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SURVIVING the sinking of the Titanic turned first-class steward Alexander James Littlejohn’s hair completely white overnight.

These photographs were taken not long before and after the disaster.

The first shows a striking 40-year-old man with dark hair and moustache; the second, taken just six months later, reveals a clean-shaven Littlejohn with a shock of white hair, having aged dramatically.

As a first-class steward on board the ship, Littlejohn had helped fill Lifeboat 13 with women and children before being ordered to get in and row the boat.

In 1912 he gave this graphic eye witness account of the sinking of the Titanic to The Daily Telegraph:

“I got about 35 women and children into Boat 13. We shouted for more women but there were none forthcoming.

“We had a few first-class male passengers in. An officer ordered two of us to get in and help row the boat, and I happened to be one of the fortunate ones.

“We could see the Titanic sinking by the head.

“Her forward ‘E’ deck ports were under the water and we could see the lights gradually go out on the ‘E’ deck as she settled down.

“All her other lights were burning brilliantly and she looked a blaze of light from stem to stern. We watched her like this for some time, and then suddenly she gave a plunge forward and all the lights went out.

“Her stern went right up in the air; there were two or three explosions and it seemed to me the stern part came down again and righted itself.

“Immediately after there were terrible cries for help. They were awful and heart-breaking.”

It was a rare interview, as in later life he never talked about the experience, according to his grandson, Philip Littlejohn, who is patron of The Titanic Heritage Trust in Coventry.

Philip said: “My grandfather’s hair and eyebrows went white with the effects of shock.

“He never talked about his experience. Men who survived were not treated as heroes.

“It was still seen as a little bit of a disgrace as women and children had died. A lot of survivors didn’t talk about it.

“Because my father had worked on RMS Olympic the previous year, he would have known a lot of the staff on the Titanic and maybe he would have known a lot of the passengers.”

A former head teacher for 20 years, Philip gives many talks to schools on the Titanic and has written a book about his grandfather’s experience.

“He was a publican by trade,” says Philip. “He worked most of his life at The Crown in Hastings Old Town.

“But in 1910 my grandmother died, aged 29, and left him with three young children. His sister looked after them and he joined the White Star Line company in 1911, aged 40. He went first on the maiden voyage of the RMS Olympic and the following year he joined the Titanic.”

Alexander was made a steward because of his knowledge of the licensing trade and served in the first-class dining room.

“Titanic was a microcosm of the class system at the time,” says Philip. “It encapsulated the whole of Edwardian society.

“Lifeboat 13 contained the youngest Titanic survivor, who was nine weeks old – Millvina Dean. She was the last Titanic passenger to survive and died in 2009 aged 97.

“Ironically, she would have been 100 this year. She was lovely, we worked together.

“When she appeared on the Terry Wogan Show, he asked her if she would have liked to dive to the wreck. Millvina replied: ‘Mr Wogan, I would not go if you offered me £1 million’.

“Her father died there. She felt strongly that no-one should go there.”

It is advice that Philip himself has ignored, becoming one of the few family descendants to make the 2.5mile, 3,000 metre dive.

It was on the diving trip in September 2001 that he met Titanic film director James Cameron.

“We went out using the same Russian ship used by James Cameron’s film crew,” he says. “He was making the documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss.

“It took two-and-a-half hours to reach the wreck and another two-and-a-half hours back.

“We were down there for six hours. I remember the ghostly scattering of hundreds of shoes on the sea bed.

“It’s too dangerous to go inside, two-thirds has sunk into the silt.

“What happened was that passengers put their shoes outside the cabins to be cleaned. When the ship broke in half, the shoes ended up on the sea bed.

“As I got off the ship, Cameron and his crew were getting on board to film. They had just heard the news that the Twin Towers had been attacked in New York.

“Cameron said the news of the loss of the Titanic in 1912 would have been similar. There was a memorial service on the bow of the Russian ship.”

Despite the trauma of surviving the sinking of the Titanic, Alexander Littlejohn returned to sea in October 1912, finishing his career with the White Star Line on the Olympic, in 1914.

“I have still got the contents of his pockets – a silver salt spoon with a White Star logo, a sovereign and a half-sovereign. My cousin had the half-sovereign made into a ring.”

While researching their family history, Philip’s cousin also exposed a family scandal.

Alexander remarried in 1920 and swapped the sea for a desk job with British Rail at Mile End Station.

They found out, however, that this marriage was bigamous. “His wife came from Australia with her son. We later discovered she had left her husband.”

Philip, aged 68, is also a lecturer on the sell-out 100th anniversary Titanic memorial cruise ship, MS Balmoral, which is following the course of the Titanic and will be over the wreck site at the weekend.

The father-of-one and grandfather added: “A lot of people say to me: ‘Do you think after 2012 the interest in Titanic will continue?’

“What I try to do is to tell the real story. There’s genuine public interest in the Titanic and in this 100th anniversary year, the sinking of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia brought it all back.”