Here's a cracking good yarn that kept me enthralled by the fireside this winter.

"Titanic Voyager" tells the remarkable life-story of C H Lightoller for whom cheating death in 'RMS Titanic' was just one among many escapades in an heroic lifetime afloat. Here's a brief taste.....

In 1874, when C H Lightoller was born, Britain was a maritime power with a huge Empire. It was the largest commercial enterprise known to Man. Charles H Lightoller wanted to be part of it.

Just before his 14th birthday he signed on as an apprentice on one of the tallest sailing ships afloat - the 'Primrose Hill' - a three-skysail-yarder.

The sky-sails were the seventh, top row of square sails set on each of her three masts - 200 feet above the deck. The apprentices climbed 180 feet on ratlines, and the last 20 feet by shinning up a wire backstay.

"Lights", as he was known, was expected to tackle this assault course day or night, no matter how much the ship was heaving and wallowing. In high winds or driving sleet he would be expected to tame the wildly flapping canvas with nothing but a slender footrope supporting him.

"One hand for yourself, and one for the owner" was the maxim, but no one ever furled a sail with just one hand!

The youngsters could be aloft for seven hours at a time working a sail. Many a boy on his first voyage went to his doom - smashing into the deck below or into the sea depending on his downward trajectory.

ROUND THE HORN - INTO ICE!

On his first voyage from Liverpool to San Francisco, young "Lights" rounded the Horn and encountered for the first time the most awesome seas in the world.

Storms drove 'Primrose Hill' far south. Then one moonless night the wind suddenly fell away.

"One hand for yourself, and one for the owner"

In the pitch dark an old seaman in the bows shouted "Ice right ahead!" He had smelt it.

They hove to, and in the morning saw the 'berg - as big as Tresco, over two miles long, and dwarfing the ship. They had sailed into its lee during the night.

The sudden calm meant they had seen no tell-tale line of surf at the foot of the 'berg. The vast mass blocked their way north, but the young boys struggled with iron hard canvas and frozen-up gear to get the ship moving and they slowly made clear water again.

He would meet these conditions again later in life.

SHIPWRECKED ON A DESERT ISLAND....

In those days ships often disappeared - in storms and wrecks. On his second trip in the sister ship 'Holt Hill' they were nearly lost when the skipper piled on canvas until the masts snapped, leaving the vessel floundering in mountainous waves for hour after hour while tons of rope, timber and canvas were cut away.

On the second leg between Rio and Perth, the young apprentice was shipwrecked when 'Holt Hill' drove down her easting too accurately in bad visibility and smashed into the remote uninhabited island of St Paul - 3,000 miles from land.

They survived eight days before being fortuitously rescued by a passing vessel.

Over the next few years, Lightoller survived a hurricane, had a cargo of coal catch fire under him, and narrowly escaped drowning in a Nigerian surf-boat.

"Lights" qualified as a tough, experienced young officer with his Master's Certificate.... but the days of sail were numbered.

At the start of the new century he joined the elite of the British Mercantile Marine - the White Star Line. In 1912 he accepted the prestigious posting of Second Officer on the brand-new White Star flagship - 'RMS Titanic'.

The collapsible lifeboat from the RMS Titanic

ICE AGAIN!

The part "Lights" played in the tragedy of that April maiden voyage is well-documented.

He was off-duty when they struck the 'berg - on a flat-calm, moonless night. His accurate star fixes taken when he was earlier on watch pin-pointed their position for the 'Carpathia' to rescue survivors. He was responsible for getting the port-side boats away with an orderly evacuation of the women and children.

Colonel Gracie of the US Army, a passenger who also survived, helped "Lights" as he struggled to maintain discipline.

"For what he did on that night" wrote Colonel Gracie "he is entitled to honour and the thanks of his own countrymen and us Americans as well".

When the last boat was gone, and as the great liner started her final plunge, "Lights" finally leapt into the freezing sea.

He was pulled down with the ship, sucked against the grill of a ventilation shaft. An explosion in the boilers blew him back to the surface, where he found a capsized collapsible lifeboat to cling to.

He organised a crowd of survivors to lean one way and then the other to stabilise the up-turned hull. They were picked up six frozen hours later.

"Lights" gave evidence as 'Titanic's' senior surviving officer before a Senate enquiry and later in Britain. His firm seaman's voice, steady demeanour and patient explanation of marine procedure won great respect and he was exonerated personally, although his employers were castigated.

THE GREAT WAR AT SEA.....

HMS Falcon, 1917 - "Lights" in command

"Lights" was bound to have an eventful war, and so it proved - an observer in a Short 184 seaplane on an early aircraft carrier, commander of an MTB, captain of a destroyer on the Dover Patrol - and again sunk.

Finally, he achieved glory and fame by ramming a U-boat in the North Sea - sinking it and damn-near his own ship as well. He finished the first World War as a Commander RNR, DSC and Bar - revered by his crew.

A HERO ONCE MORE.....

Inevitably, "Lights" was there to take his own 55ft motor-yacht to the rescue of the BEF in France in 1940.

At the age of 66 he loaded as many soldiers as he could from the Dunkirk beaches and turned for Dover. So overloaded were they that, once more, he had to shout instructions to lean one way and the other to stabilise the boat as he dodged the bombs.

In Dover, a Petty Officer counted off 53 soldiers then moved on. "Wait" said Lightoller "there are another 74 below...."

He died peacefully in 1952.

Forty-five years later, a Hollywood brat-pack actor made millions of dollars in an improbable 'Titanic' film romance......

The real story of C H Lightoller - hero of 'RMS Titanic' - is far more gripping.