THE ashes of a 92-year-old Worcester woman who believed she was conceived on board the Titanic have been scattered at sea.

Ellen Walker's mother Kate Phillips and Malvern shopkeeper Henry Morley, the man believed to be her father, eloped on the ill-fated vessel, which sank on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg in April, 1912.

The story of the couple, who travelled under the name of Mr and Mrs Marshall, is thought to have inspired the Jack and Rose characters played by Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet in the film Titanic.

Kate Phillips, a 19-year-old shop assistant from Worcester, survived by finding a place in the last lifeboat, and gave birth to a daughter, Mrs Walker, in the city nine months later. Mr Morley was among hundreds who drowned in the freezing water.

The ashes of Mrs Walker, who married twice and had a son, were scattered off Cataclew Point, on the north Cornish coast, by the RNLI lifeboat Spirit of Padstow.

Mrs Walker, known as Betty, died at Red Hill Nursing Home, Worces-ter, last year. Among those at the ceremony was north Cornwall auxiliary coastguard Ian Fuller, who became a friend to Mrs Walker when she lived next door to his father. He said: She kept all the cuttings about the Titanic that she could collect, and I believe she had a cabin key from the ship.

She fought very hard to get her father's name put on her birth certificate, but sadly never won the battle.

Ellen was passionate about the work of the RNLI, probably be-cause her life, and that of her mother, were saved by a lifeboat.

She has left money to the charity and it seemed fitting that her ashes should be scattered in this way.'' Mrs Walker had a photograph of her father beside her bed and kissed it before she went to bed each night.

Mrs Walker's son Robert Farmer, aged 70, said: I think that she wanted to be in the same place as her father because she had never known him.''