A letter written by a survivor of the Titanic disaster has sold for a record £300,000 at auction, The Guardian reports.

First-class passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie wrote The Truth About the Titanic, which described his experience of the April 15, 1912 tragedy that claimed 1,500 lives on the vessel’s journey to New York.

The letter card is dated 10 April 1912, the day he boarded, and is postmarked Queenstown 3:45pm on April 11 and London on April 12.

It said: “It is a fine ship but I shall await my journeys end before I pass judgment on her."

The item was sold for five times the expected price of £60,000 at Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wiltshire.

It is the highest price ever achieved for a letter written on board the Titanic, the auctioneers said.

Gracie had managed to scramble on to an overturned collapsible boat along with a few dozen other men. 
But his health never recovered and he died eight months later.