And the Band Played On...: The Titanic Violinist and the Glovemaker - A True Story of Love, Loss and Betrayal

Christopher Ward

Hodder & Stoughton, 2011 - Biography & Autobiography - 274 pages

The amazing true story of one of the band members who famously played as the Titanic sank, written by his grandson On 14th April 1912, when the Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank, 1,500 passengers and crew lost their lives. As the order to abandon ship was given, the orchestra took their instruments on deck and continued to play as the ship went down. The violinist, 21 year-old Jock Hume, knew that his fiancée, Mary, was expecting their first child, the author's mother. A century later, Christopher Ward reveals a dramatic story of love, loss, and betrayal, and the catastrophic impact of Jock's death on two very different Scottish families. He paints a vivid portrait of an age in which class determined the way you lived—and died. This outstanding piece of historical detective work is also a moving account of how the author's quest to learn more about his grandfather revealed the shocking truth about a family he thought he knew, a truth that had been hidden for nearly 100 years.

About the author

Christopher Ward is the grandson of Jock Hume, at 21 the youngest member of the Titanic's orchestra. Christopher joined the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne aged 17, and moved to Merseyside to become the Daily Mirror's Liverpool correspondent at the height of Beatlemania. In his early twenties, he moved to London, writing a column in the Mirror for more than ten years. At 38 he became Fleet Street's then youngest editor when he was appointed editor of the Daily Express. He left, aged 42, to co-found Redwood, Europe's first customer magazine agency, of which he is Chairman today. He lives in the Scottish Borders, seventy miles from Jock Hume's birth place in Dumfries.

Bibliographic information

• Title: And the Band Played On...: The Titanic Violinist and the Glovemaker - A True Story of Love, Loss and Betrayal
• Author: Christopher Ward
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011
• ISBN: 1444707957, 9781444707953
• Length: 274 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General; Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Biography & Autobiography / Music; History / General; History / Modern / 20th Century / General; Transportation / Ships & Shipbuilding / History