Step closer to raising Titanic

- 01 March 2007

The wreck

A MAN whose lifelong ambition has been to raise the Titanic believes his dream is a step closer.

Douglas Faulkner-Woolley, of Green Lane, Goodmayes, is trying to raise funds to refloat the sunken Queen Elizabeth liner in Hong Kong Harbour as a trial run for his ultimate goal of salvaging the Titanic.

Mr Faulkner-Woolley, 69, who claims salvage rights to both former White Star passenger liners, says a survey of the Queen Elizabeth - commissioned by his company Seawise Salvage International - shows it can be recovered.

He said: "We are now just analysing everything that comes through [from the survey]. We are seriously looking for money to get the QE1 out of Hong Kong as soon as we can."

Mr Faulkner-Woolley, who will talk about the salvage operation in Ramsgate, Kent, on the 95th anniversary of the sinking of the Titantic next month, wants to return the liner to Britain to his native Liverpool. His aim is to have it as the central feature of a museum in a similar fashion to that of Henry VIII's Mary Rose, whose remaining timbers were raised from the Solent and taken to Portsmouth.

He estimates the cost of the QE1 operation would be more than £5million and is looking for backers.

Mr Faulkner-Woolley's lifelong ambition started as a boy when he was evacuated from Liverpool during World War Two.

Living with his grandfather Pops in Shropshire, he learned that his two great aunts, Sally and Ellen, who following a premonition that the Titanic would sink, decided not to board - even though their passage had been booked and their possessions locked in the hold.

With the help of musician Gary Smith, Seawise colleague Robert Macleod and Kenneth More Theatre general manager Vivyan Ellacott, Mr Faulkner-Woolley is organising a play about the Titanic, which sunk in mid-Atlantic, killing 1,496 people on its maiden voyage in 1912.

He hopes the show in June, at St Mark's Church, Rose Lane, Marks Gate, which tells the story of a young docker who boards the ill-fated liner, will raise funds for the salvage operation. It stars singer Andy Coleman and Mr Faulkner-Woolley, who is the author of Titanic - One Man's Dream.