My piece The Sinking of the Titanic was written in 1969, though conceived in 1968, the year of the astonishing Mexico Olympics. It deals with many aspects surrounding the loss of the great liner, but focuses most on the behaviour of the ship’s musicians who played music to the very end. Indeed, according the most reliable witness, Second Wireless Officer Harold Bride who was floating in the sea some 50 yards away, they were still playing as the ship went under.

“…from aft came the tunes of the band… The ship was gradually turning on her nose - just like a duck that goes down for a dive. I had only one thing on my mind – to get away from the suction. The band was still playing. I guess all of the band went down. They were playing Autumn then. I swam with all my might. I suppose I was 150 feet away when the Titanic, on her nose, with her afterquarter sticking straight up in the air, began to settle slowly… The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while we were still working wireless, when there was a ragtime tune for us, and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing Autumn. How they ever did it I cannot imagine.”

The ship sank in 1912, an Olympic year. They were held in Stockholm and included such sports as the Tug o' War and the great hero was the American all-round athlete Jim Thorpe – who won several gold medals, including both pentathlon and decathlon with record scores. The 2012 Olympic Games will fall in the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic – in April 1912.

Curiously the Titanic's sister ship, almost identical to the ill-fated liner, was called the Olympic…

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