Christopher Ward

Christopher Ward worked across British journalism, editing, and publishing before his family history led him to the Titanic’s musicians. His grandfather, the twenty-one-year-old violinist Jock Hume, was among the band members who continued playing as the ship sank in April 1912. And the Band Played On reconstructs Hume’s life, his relationship with his pregnant fiancée Mary, and the consequences of his death for two Scottish families. Hodder & Stoughton issued the paperback as And the Band Played On: The Enthralling Account of What Happened After the Titanic Sank. Ward combines historical investigation with a descendant’s effort to understand information withheld within his own family. The narrative therefore continues beyond the familiar scene on the ship’s deck, tracing grief, class, disputed obligations, and the long reach of a public disaster into private lives. Hachette classifies the work as biography and true history. Its central achievement is to restore a named young musician and the people connected to him from beneath a famous collective legend.