THE concrete wreck of the MV Creteblock lies on the same stretch of Whitby beach as the remains of the Rohilla. It was a hospital ship on its way from Scotland to collect the injured from the battlefields of Belgium when, on October 30, 1914, it ran aground on Whitby Scar in a bad storm.

A 50-hour rescue bid featuring the motor lifeboat from Tynemouth managed to save, quite heroically, 144 of the 229 on board.

Darlington and Stockton Times: How The Northern Echo reported the wreck of the Rohilla in 1914

How The Northern Echo reported the wreck of the Rohilla in 1914

One of the survivors was Mary Kezia Roberts, and Billy Mollon has been doing a little digging into her amazing story.

Darlington and Stockton Times: Mary Kezia Roberts

She was from Liverpool, married a Scottish electrical engineer and settled in Nottingham where she had four children.

Mary worked as a stewardess on the large vessels belonging to the White Star Line and, on April 15, 1912, with her youngest daughter Daisy aged six back home, she was on the Titanic when it struck the iceberg. Mary quickly clambered aboard lifeboat 11, was picked up by Carpathia after a few hours bobbing around, and was dropped off at New York on April 18, 1912.

Before the year was out, she was working aboard another White Star liner, Majestic, and in 1914 when war broke out, she was transferred to HMHS Rohilla. Two-and-a-half years after surviving the sinking of the Titanic off the coast of America, she survived the wreck of the Rohilla off Whitby.

Darlington and Stockton Times: BATTERED BY WAVES: The stricken Rohilla in the surf off the beach at Whitby

Darlington and Stockton Times: REG..Catchline: Rohilla..Echo..MF..Captions:.1. The stricken Rohilla off the Whitby coast..

In fact, she said the Rohilla was by far the worst of her adventures, because of the protracted uncertainty of the ordeal.

And then, having dried out, she went back to sea, working on lines until she retired in 1929. She died in 1933 and is buried, with her husband, in Epsom in Surrey.

In 2014, when Whitby Lifeboat Museum was preparing to celebrate the centenary of the wreck of the Rohilla, the trunk Mary had had with her on the ship was discovered for sale on eBay for £50 following a York house clearance.

Darlington and Stockton Times: Survivor Mary Kezia Roberts' trunk acquired by Whitby Museum

It still had luggage labels glued to it bearing the names Mary Roberts and SS Rohilla – although they were a little faded and rather splodgy after their close encounter with the North Sea. The trunk is now in the Whitby lifeboat museum.

Darlington and Stockton Times: The wreck of the Rohilla on the shoreline beneath Whitby Abbey. Picture: Peter Giroux

The wreck of the Rohilla on the shoreline beneath Whitby Abbey. Picture: Peter Giroux

THE FULL STORY OF THE WRECK OF THE ROHILLA (AND THE WRECK OF THE CONCRETE BOAT IT LAYS BESIDE)