2012 marks 100 years since 1,517 people lost their lives as the HMS Titanic struck an iceberg, plunging it into the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Reporter HELEN KREFT spoke exclusively to one woman whose life has been turned upside down by the luxury liner’s legendary status following the death of her husband — one of the world's most accomplished deep-wreck divers.
WITH many famous diving expeditions under her husband’s belt, Sky News was on Vicky Spencer’s doorstep within two hours of the announcement of his death.
“Imagine having to deal with that,” she said of the worldwide media interest surrounding Carl Spencer’s death in 2009, while leading a 17-man team to the wreckage of the HMS Britannic as part of a documentary for the National Geographic channel.
Until now Vicky has never spoken to the media about her husband and his adventures, but she is now keen to use his legacy to encourage the career paths of today’s children.
Carl, 39, from Kings Bromley, was already an accomplished diver when he was asked by film director James Cameron to work on a diving expedition to the Titanic in 2003 — six years after the blockbuster film which earned the film-maker 11 Oscars.
As a research diver he completed important scientific studies on the wreck and laid the groundwork for the following year’s television documentary ‘Return to Titanic’.
The same year Carl led an expedition to the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, and in 2007 he was part of a dive to RMS Carpathia — forever famous for coming to the rescue of the Titanic in 1912.
The latter made him one of only two people in the world to have seen both the Titanic and the Carpathia in the flesh, the other being Millvina Dean, the last survivor on board the doomed vessel.
In a curious parallel she died in May 2009 — exactly a week after Carl.
Though Vicky has never spoken of her heartache, she told the Mail: “I think I am ready now, it is the right time.”
She is now embarking on a tour of schools to give children of today and possible adventurers of tomorrow the notion that they can be anything they want to be — just like Carl.
“You never know what these children could be when they are older — the next astronaut? Carl always said all the adventures he went on ‘were not bad for a plumber from Staffordshire’.
“I want children to know they can do whatever they want.”
In front of pupils from St Edward’s Primary School, in Newhall Road, Swadlincote, Vicky carefully laid out treasured memorabilia the father-of-two collected over the years. Included was a patterned plate he recovered from the wreck of the Carpathia, as well as polystyrene teacups used on an expedition to the Titanic.
Working closely with James Cameron, Carl was also given an unframed print of the Titanic signed in ink by the film director, with the words: “Life is a great adventure and no matter the hardships in your path you will be given great gifts along the way. Bon Voyage with great admiration, Jim Cameron.”
He later sent an email to Vicky apologising for being unable to attend Carl’s funeral in 2009, but saying of Carl: “In the short time we knew each other, he struck me as a decent and great man as well as a fearless explorer.”
This was only Vicky’s third time speaking at a school and pupils listened intently as she regaled tales of her husband’s many courageous expeditions.
Carl followed his father, a heating engineer, into the same trade, and after returning from the Titanic in 2003 — a trip for which the diver was not allowed annual leave — quit his job and launched his own heating and air conditioning business, Spencair. It now employs 16 people.
Carl’s amazing life story has clearly made Vicky a very proud wife, who misses her husband deeply.
She told the children: “Every morning I wake up with thoughts of Carl in my head. That never goes away.
“Every second of every minute of every hour of every day he is always in my thoughts. I miss him terribly.”
Mrs Spencer has now made the ‘heartbreaking’ decision to auction off much of Carl’s memorabilia ‘just to keep a roof over our heads.’
Among them include newspaper cuttings relating to the discovery and retrieval of Sir Donald Campbell’s Bluebird, together with 140 colour photographs of the expedition.
It was in 2001 that Carl retrieved Campbell’s body from the water — 34 years after he died travelling at 320mph on Bluebird, his final attempt at the world water speed record.
Carl subsequently acted as a pall bearer at his funeral.
Carl’s own death in Greek waters was almost as dramatic as Campbell’s, with more investigations yet to be held.
However, the first inquest held in Cannock earlier last year recorded a verdict of accidental death after hearing Carl would have been alive today had he not breathed in a ‘toxic’ and incorrect mixture of oxygen and helium when surfacing from the Britannic wreck after getting into difficulties on the sea bed.
Trying to keep his legacy alive, Mrs Spencer hopes many of the items in the auction are snapped up by museums.
She said: “I would hate for them to just be left gathering dust in the cupboard.
They should be on display for everyone to enjoy.”
Among Carl’s other great achievements, he was the co-founder of Eurotek, a biannual dive conference and exhibition.
The logo for the conference features Carl and is taken from the internationally famous photograph taken of the HMS Audacious, sunk by a German mine in 1914. Carl explored the wreck in 2002, and in the photograph he is positioned above the enormous guns to give some sense of scale to the scene.
After speaking to Vicky and getting to know more about the man behind some of the world’s most famous diving expeditions, I could not help but feel her hurt.
Carl’s death left two children without a father and a wife without a husband, and a world without a rather special plumber from Cannock.
