A GOLD watch that stopped the moment the world's most famous liner slipped beneath the waves fetched a staggering £18,000 at an auction of Titanic memorabilia held in Southampton.

But a broken dinner menu dating from April 10 1912 - the day the vessel set sail from Southampton's Ocean Dock - raised an even more amazing £24,000. Both artefacts were bought by anonymous collectors.

The auction was one of a number of events held at the Hilton Hotel as part of the British Titanic Society's annual convention.

This year's event held a special poignancy as it was held just three days before the 90th anniversary of the liner's demise - an event which cost the lives of more than 1,500 and still reverberates down the years.

People from all over the world had come for the sale, including Germans, French, 20 Americans and at least one Australian.

In fact the great ship's memorabilia formed a relatively small part of the 316 lots on sale - most of which were items from the White Star Line.

The Titanic relics were all the personal possessions of second class passenger, John William Gill, who died when the ship sank.

A spokesman for Henry Aldridge and Sons who carried out the auction said: "Forty-three of the lots on offer came from the Gill Archive.

"This collection is one of the rarest and most important archives to be offered in recent years.

"It charts the correspondence between The White Star Line and Gill's wife of only two months - Sarah Elizabeth Winifred.

"It also contains many of the personal possessions of Mr Gill recovered after the disaster."

The watch itself, a Lever Hunter design, dating from around 1910 stopped when Mr Gill fell into the water but was later recovered. Experts estimated the watch would sell for between £15,000 and £20,000.

Though the ship sunk at 2.20am - the watch shows 3.20am as Mr Gill had forgotten to change the watch back when the ship crossed into a different time zone.

Other artefacts included a bone-and-white metal comb which reached £11,000 and a wealth of increasingly controversial letters from the White Star Line to Mr Gill's widow.

One in particular stated that it would cost £20 to ship Mr Gill's body back to the UK when his second-class ticket had only cost him £13.

Another more modern piece of memorabilia being sold was a polystyrene cup belonging to QE2's captain, Ron Warwick.

Captain Warwick had the cup taken down on a dive to the Titanic's wreck where it had shrunk to the size of a thimble under the pressure.

The signed cup raised £105, all of which is being handed over to Naomi House - a children's hospice in Sutton Scotney near Winchester.

- Originally published April 2002.