Graeme Hewitt, 85, from Oakley, was approached by NBC to use a video he uploaded more than a decade ago in a documentary due to air this year.
Back in March 2011, Graeme and wife Marian sailed around the Italy coast on the ill-fated Costa Concordia cruise ship, roughly 10 months before the vessel capsized. While on board, Graeme recorded a video, less than two minutes in length, of Hungarian violinist, Sandor Feher who was performing a rendition of Spanish Eyes on his Stradivarius violin as part of a trio.
Sandor was among the 32 people who died when the Costa Concordia struck a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea just off the eastern shore of Isola del Giglio and capsized. He had returned to his cabin to rescue his Stradivarius and was unable to escape.
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Graeme and wife Marian in front of the Costa Concordia in 2011 (Image: Graeme Hewitt)
“He was part of the entertainment on the ship, we sat and listened and enjoyed the performance. He provided some delightful music during our stay and as a fellow musician we managed a few words, even touching his Stradivarius briefly.
“As an entertainer, he and the trio were very good,” Graeme said.
“When I looked at the video myself, I realised the camera is not as quality as nowadays, even a mobile phone is much better.”
Graeme’s YouTube channel is mainly used for uploading videos from his own jazz band, he explained his shock when NBC contacted him out of the blue.
“I was amazed. I was utterly surprised somebody had gone through the trouble of going through my videos.
“They told me they had found it on YouTube and would like to use it in a documentary in 2025.”
Graeme is being paid $500 for his video and laughed that the drawn-out process of filling in numerous forms “is not worth it.”
He quipped: “The American banking system is so out of date, it took two to three hours trying to supply them with information to pay me.”
Reflecting on his emotions upon hearing that the ship he had been on less than a year before had sunk, he said: “It’s a very sad story, we were distraught over it. The ship was very Italian with its decor with it’s orange and green decor covering almost every working surface, floor to ceiling, it had a style of its own.
“In the end they put it down to the stupidity of the captain who wanted to get close to the rocks to wave at his friends.”
On January 13, 2012, Costa Concordia struck a rock which tore open a hole on the port side of her hull, flooding the engine room causing her to drift near shore and capsize on a rocky underwater ledge.
The ship’s captain at the time, Francesco Schettino, was tried and found guilty of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident, and abandoning his ship. He was sentenced to sixteen years in prison in 2015.