The Guy Who Survived The Sinking of the Titanic. And the Britannic. And the Alcantara. And the Donegal. And the Near-Sinking of the Olympic

I'm thinking if I were going aboard back in the day I would be tempted to ask if that Arthur fellow was on this ship.
According to one source his reaction to the grinding sound of the collision with the iceberg was "What now."

From the BBC, March 30, 2012:

Titanic's unsinkable stoker

Titanic was celebrated as the biggest, safest, most advanced ship of its age, but it was a lowly stoker in its boiler room who truly deserved the name 'unsinkable'. John Priest survived no fewer than four ships that went to the bottom, including Titanic and its sister ship Britannic.

John Priest was one of more than 150 'firemen', or stokers, whose job it was to keep Titanic's 29 colossal boilers at steam, day and night, for the entire journey.

He had worked his entire life as a member of the so-called 'black gang', toiling in the bowels of steam-powered ships. It was back-breaking work, often done stripped to the waist due to the ferocious heat of the furnaces.

Even in a state-of-the-art vessel like Titanic, the work was still done by muscle power alone. More than 600 tonnes of coal a day were needed to propel what was then the world's biggest ship through the ocean. 'Trimmers' wheelbarrowed coal from the bunkers to the firemen who maintained the furnaces. Both were relatively skilled jobs, with the trimmers having to ensure the weight of the coal was evenly distributed so the ship stayed balanced, or 'trimmed', while the firemen needed to feed just the right amount of coal into the flames to keep the ship at the required speed.

With the coal strike of 1912, the black gangs were hit hard as ships stayed in port and men were laid off. Priest was one of the lucky few to find a job on Titanic as it prepared for its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. He was perhaps fortunate to have already served on Titanic's sister ship Olympic and was a fireman on board when it was holed below the waterline in a collision with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke in 1911.....

...MUCH MORE

Arthur John Priest: 1887 - 1937

• Survived the Asturias foundering on its maiden voyage in 1907.
• Survived the Olympic collision with HMS Hawke in 1911.
• Survived the Titanic sinking in April 1912 on lifeboat 15.
• Survived the Alcantara when it was torpedoed by the German raider "Grief" in February 1916.
• Survived the Britannic when she hit a mine and sank in November1916.
• Survived yet another sinking on his final ship the Donegal in April 1917.
• Was awarded the Mercantile Marine Ribbon in 1917, for his services during the war.

Previously:
Good Luck, Bad Luck: Meet Violet Jessop

How the Titanic Made the Modern Radio Industry" (and Jack Kennedy, President)

Which naturally led to the Radio Pool of 1929 and eventually to John F. Kennedy winning the White House.*