Excerpts

"St Luke's Workhouse was situated in the pleasantly named Shepherdess Walk, just off the City Road, London, on the boundary of Shoreditch and Finsbury, an area well known to Charles Dickens."

" If someone had suggested eighteen months ago I would be writing any book I should have dismissed it, if they'd said it was to be connected with the Titanic I would have thought them mad. But .... I am so horrified by what has appeared about my mother in books, films and on the internet that I too feel compelled, like others before me, to set the record straight."

"As you read my book think of your own mother, grandmother and those you still grieve for, and realise then that their reputations whilst they are alive and able to speak for themselves are protected, at least to some extent, by recourse to law. After they are dead, no matter in what regard they are held and how much they are cared for, there is nothing to protect them from assault on their character - not even the truth itself."

"Having discovered the truth behind the main charge, I found myself pinpointing the other charges against my mother and listing them, in order that I might investigate each one. From there noting down my thoughts, my words grew as my research progressed."

"This is to imply also, that whilst they were not prepared to leave the sinking ship, without knowing their son to be safe, at the same time they were prepared to sacrifice their daughter. ... It makes no sense at all .... Mrs Allison's refusal to leave the ship without her husband is not just a matter of pure speculation on my part, but the impartial truth as related by eyewitnesses."