OBSESSION THAT STILL RUNS DEEP

New book & hotel tap into Titanic fever

- by SUE LEE

SEARCH FOR CLUES: Dik Barton who has dived the wreck site 22 times TRAGIC: The bow of the wreck of Titanic and left, the ship on its fatal voyage

SHE may have slipped beneath the icy waters of the north Atlantic almost 114 years ago, but the story of the Titanic refuses to sink.

The building which housed her former home in Liverpool has recently reopened as a hotel offering Titanic tours to international tourists and an exhibition has been welcoming tens of thousands of folk in cities across the UK.

There's even a book in the offing about the liner's engineers the "unsung heroes" of the tragedy written by a descendant of Bruce Ismay, the so-called "coward" of the Titanic.

None of this comes as a surprise to 66-year-old Dik Barton, who has dived the wreck 22 times.

He is in more demand than ever to give talks internationally about his experiences of the "unsinkable" liner, which struck an iceberg on April 15 1912 and took around 1,500 passengers and crew to a watery grave.