IN the Oscar-winning film Titanic he was the man who plucked Kate Winslet to safety from the freezing north Atlantic.

In real life, fifth officer Harold Lowe was the true hero of the disaster, when he fired his revolver to warn off stampeding passengers and returned to the wreckage to save scores of lives.

Now the liner's first, first-class dinner menu, which he slipped into his pocket and sent home to his sweetheart, is set to fetch a world record price for Titanic memorabilia.

It is being sold in Southampton next April by the family of officer Lowe, who saved more lives than anyone else on the liner which sank on its maiden voyage in 1912.

Then aged 29, Officer Lowe from Conwy, North Wales, was one of only two officers to survive the sinking, which cost 1,523 lives.

He saved the menu of April 2, 1912, on the first day of final sea trials. On the bottom he scrawled the words 'this is the first meal ever served on board' and posted it to his fiancee Ellen Whitehouse on April 10, when the ship called at Queenstown, Ireland.

Auctioneers Henry Aldridge, of Devizes, Wiltshire, put a £36,000 estimate on the memento but believe it could fetch up to £50,000.

Mr Aldridge said: "The piece is particularly valuable because Officer Lowe is known amongst Titanic collectors as the unsung hero of the disaster.

"To have the menu of the first meal on the Titanic is a bit of magic in itself, but the fact that it's got Officer Lowe's writing on is the icing on the cake. This is one of the most important Titanic artefacts ever to appear on the market."

If the sale goes as predicted, the menu - offering a choice of soup, salmon, sweetbreads, roast chicken, spring lamb and braised ham - would beat the current Titanic memorabilia record of £37,000 paid for an album containing the last photograph of the ship.

Officer Lowe had disobeyed the orders of the ship's owner Joseph Ismay who demanded he lower a lifeboat more quickly but Lowe feared that could drown the occupants. He then filled several more boats with women and children and later lashed five craft together to save them being swamped. His was the only boat to return to the wreckage for more survivors.

He married Ellen in 1913 had two children, and became a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve during the First World War. He died in 1944.

- Originally published January 2001.