DEVIZES: An auction in Devizes sold nearly 200 items, including a key which opened a life-jacket locker on the Titanic that has been bought for £85,000. The key had been predicted to be sold for up to £50,000. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said that the amount the key was finally sold for “reflected its importance and unique nature.” A postcard sent by the ship’s ‘heroic’ chief wireless operator was bought for £19,000. The locker key had belonged to third-class steward, Sidney Sedunary, from Berkshire, who drowned with the Titanic in April 1912, after hitting an iceberg. Aldridge said “Without a doubt (he saved lives). Here is a man who sacrificed his life to save others.” The Titanic had been four days into a week-long intercontinental crossing from Southampton to New York, when the supposedly “unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912. The ship sank less than three hours later at about 02:20 on 15 April; 1,500 passengers and crew died and only 710 survived. The collection of letters written by Chief Officer Henry Wilde, who was second in command on the vessel, was sold at £5,000 at the auction. In one of the letters, written on-board the Titanic and posted at Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, Wilde indicated he had misgivings about the new ship. “I still don’t like this ship. I have a strange feeling about it,” he wrote. He had been expecting to take command of another ship, the Cymric, and only signed on to the Titanic on 9 April 1912, the day before it sailed. On 31 March 1912, he said he was “awfully disappointed to find the arrangements for my taking command of the Cymric have altered. I am now going to join the Titanic until some other ship turns up for me”. After the collision, Wilde took charge of the even-numbered lifeboats, and oversaw their loading and lowering into the water. He was among those who died in the tragedy. Aldridge said “It is without a doubt one of the finest Titanic-related letters, written by one of the ship’s most senior officers on Olympic stationery.” Also included in the sale was a postcard from the ship’s senior wireless operator, 25-year-old Jack Phillips, from Farncombe in Surrey, who carried on sending distress messages to other ships as the Titanic sank. Phillips, who went down with the titanic, was described as “the man who saved us all” by survivors and fellow wireless operator Harold Bridge. The card, signed “Love all, Jack”, describes the weather as the ship left Cowes on the Isle of Wight, was sold for £19,000.