First class passenger's account sold at auction

Laura Francatelli from London said she heard an ''awful rumbling'' as the ill-fated Southampton liner went down and ''then came screams and cries'' from 1,500 drowning passengers.

Her account was recorded in a signed affidavit for the official British inquiry into the disaster.

The historic document went under the hammer at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, yesterday and was bought by an Eastern European collector.

Miss Francatelli, who was 31 at the time, was travelling with baronet Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Christiana, as his secretary.

The account describes how they boarded one of the last lifeboats containing just five passengers and seven crew, admitting they did not consider going back for survivors.

Sir Cosmo later paid the crew members £5 each - now worth about £300 - which some have described as blood money for saving their lives.

Miss Francatelli died in 1967. The document remained in her family until after her death and has since been owned by two private collectors.

Also sold was an extremely rare lithographic pre-maiden voyage poster, which went for a world record £60,000 for a Titanic poster.

It features Olympic in the foreground followed by Titanic in the background, ironically sailing into a sunset, but each under way at sea.

The 30in x 40in poster went to an American Collector.

A postcard written on the Titanic by a passenger in third class who died along with nine members of her family was also sold.

Eliza Johnston, of Glasgow, wrote to her father-in-law William J Johnston and describes how excited the six children in her company were to be on the vessel.

The card was posted at Cobh in County Cork, then known as Queenstown, three days before the Belfast-built luxury liner sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

Mrs Johnston wrote: ''We are just arriving at Queenstown, we are all feeling aye one.

''The kids are flapping about like flags about us.''

She boarded Titanic with her husband, children William and Catherine, her sister Margaret and her four children.

The entire party of nine were lost and their bodies, if recovered, were never identified.

It was bought by an American collector for £12,000.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ''The postcard is very important because there are not a lot of postcards from the Titanic in possession.

''It appears the recipient, the father-in-law, kept it in a cupboard or drawer for many decades, they are normally faded in some way, but the condition of this one is exceptional.''