The great grandaughter of one of the Titanic’s unsung heroes will be travelling to Liverpool Cathedral tomorrow to remember him on the 100th anniversary of the doomed liner’s sinking.

Cath Webb, who will be attending the national memorial service for the Titanic’s victims, said she wanted people to know that the tragic tale of the luxury ship was not just about Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio.

“My children have grown up knowing the Titanic really happened, whereas other children – even some adults – still think it was just a disaster movie. It was real people whose lives were lost and for many, like my grandmother, the hardship of that knocked on for generations,” she said.

Thomas McInerney was just 38 when he went down with the Titanic. He was one of the Black Squad who worked in the engine rooms and on that fateful night kept the lights on until the very last minute, trying to keep a glimmer of hope alive.

“Although we know his life story up until greasing the Titanic’s engines, we will never know exactly how it ended. Did he drown quickly in the engine room or did he manage to get off the ship but perish in the icy water? I still can’t watch that last scene when Jack slips away into the water. The Black Squad knew they were going to die, but bravely kept doing their jobs, keeping the lights on right until the very end.”

What is known as fact is that conditions for the Black Squad, the nickname given to the engine room men because of their coating of coal dust and oil, were dirty and dangerous.

They lived in rooms that were so cramped with 60 of them in each that there was only enough space to tie their bootlaces. They were fed with food unfit for the rich passengers and had to use a hidden spiral staircase that kept them out of sight of the Titanic’s more fortunate inhabitants.

Thomas’s wife Ellen had died from TB three years earlier so when he lost his life, his orphaned children Catherine and Thomas, aged 14 and 8, had to be taken in by an aunt and then her husband’s family after she too died.

Eventually the pair made their own voyage to New York where Catherine, Mrs Webb’s grandmother, went on to work at Macy’s store before marrying a merchant seaman and returning to the UK. Her brother became a violinist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing on the ships and for Al Capone.

Although their father’s body was never found, his name was engraved on his wife’s gravestone back in Liverpool.

Making tomorrow even more poignant will be that Mrs Webb’s own mother never lived to see the Titanic’s centenary.

Mrs Webb, 49 and from Gilstead, said: “She died ten years ago, but she had said she still wanted to be around for the 100 years since it happened. She told me my great-grandfather’s story probably from when I was four. It’s always been a part of my life, as it has my daughters Evie and Gina, but this Sunday will be an incredibly moving day for us as a family.”

Sunday will see the re-dedication of Liverpool’s famous Titanic memorial for its engine and boiler men which has been restored at a cost of £8,500 in time for the centenary celebrations and the Cathedral Service.

Mr McInerney’s story and service details are also part of an exhibition on now at the city’s Maritime Museum.