adult passengers to count, and went through the terror of the ship sinking under her.

Her first grandchild, Margaret Warwick, born just after the disaster, was my maternal grandmother. My Granny, mother and uncle all heard about the disaster from Fannie, and my great-great-grandmother's cool head and ability to survive everything that life through at her is admirable to this day.

In his eulogy after my grandmother's death in 2002, my father said:

Fannie Chamberlain (Margaret’s grandmother) also became an actress after her marriage, which seems to have been opposed by both families.

Margaret, Anthony and Elizabeth loved her, and her great-grandchildren still remember her as a redoubtable figure with a great sense of humour, who died in in her nineties.

Anthony says that Fanny Chamberlain was the one relative whom Margaret resembledclosely, in appearance and personality. She had to struggle after her husband’s death. She became a stewardess in the Cunard Line to support her family. It was then an unusual but successful career, and she notably and glamorously survived the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. We also have a photograph of her, imposing and confident in a large private state-room on the “Lancastria”, where she was chief stewardess. Margaret used to recall her bringing exotic presents home from New York. Not many people have had a granny like that.

Fannie Morecroft died on July 9th 1958. She was a widow for more than 50 years, and was survived by her daughter, son, three granddaughters, one grandson, and 8 great-grandchildren.