An exhibition well worth visiting

The organisers of this touring show have made every effort to make a visit both memorable and touching. Labels present each recovered item, in Thai and English, and the wall posters add many a poignant personal touch, to help the visitor come to terms with the tragic losses involved in that dreadful maiden-voyage sinking, now fully 100 years ago.

Visitors will be pleased, too, with the imaginative design of these displays, as they proceed through mock-ups of shipboard first- and third-class cabins, the famous central staircase, the galleyways, and even along a promenade deck.

Who could not be touched to see before them, retrieved items belonging to those many unfortunates who perished that icy night?

All in all the display is well worth the hefty Bt500 entrance fee, and will provide many visitors with much to marvel at, and to remember – sometimes with a shudder.

Since the exhibition itself is arranged with great taste and style, how unexpected it is to find in the shop at the end a tacky collection of items for sale. These include replicas of the Titanic’s crockery, of nowhere near the quality of the real plates on display in the exhibition itself, as well as all manner of equally tasteless items of mediocre quality such as T-shirts and plastic key rings.

What is not available for sale, and should be, is a proper, lavishly illustrated catalogue book of this remarkable exhibition, rather than the throwaway diary with pictures, which is the only book available.

Notwithstanding the disappointment of the shop, readers are recommended to catch this exhibition while they can, for it is an excellent one, and a rare one.

Paul Surtees

Bangkok