April 1912. Clarty Clara is the baby of her large family who is known for causing trouble. She lives on a ranch but has always dreamed of adventures, like the kind had by her cousin Harold, or Harry, who is th5Marconi operator aboard HMS Carpathia. When Clara is prevented from seeing Harry due to her bad behaviour, she takes matters into her own hands and hides in his trunk, hoping for a chance to spend some time with him before he returns to sea. Things don’t go quite to plan, however, and Clara finds herself a stowaway on the HMS Carpathia. After befriending giant dog Rigel who is trapped in the hold, Clara is discovered and found a suitable companion on board. One night Clara and Rigel spot a sea monster from the ship’s portholes. This is where their real adventures begin.
Meanwhile, on the RMS Titanic, Sid is proud to be working as one of the youngest stewards. Then, on the night of the 14th, the ship hits an iceberg and Sid finds himself caught up in the scramble to survive – but as a crew member his life is of the lowest priority and there aren’t enough lifeboat places to go around. Sid’s brave actions put him into contact with Clara, Rigel and a mysterious and legendary monster, all of whom respond to his plight.
April 1912 was the moment that, in real life, put Carpathia’s names into history’s records as the ship that responded to the distress calls of the Titanic. Lindsay Galvin has found a sensitive and exciting way to introduce the most famous sea disaster of all time to a young audience without the drama centring entirely on events which killed 1500 people. She has also struck a good balance between including some characters who really existed whilst changing their stories as little as possible. Sidney Daniels existed but Galvin has aged him down by four years to fit her story and reflect the age of the youngest crew members who died in the disaster. Most of Sidney’s story is told through the testimony he gave at the inquiry in New York, and snippets from these real documents are cleverly interspersed with Clara’s fictional story until the moment fictional Sid grabs hold of a life boat and his fate begins to meet with Clara’s. This shows a sensitivity to the real life victims and survivors whilst recognising the need for children to be introduced to the story and in actual fact my response was ‘why has nobody thought of this approach before?’ The scale of the tragedy is not played down for the audience not seeing all drama on board the sinking ship. It is made real in the moment when the Carpathia passengers come into contact with Titanic’s survivors and learn of the ship’s fate – and the fate of so many lost lives.
It was lovely that, although telling the story of a tragedy is a departure from Galvin’s previous works, she has kept her love of sea creatures and marine mythology strong within her work. Galvin is a talent and it is lovely to see her taking on a project that hands down this history to a new generation whilst also encouraging writers and creatives to think about how they approach the story with sensitivity and respect to those who are no longer here to tell their own stories.
Clara and Rigel are two of the loveliest characters I have read in some time. Clara is the daredevil we would all love to be but she also has a naivety and vulnerability that makes her a rounded character. Rigel is cuddly and boisterous and massive and desperate for affection. He is also clever – he is aware of the sea monster and its true nature long before any of the human characters. It is they, ultimately, who carry the story, and their escapades made me want to keep turning the pages. Hats off to Lindsay Galvin – she has written a new Titanic drama that is worthy of space of any shelf.
- Call Of The Titanic is available now from Chicken House books. RRP. £7.99 (provided as part of a promotional blog tour)
