30 August 2025

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch admits to seeing other editors.

As HTBS Types may have noticed, I do enjoy writing. However, I have never felt the need to set up my own blog or website. HTBS is an obvious home for my articles on rowing and editor Göran R Buckhorn indulges me if I send him a “nothing to do with rowing” post on something that appeals to me but that does not involve oars working around fulcrums. He is also tolerant of pieces submitted with very tenuous rowing connections. Recently however, another website editor has also allowed me to hijack their space on the internet to publish a couple of things that I find interesting but that deviate from their blog’s original intention.

Amanda Harris is an old school friend who still lives in my native county of Cornwall in the far south-west of England. She has a travel blog titled “Departing from Redruth Station.” Redruth is a Cornish town of 14,000 people that prospered during the Cornish mining boom of the 18th and 19th centuries. As to why she chose Redruth Railway Station as a vehicle to write about sustainable travel, Amanda writes:

Firstly, (Redruth Station) is the closest to my home and is very welcoming and accessible… Secondly, I do want to travel, both near and far, but mindful of the climate crisis, I don’t want to fly. Recently, I had a conversation with a man who said that he had shipped goods from Shanghai to Cornwall by train… So these are the aims of my blog: to give focus to this train station, promote the joys of slow travel and to share some memorable journeys and their destinations. 

Departing has recently hosted a two-part article that I have written about the 62 Cornish people who were aboard the RMS Titanic using the link that a least one passenger, miner Frank Andrew who was on his way to the copper mines of Michigan, left his home in Cornwall for the ship’s Southampton port from Redruth Station (this is a slight spoiler as I do not reveal that I am writing about Titanic until well into part one).

My piece is titled “From Redruth to 41°43′57′′ N 49°56′49′′ W”, the coordinates being where Titanic sank. In it I write:

The experiences of the Cornish on the Titanic highlight broader themes: the hope and desperation that drove people to leave their homelands, the risks of long-distance migration, and the arbitrary nature of survival in disaster. Though small in number, the Cornish aboard the Titanic were symbolic of the wider diaspora and struggle for a better life that characterised the era.

My piece could have been subtitled, “Why everything you think you know about Titanic is probably wrong.” One of the many misconceptions about the great ship was that it was primarily built as a luxury floating hotel. This is not correct, it was essentially conceived as a migrant ship. This was why Titanic was so large, the big profits were made in transporting a lot of poor people, not a few rich people. 

The Irish and Jewish diasporas that filled the second and third class decks are well-known. More obscure are the many Cornish, Lebanese and Swedish people who were also economic refugees from their native lands. The most common language on Titanic after English was Swedish.

The subject holds as much fascination and horror for us today as when it occurred in 1912 and the subject of economic refugees – some meeting disaster – is still incredibly relevant.

From Redruth to 41°43′57′′ N 49°56′49′′ W Part 1

From Redruth to 41°43′57′′ N 49°56′49′′ W Part 2

Possibly of less interest, I have also written about my family connection to Redruth Station: From Redruth to the Rand.