Tony Robinson's Titanic Adventure
Tony's Trip
More used to delving in trenches just a few feet deep, the two and a half mile descent to Titanic in Mir 2 was a somewhat more adventurous archaeological trip for presenter Tony Robinson, albeit not more comfortable: 'I'm very glad I took some Imodium before I went down! We spent 18 hours cooped up in Mir 2, the longest Titanic dive to date in the submersible.' And he stresses it's certainly a trip you'd want to avoid if you suffer from claustrophobia: 'It was pretty damn scary at times. The conditions in there are very cramped, barely enough room for the three of us, Jim Cameron (team leader), the Russian pilot and I.'
For Tony, the real interest in Titanic was not the circumstances of her sinking but why such a huge interest remains in the ship almost 100 years later: 'Why is she so iconic? I wanted to get a grip on this. After all, there have been so many tragic events since 1912, but they don't so readily spring to mind,' he says. 'The flipside to this is that something which is so iconic always attracts a great deal of skilled people. The project gave me access to a multitude of specialists.'
While working with the specialists, Tony got a better appreciation for the fascination that Titanic holds: 'It was incredible to learn that for every key dramatic moment in the sinking there are maybe 20 different versions of what happened.' Of course, Titanic had no black box, only eyewitness accounts, and it's easy to understand how recollections of those traumatic moments may have become fogged.
With time, accounts become stories and passengers become characters. 'These stories and characters have permeated through the years, and now with many, it's difficult to establish what really happened,' concludes Tony.
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