reading that five postal workers , five postmen and a PHG I think, went down with the Titanic.
Their job was to sort the mail to the USA during the voyage there.
From what I recall they were trying to save the Registered mail by bringing it up from the lower decks when
the ship went down.

[brothermagrew]

A wee fella called Napoleon could tell you a few things about St. Helena only trouble being he's long gone to his final resting place.

[Lounge Lizard]

I understand that the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company took over the White Star line a while after the Titanic was sunk. Included in a big box of old postcards I bought at auction last month were fifty unused RMSP postcards published by Raphael Tuck nearly a century ago and featuring views of South American towns. Such historical things can be quite easily researched via the internet.

[johnnyp]

I remember reading that five postal workers , five postmen and a PHG I think, went down with the Titanic.
Their job was to sort the mail to the USA during the voyage there.
From what I recall they were trying to save the Registered mail by bringing it up from the lower decks when
the ship went down.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 615078.ece

titanickey_155377a.jpg

From The TimesApril 5, 2007

Titanic key to a postman’s bravery
Will Pavia
The band played on, engineers fought to maintain power and the captain remained at his post as the Titanic went down on the night of April 14, 1912.

To these stubborn acts of courage can be be added those of the ship’s five postmen.

This month the keys and chain of the postmaster of the Titanic mail room, prised from his frozen body, emerged for auction, and with them a bewildering story of postal heroism.

In an age when the Royal Mail was staggeringly efficient, postmaster Oscar Woody and his team were regarded as the best of the best, entrusted with sorting 400,000 letters during the six-day voyage from Southampton to New York.

He had no intention of letting the holing of the vessel by a giant iceberg stand in the way of their safe delivery.

Mr Woody, from Clifton, Virginia, had been a railroad mail clerk for 15 years before boarding the Titanic, a Royal Mail steamer, on April 9, 1912. With him in the post room were Wil-liam Gwinn, from New York, John Marsh, from New Jersey, John “Jago” Smith, 35, from St Keverne, Cornwall, and James Williamson, 35, from Dublin.

The evening of April 14 was Mr Woody’s 44th birthday and the men were celebrating when, at 11.40pm, the ship hit ice off Newfoundland.

They rushed down to the mail storage room in the forward hold of G deck, where the bitterly cold seawater was already two feet deep. For several hours the five struggled up four flights of steps, carrying 100lb (45kg) sacks of sopping mail.

The keys and chain are expected to fetch about £50,000 when they are auctioned by Henry Aldridge and Sons in Wiltshire on April 21. Andrew Aldridge said: “They didn’t think or care about saving their own lives, just saving the mail. It was a completely futile exercise, but that was the sort of men they were.”

As it became obvious that the ship was sinking, the men redoubled their efforts, enlisting the help of stewards to carry up the bags.

Alfred Thessinger, a bedroom steward who survived the ordeal, was one of the last to see the men alive. “I urged them to leave their work,” he said. “They shook their heads and continued. I saw them no more.” Mr Aldridge said: “Os-car Woody was last seen carrying sacks of mail from G deck to C deck to save it. It must have been an odd sight for the passengers to see these men carrying bags up flights of stairs while Armageddon was going on around them.”

However, as Mr Aldridge points out, “the postmaster and his staff were the crãme de la crãme. To serve on a transatlantic steamer you had to be in the top 1 per cent of your profession because you had to sort through hundreds of letters per hour.”

The rusty set of keys and chain were recovered from the body of Mr Woody and handed to his widow, Leila, who in turn passed them on to his masonic lodge. They will be sold together with a compensation letter written to the wife of his colleague, Mr Gwinn.

Key, lock and compensation letter will be sold at an auction of Titanic and White Star Line memorabilia in Devizes on April 21.

[BELIAL]

Was the captains name Crozier or Mandelson

[brothermagrew]

Was the captains name Crozier or Mandelson

Might have been Langworthy!

[k979aaa]

Was the captains name Crozier or Mandelson

Might have been Langworthy!

But not sea worthy.

[k979aaa]

Captain of the titanic was edward j smith.

[BELIAL]

Who is Langworthy then?

[k979aaa]

Who is Langworthy then?

Maybe second officer lightoller he was the guy who said women and children first and also helped in the evacuation of dunkirk in ww2!.

[brothermagrew]

Captain of the titanic was edward j smith.

My mistake thought the question was who was the the Captain of the RMS St Helena

[k979aaa]

Captain of the titanic was edward j smith.

My mistake thought the question was who was the the Captain of the RMS St Helena

No prob's mate even i could not find that found the ship soure wikipedia.

[DGP1]

http://www.rms-st-helena.com/ Link to the official site.

It also lets you know where it is right now just like our tracking systems

[BELIAL]

Coo ,almost as tricky as trying to work out what was agreed in last years settlement