Regarding your reprint of an article from April 11, 1912: The news report tells of a “disaster” averted in Southampton waters on April 10, 1912. The Titanic was being towed at the beginning of its ill-fated maiden journey and it narrowly avoided a collision with another ocean liner, the New York.

If the collision between the liners had taken place, the delay in the Titanic’s departure could have saved the Titanic and history would have been very different. An illustration, I feel, of the sheer randomness of life: those countless stories of people having lucky escapes — or the opposite. What may be thought of at the time as a “disaster” — that bump in the car or that heart twinge — may be a blessing in disguise if behavior is modified sufficiently to prevent a real calamity later on.

Ian Jeffries, Swansea, Wales