Something which went out to paying subscribers back in July Far be it from me to criticise Marina who, at risk of sounding a bit luvvie, is not satisfied with being a brilliant writer but compounds her crimes by also being both lovely and an absolute hoot. Personally, I blame the subs. Nobody in Britain in — so far as we know — was actually drowning in sewage. This has not always, in history, been true. Consider the Erfurt Latrine disaster of another event which works unnervingly well as a metaphor, but which did literally involve several dozen of the most senior nobles in medieval Germany literally drowning in sewage.
Erfurt today is the capital of the central German state of Thuringia, but for most of the middle ages it was held by the Electorate of Mainz, whose archbishop was one of the seven prince-electors who got to pick the Holy Roman Emperor. And so, he called everyone involved to Erfurt Cathedral to talk it through. One slight problem with this plan was, it turned out, that the wooden floors in the provostry at Erfurt Cathedral had not been constructed with the intention of holding quite that many German nobles in one sitting.
The floor on which the meeting was due to take place collapsed. The force of the impact took out the next one down, too. That meant that, on the day of the meeting, the provostry at Erfurt Cathedral stood above a cesspit, which was full to the brim with liquid excrement. It was into this that around 60 nobles — counts, burgraves, burgmaisters, the lot — fell, and proceeded to drown.
The reason this unfortunate event — in which a ruling class died horribly, thanks to a situation they themselves created — works as a metaphor, and has become a meme, hardly needs spelling out. Anyway, all this is far enough away from us, both temporarily and figuratively, for it to feel safe for us to enjoy it. A more recent accident involving untreated sewage and dozens of deaths feels, in multiple senses, rather closer to home.
On the evening of Tuesday 3 September, it was on its way back from one such trip to Sheerness, and was full to capacity with passengers travelling home from the Rosherville Pleasure Gardens near Gravesend. But sometime around 7. And on entering Gallions Reach, it found itself in the path of a bigger vessel, the SS Bywell Castle, on its way to Newcastle to pick up coal. The two collided. The smaller ship broke almost instantly into three parts, and sank.
