'Titanic' postcard expected to make €5,000 at auction

A POSTCARD sent from a passenger on the Titanicto his father in Scotland has turned up in a Dublin salesroom and will be auctioned later this month.

It had been stamped and put in the mail box on the ship and taken ashore at Queenstown, now Cobh, in Cork. It is expected to make €5,000 – or more given the worldwide interest generated by centenary commemorations of the maritime disaster.

In a brief, poignant message Andrew Johnston wrote to his “Dear Father” to apologise that he “had not time to write before we sailed” and that “we don’t get to New York till Wednesday next so I will write when we get there”.

He never did.

Johnston (35), a master plumber living in Thornton Heath, Croydon, London – and originally from Aberdeenshire – who was emigrating to America, perished when the ship sank, along with his wife, a son and a daughter. He had been scheduled to take up a job in Connecticut.

They had boarded the ship at Southampton on Wednesday, April 10th, 1912. The next morning, the Titanicstopped in Cork to pick up passengers from Queenstown. Johnston wrote the name of the ship on the blank message area on the reverse of the plain white card, and the day and time.

The postcard was addressed to William Johnston, Newmachar, Aberdeenshire, and signed “your affectionate son, Andrew”.

The Johnston family had planned to emigrate the previous year and had booked on another ship, the Philadelphia, but the sailing was cancelled, due to a coal strike, and they all rebooked passages on Titanic.The auction, organised by MacDonnell Whyte, takes place in the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place, Dublin, on January 21st at 1pm.