OF course the Titanic should be remembered (The Issue, Oxford Mail, April 20). It symbolises life and society itself on many different levels.

The people on that tragic ship were all foolishly divided by wealth, class, social status and all the absurdities of man-made distinctions. Yet when Titanic struck the iceberg all these artificial separations were swept aside, revealing the unity of all humanity faced by the stark reality of death.

WT Stead (1849-1912), the great campaigning journalist and spiritualist, after giving a very evidential message at a direct voice seance, said: “What a change. A short time ago we were on the Titanic partaking of the comforts and luxuries provided. I noted that, as in the world, there was a great gulf fixed between those for whom the mighty vessel was designed and those who were just permitted to travel just to serve.

“When the Titanic perished there was no gulf. A terrific lesson in equality in the sight of God.”

All those who died on that wonderful ship should never be forgotten, nor the lesson they teach us today of the shallowness of materialism before nature’s great mysteries and our own ephemeral lives.

GRAHAM BUTLER, Banbury Road, Bicester