NEED TO KNOW
- Lisa Wilkinson has released a new book about the only Australian survivor of the Titanic.
- Evelyn Marsden was a young nurse originally from Adelaide working on board the doomed ship.
- There has been talk of making Evelyn’s book into a screen project.
The broadcaster and journalist is best known for her on-screen work, but now Lisa Wilkinson has published a book about the Titanic, which tells the story of an incredible Australian survivor.
Here she tells Woman’s Day about The Titanic Story Of Evelyn and what inspired her to write it.
Can you tell us about your new book.
This is the virtually unknown but completely extraordinary true story of Evelyn Marsden, a young nurse from South Australia who became the only Australian-born survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. It’s also a story of courage, resilience, and an enduring love that will both lift you up, but ultimately break your heart, as it did mine.
Why were you inspired to write about Evelyn?
As a teenager growing up in the early 1900s, Evelyn stood out as different from other girls her age – she learned Morse code, was a brilliant horsewoman, and also a champion rower, who used to train on the Murray River. In fact, she was so good on the water, that the only way she could challenge herself was to row against the tide. As soon as I read those words, I recognised that that theme is something a lot of Australian women could probably identify with in so many areas of their lives – that feeling of rowing against the tide.
And why was it so important for you to tell Evelyn’s story?
I couldn’t believe that such an incredible Australian woman attached to such a huge moment in world history was so unknown – and 114 years on, I didn’t want her story of both heroism and survival on that fateful night, as well as the beautiful love story behind it all, to be lost to history. From the moment I discovered Evelyn’s story I started writing, whenever and wherever I could.
How did you go about researching?
My many decades in TV taught me how to juggle lots of stories at once. I was fortunate that my husband [author and journalist Peter FitzSimons] specialises in books that bring to life major historical figures and events – so he was enormously helpful in how to go about it all. I’ve been everywhere from Evelyn’s tiny hometown of Hoyleton in outback SA to Adelaide Hospital, where she trained as a nurse, to Southampton in the UK where she was living when the Titanic first set sail. Evelyn’s great-niece Petrea [Hann], encouraged me and provided me with never-before-seen precious letters and documents that really helped me in telling her story.
What about the Titanic did you learn that you never knew before?
I began to realise this was all happening during the rise of the suffragettes, and just how many incredible women there were on the Titanic that night – from the highest paid movie actress in the world, to women who were fighting for women to get the right to vote, to poets, to big game hunters, to fashion designers, to journalists, and even one with the ear of the US President.
I realised that the story of the Titanic is one that has almost always been told by men, and never through the eyes of the extraordinary women on board. I found their collective courage and magnificence, not to mention the heartbreak so many of them went through, completely inspiring. There was even an uprising on one of the lifeboats when a group of suffragettes were fighting the able seaman who had been put in charge to row back and rescue some of the survivors who were dying in the icy waters. It was like Mutiny on the Bounty!
If you had to describe Evelyn in three words, what would they be?
Courageous, humble, ahead-of-her-time. I hope that still counts as three!
Which part of the process was the most challenging?
Navigating through the many accounts of that night that survivors told over the years – and trying to work out exactly where the truth of it all lies.
Why did you decide to write Evelyn’s story in present tense, like a novel?
That was something Pete encouraged me to do – to have the story feel like it is happening in real time, and because Evelyn’s true story simply unfolds like a novel. It’s the sort of story you just couldn’t make up, including the beautiful love story she had with William [James].
Can you tell us more about William?
He was a handsome ship’s doctor she met while travelling the world working on cruise ships. They were engaged to be married, and both had applied to work on the Titanic, her as a nurse, him as one of the ship’s two doctors, and both were told they were accepted. Scheduling issues however, meant that with just days to go,
William was moved to another ship which was sailing to Sydney, so Evelyn sailed solo on the Titanic. When news broke around the world that the Titanic had sunk and Evelyn’s name didn’t appear on any survivor lists, William thought he had lost her forever. What happened next, and where their love story went from there is both beautiful and completely heartbreaking.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Just a comfortable chair, coffee, enough sleep and my iPad. I’m pretty transportable when I write. And extremely focused.
Would you like to try writing a novel?
The older I get the more I want to keep challenging myself, so I would never say never.
Have you got any plans to return to TV?
Right now it’s all about Evelyn. I’m travelling the country giving talks on the book, which is a joy. There has also been some interest in taking Evelyn’s story to the screen, so we’ll see.
Tell us what you’ve enjoyed reading recently.
Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking. It was just as superb as I’d always been told. Sally Hepworth’s latest, Mad Mabel. I love her books. They are such fabulous escapism.
The Titanic Story of Evelyn by Lisa Wilkinson is out now (Hachette, $34.99)
