Here's to you ‘a handful of history’, my sharing of real-life stories from around the world. All the narratives I pick are rooted in history one way or another, yet most of them carry themes and happenings that we can easily reflect upon today.
Enjoy :-) - Majken xx
“My father survived the sinking of the Titanic”
A few years ago, I was in Belfast and stopped by the impressive Titanic Museum. It is placed on the shipyard site where the (real) Titanic was built back in the days - starting in 1909 and finishing in 1912. We all know what happened, but new stories always seem to appear about the terrible accident here and there. This one I had never heard before.
When the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank, about 700 passengers were rescued. Among them were six Chinese sailors who all travelled in third class. Unlike other survivors, though, their stories remained untold for decades.
In this radio show Tom Fong, the son of one of the Chinese survivors, brings the story of his father, Fang Lang. It’s a story he only learned about himself many years after his father died.
The Letters in China
Tom Fong’s father married late in life and had Tom when he was 65 years old, Tom tells. He died in 1985 at the age of 90, and he never revealed to his son or wife that he’d survived Titanic. It was only accidentally Tom found out through conversations he had with relatives and friends of the family. The first time was when he was eight years old.
Back then, Tom didn’t give it many thoughts, though, and it wasn’t until 2003, eighteen years after his father died, that someone brought the story up again. This time it caught Tom’s attention. He decided to post it on an online group for relatives of Titanic survivors, and in 2015 he was contacted by the British documentary maker, Arthur Jones. He was, it turned out, making a film called “The Six”, about the Chinese survivors of the Titanic, and when researching for the film, the crew had found letters from Tom Fong’s father which he’d written to his family back in China. In these letters, he described the horrors of the Titanic experience.
Troubles and more Troubles
It turned out that a captain found Tom’s father while he was clinging to floating debris, like a door or something. The captain pulled him in and rescued his life. If you’ve seen the blockbuster movie “Titanic”, there’s an iconic scene towards the end where Kate Winslet floats on debris while we see the sinking ship in the background. It is believed that Fang Lang’s experience inspired this scene.
After Fang Lang miraculously survived the shipwreck, he arrived at New York harbour. But as it turned out, the troubles weren’t yet over. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act - a law that forbade all Chinese to travel into the US - Fang Lang and the other surviving Chinese were not allowed to step onto land. The six Chinese knew about this Act, and they never had plans to stay in the US. Their idea was to continue straight to the Caribbean to find jobs on merchant ships.
However, since the situation was out of the ordinary, one could expect that someone would look after them medically at least. But this didn’t happen. When arriving in NY, the authorities took the Chinese men directly to the ship that would send them on their further journey. They never received any treatment like the other surviving passengers.
In the days that followed, the ill-treatment of Mr. Lang and his fellow Chinese travellers continued. The press accused them of disguising themselves as women to get a place in the lifeboats - the journalists assuming that the Chinese men had long hair. But as the photograph above clearly shows, Tom’s father had short hair at the time.
The Captain’s Grandson
Today, Tom Fong wonders if his father was so secretive about the story all his life because of the stigma attached to being one of the Chinese survivors.
After being contacted by the British documentary maker in 2015, Tom agreed to help make the film “The Six”. As part of the research, he travelled to the UK, where he met the grandson of the captain, who helped his father onto a life-saving boat and thereby saved his father’s life. “My existence I owe to him”, Tom says. He is understandably deeply moved.
Photo: Fang Lang.
The Other Fab Four
“John Lennon just looked at us and he said: “girls don’t play guitars” and we thought oh god we’re going to show you. And then we practiced and practiced and practiced.”
In 1962 four young Liverpool women, Valerie Gell, Pamela Birch, Mary McGlory and Sylvia Saunders, formed the first all-female rock band in Britain; The Liverbirds (a liver bird is a mythical creature which is the symbol of the city of Liverpool). They wanted to make it big, and they did. At least for a while. For six years, they played for packed crowds across Europe. They went on tour with the Rolling Stones, lent their instruments to The Kinks and rolled joints for Jimi Hendrix.
I’ve never heard about the Liverbirds in my life, but oh my, this is such a fantastic story! It was Mary McGlory who started the whole thing. She was just 16 at the time and very religious. Much of Liverpool had been damaged in WWII, McGlory tells. She was born just after the war, and the community hadn’t managed to build new houses yet. In her small family house they lived four children, her parents and grandparents, plus an uncle, and they didn’t have much of anything.
Early on, McGlory decided she wanted to become a nun, but before that, she had a wish to earn a lot of money to help her family to have a better life. After being at a Beatles concert in the legendary “Cavern” nightclub in Liverpool, she was not only blown away, she also had an idea of how to bring in some cash. She said to her cousin, “oh my god, we’re going to be like them, and we are going to be the first girls to do it.” When she got home from the concert, she announced the news to her parents, and then she and her cousin went off to buy some musical instruments.
Mary never got to be a nun, but she did get the band and the fame - and some money too. Why the Liverbirds didn’t become as famous as the Beatles well, you’ll have to watch the documentary to find out.
“The Other Fab Four” (also called: “We're Britain's First Female Rock Band. This is Why You Don't Know Us”) is directed by Ben Proudfoot. Throughout the documentary, we are guided through the story of the Liverbirds by the two charming - and only living members - bassist and vocalist Mary McGlory and the drummer Sylvia Saunders.
Blue Zone Sardinia
Sardinia is one of the five so-called Blue Zones - places with high concentrations of some of the oldest people in the world. In this documentary, four close-to-hundred-year-olds share their memories about how they have spent their lives .......Dancing - “I liked to dance. The waltz, the mazurka.”, “We would dance every Saturday and Sunday.”, “After the war ended, we’d go dancing with the Spanish girls.” ........Drinking - “The flavour of Sardinia is salty because there is salt everywhere.”, “It's on every bush and in all the herbs. It’s in the water. That’s why we have good water.”, “Let’s have a drink. Wine. Red wine. Natural wine.”, “Salute!” .......Dining - “We had everything. Healthy things. Wholesome things.", “We ate everything. Vegetable soup is good for my intestine.”, “But I miss my mother’s food because it was all homemade and came from my kitchen garden.”, “They would bake the bread in the wood oven as it was done in the old way. A fragrant bread came out, which was a thing of beauty.”
Ooooh, when I turn one hundred I want to live in Sardinia.
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Thanks for reading. I’m happy and grateful to see you here! Majken xx
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