At first glance it sounds extraordinary that anyone – much less the man put in charge of the wheel on the maiden voyage of what was then the world’s most expensive ocean liner – could have made such a schoolboy error. But, Patten explains, requisitioning knives, napkins and even the breadbasket on the table of the London hotel where we meet for breakfast to give a practical demonstration of what she means, there was a very particular technical reason for this otherwise incredible error.