A PAST passenger of the Titanic who used to live in Fairford is the reason housing plans are being delayed in the town.

The decision on whether to build three houses at Fayre Court in Fairford has been postponed after it was revealed the site may have been home to a woman who was a passenger of the famous ship Titanic.

Councillors are now trying to find out more information and are planning to visit the site.

After this information was printed in the Standard, Coln St.Aldwyns resident Adrian Goodman came forward to name the former Titanic passenger as Lucy Noel Martha, fondly known as Noel - or Noelle - the countess of Rothes, whose memorial is in the chancel of St Mary's Church, Fairford. She died in 1956.

"She was my paternal grandmother’s first cousin." said Mr Goodman, who will turn 82 this Saturday. "She lived at Fayre Court with her second husband Col. Claud Macfie, but retained her title of Countess of Rothes, as was the custom at that time. Her first husband the 19th. Earl of Rothes had died in 1927."

Mr Goodman said that the countess was a passenger of the Titanic in 1912, at the age of 27, and was following her husband, the Earl, to the USA.

"He had gone on ahead to the USA on business and she arranged to follow him, as a special treat, on the maiden voyage of the fantastic new luxury liner RMS Titanic, accompanied by her cousin Gladys Cherry and her maid Roberta ‘Cissy’ Maioni," added Mr Goodman.

"What is less well known is that her parents Thomas and Clementina Dyer-Edwardes were also passengers on the Titanic but had the good fortune to get off at Cherbourg, having gone ‘just for the ride’ from Southampton to Cherbourg on their way to stay at the villa Mauresque on the Cote D’Azur."

Mr Goodman claims that when the Titanic hit the iceburg and was sinking, Noelle was put into a lifeboat with her cousin Gladys and then insisted that she was also joined by her maid Cissy.

"Under the command of Able Seaman Tom Jones she took the tiller and then an oar and helped to row the lifeboat and comfort the other women until they were rescued by RMS Carpathia," he said.

"Although often consulted by film makers about the sinking of the Titanic, she never liked to talk about it to her friends and family."