The True Story of Titanic's Baker

Titanic Month has started off with a bang! I was so excited to make these videos and I love seeing how excited people are watching them. Tuesday, we tackle the 2nd Class.

He was a true English hero, chucking women and children to safety and then getting completely drunk out of his mind. Salute!

Honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of a situation more appropriate for getting absolutely shit-faced than watching the lifeboat you were supposed to be in lowered without you and knowing there weren't any more left.

My personal favorite Titanic story. Guy gets drunk, saves people's lives, drinks some more, rides the ship into the water, steps off it without even getting his hair wet, then endures two hours in the freezing water and comes away with just a pair of cold feet and a polar bear joke. What a legend.

He was drunk out of his mind, but he remembered every duty to the core, saved others before himself and kept his honour composed... truly a hero!

"I saw a polar bear, and he waved to me." I want what he's having.

"I heard a cracking sound. Not like an explosion, more like Max hitting his hard tack together."

Actually the alcohol combined with his calm demeanor actually were the likely reason he survived. In a cold water situation shock is actually the thing that kills you long before hypothermia. The sense of freezing cold water causes two things two happen almost immeadiately, the blood vesels in your limbs constrict and a torrent of flash cooled blood is then squeezed at high volume to the heart. what killed 90% of the people in the water was the cold blood effectively triggering cardiac arrest. However! our baker friend was calm and blitzed. the result? first his calmness meant he wasn't flailing and so his heart rate wasn't elevated much. second alchol causes the blood vessels to dialate and so his limbs were getting fresh blood which meant they still worked so that explains being able to tread water for hours. And the most important aspect was that his body couldn't experience shock. His paripheral neverous system was muted so he likely really didn't feel cold. True he was loosing body heat but that wasn't as big a deal as you would think. Humans can remain conscious and functioning with core body temps as low as 76 degrees, the thing that stops working at that tempurature is glucose metabolism. So he should have slipped into a coma and died your saying, cause his body couldn't metabolise sugar right. Nope because while it can't metabolize glucose it sure as hell can use alcohol sugars, namely because alcohol sugars function as antifreeze in the blood and cells can instantly burn them. Couple all of this with the fact that he was lucky enough to have a life vest and that the waters were dead calm most of the night with no wind to create a chill effect and the fact that his head remained dry, yes the alcohol and a calm additude were his saving grace. had he been sober hed have died within 10 minutes just like the rest.

Imagine being that polar bear. You're sat on an iceberg minding your own business, and all of a sudden the Titanic looms up out of the mist. You lock eyes with the one person you see on deck... and it's the drunk cook. You frantically motion to him to signal that the ship is going to crash into the berg, but he just thinks you're a cute bear waving at him. So the drunk cook meekly waves back as the Titanic rams your home. What a night.

I know he was probably drunk but the detail of the polar bear waving at him was simply adorable. I bet he would tell that to kids in order to ease the tragedy he had been on. He must have been a very interesting guy to talk to!

The alcohol didn't keep him warm but I've seen it said that it could have kept him calm and his heart rate down when in the freezing water so his body didn't go into shock as quickly or exhaust him and therefore kept him alive long enough to be pulled out.

"I knew it was an iceberg because there was a polar bear on it, and it waved to me". That's a true Brit if there ever was one. Gets absolutely plastered, literally steps off the worlds largest ship as it sinks beneath him, and then jokes about it later.

Regarding Joughin not drinking, it's entirely possible that he stopped drinking after the sinking to avoid unpleasant memories resurfacing.

Admittedly, the guy they cast as Joughin in the movie did bear a striking resemblance despite the age difference.

"Some family members said he was drinking schnaps." Me as a German: "Gee... that narrows it down... what kind of Schnaps?"

As a fellow Titanic enthusiast, I'd love to share my personal (one of many) favorite stories: ''In the water Saloon Steward Harold Philimore was still lying on top of a piece of floating wreckage. The man hanging on alongside with him hard grown steadily weaker. Finally the man had sad, ''What a night'', rolled off into the water and died.'' (source: "On The Sea of Glass"). I know technically it's not funny, but a lethal sinking of a ship being called ''What a night'' and it being your last words is...truly something XD

one of my favorite titanic stories is how wallace hartley's violin somehow survived the sinking. a million dollars is dirt cheap for what it is but i'm glad it's in a museum instead of a private collection.

I knew Joughin threw deck chairs overboard but I had not heard how he threw women and children into boats. Seems like a fellow who didn't mess around much.

Two hours of treading water in the middle of the night in the north Atlantic is insane. What an incredible feat of strength and will that must've been.

I watched "a night to remember" again recently with my mum. The portrayal of Charles joughin by George rose was really amazing... especially the bit when he looks over and sees people grabbing onto the deck chairs he threw into the Atlantic with a drunken "my work here is done" smile on his face.