19 Oct 2008

Last Titanic survivor sells mementoes

4:39 pm on 19 October 2008

The last remaining survivor of the Titanic has auctioned her mementoes for more than Stg30,000 to pay her nursing home fees.

Millvina Dean sold a suitcase full of clothes, which had been given to her by the people of New York after she was rescued as a baby.

The 96-year-old also sold rare prints of the ill-fated cruise liner and compensation letters sent to her mother by the Titanic Relief Fund.

Miss Dean needs to raise money to pay for her private nursing home fees.

She was nine weeks old when the ship sank in 1912 while her family were emigrating to Kansas.

She was placed in a sack and carried to safety along with her mother and brother.

But her father Bertram was one of more than 1,500 people who died.

The auction took place at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, where the suitcase fetched Stg10,800, the prints Stg9,250 and the letters Stg11,100.

Earlier Miss Dean said she hoped to raise

Stg3,000 by selling the items.

Miss Dean moved into a private nursing home in Ashurst, Hampshire, two years ago.

She is the last survivor of the Titanic after Barbara Dainton, from Cornwall, died last year, aged 96.