Family pleads for return of Titanic hero’s final letter

The family of an officer who chose to go down with the Titanic have appealed for help to return to his home city a letter he sent from the doomed liner.

The two-page letter Dr John Edward Simpson wrote to his mother days before the ship sank is due to fetch at least $50,000 dollars (€37,000) when it is sold at a New York auction house.

His relatives, who say they cannot afford to bid for the valuable artefact, desperately want it brought back to Simpson’s native Belfast, where the Titanic was built, to be put on display.