Growing Together In Him: music

Lately I (Lindsey) have been looking into violins. I have a violin, but its alittle small for me and it doesn’t have very good sound quality. Mom and dad said when I’m alittle older they will get me a nice violin. I still looked at some violins for fun though and heres some of my favorites……

I really like this one!

This is Mozart’s violin! I’m kind of into classical composers and music for some reason!

This is the Titanic violin, it’s the one Wallace Hartely played while the Titanic sunk.

Even amid the tumult, his last words are said to have resounded clearly. 'Gentlemen, I bid you farewell.'

With that, Wallace Hartley, bandleader of the Titanic, was washed away - with his precious violin, in its case, strapped to his waist.

Folklore has it that, moments earlier, in an incredible act of stoicism, he struck up the hymn Nearer My God To Thee to calm passengers as the doomed liner slid beneath the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

Perhaps the story has been embellished a little over the years since. Steve Turner, author of The Band That Played On, which tells the story of 33-year-old Hartley and the Titanic's band said: 'The story behind the violin involves love as it was a gift from his fiancee. And it of course symbolises bravery and religion.He added: 'It sums up all that you would like to believe from the tragedy. You can't imagine anything more iconic.'He added: 'Because the violin was a gift from Maria to Wallace on their engagement, it makes sense that she was the rightful heir rather than Hartley's parents. I wonder whether Hartley clung on to it so tightly because it was a gift from his wife-to-be. Otherwise he might just have let it go.'The violin remained Maria's most treasured possession and she never married. On her death in 1939, it was passed to her sister Margaret Robinson who in turn donated it to the Salvation Army at Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

'It was never about the money with him'

'Then it was passed to a Salvation Army music teacher who played the violin. She passed it to one of her pupils called Eve, who held on to it until she died in the 1980s,' said Mr Turner. 'When her son, a lecturer, came to clear out her loft he fondly remembered playing it as a youth and put it in his own attic.'

There it remained until 2006 when, unaware of its provenance, he began to wonder whether 'it might be worth something' and asked an expert to 'cast an eye over it'.

By the time the experts arrived at his modest three-bedroom bunglaow, he had already worked out that it was 'Titanic related' and 'might be of interest'.But in an yet another twist it emerged yesterday that the lecturer, who has not being named, died two months ago. 'His family has become the main beneficiary,' said Mr Turner. 'He wanted a lot of the money to go to charity. It was never about the money with him, though, as he would have sold it years ago. In yesterday's auction, the violin had a reserve price of between £200,000 and £300,000 and was expected to reach as much as £400,000. About 200 people packed out the sale room in the hope of capturing a piece of history. Many stood at the back of the room as there were not enough chairs.

sooo sad!! Wallace Hartley's fiancee Maria Robinson