My sub aqua activities overlap my college career, and my first and second marriages, so I have held it over until after those chapters to hopefully make it a more of a complete topic.
As mentioned in the Growing Up chapter, I became interested in underwater activities quite early on, and usually donned my flippers, mask and snorkel when visiting the local Lido or the indoor pools at Edmonton Town Hall. Later I joined Edmonton Dolphins Sub Aqua Club, where I practiced hard at the training sessions, and eagerly awaited the evening when I would actually go underwater wearing an aqualung for the first time. When I arrived at the indoor pool that night, the chap who ran the club, Sid Juniper, had not yet arrived, so there was no equipment to use, and I waited in a fever of impatience at the pool's door, watching for his van. Eventually he did arrive, very late, and although there was only a short time left before the end of the session, I pleaded for permission to get kitted up and go into the water. Although the pool was only six feet deep, I was in heaven, enjoying the three-dimensional world and the sensation of weightlessness. I was hooked! To try to ensure there would be no subsequent delays caused by problems with filling the air cylinders, I offered to help with this task, which took place at a Sid's factory, located on The Spike, not far from my home in Ponders End. Besides the diving club, Sid ran a scientific glassware business, and it was there that he kept the club's air cylinders and a compressor to fill them. One evening I noticed a batch of glass tubes being carefully packed up for despatch, which were about two inches in diameter, with a strangely familiar teat shape on the closed end. When I enquired what scientific function they performed, I was told that they were actually condom moulds!
In those early days of the sport, wet suits had not yet appeared, and we would undertake outdoor dives wearing jeans and a jumper, with a belt round the outside to try to restrict water flow. One of the members had been a Navy diver, and he did lend me his dry suit on one occasion. This came in four parts, a one-piece suit, a rubber hood, and a metal ring with a clamping band. To put on the suit I had to enter through the rubber neck seal, which required others to pull each side like mad to stretch it to get legs, body and finally arms, inside - very tricky! The metal ring then went over my head, and the neck seal positioned in it. The hood was then pulled over my head, and its part of the neck seal located in the metal ring, where it was held in place by the clamping band. The dressing procedure took some time, so it was very sensible to make sure a toilet visit had been made before donning the suit. There was a sort of access plug located at an appropriate position that could be unscrewed in an emergency, but I was told that in the Navy, you could be put on a charge for using it. Wet suits did arrive, and I remember the first time someone wore one at the pool, and had to ask for more and more lead for his weight-belt to counter its buoyancy. We all wanted these suits, but to keep the cost down, we would buy kits consisting of cut-out neoprene parts - usually from Timbrell's in Tottenham - which we would stick together using Evo-Stik impact adhesive. Normally, the neoprene was three sixteenths of an inch thick, but I got a bargain - I thought - when I got a quarter-inch thick trial version at a knock-down price. The consequence of this however, was that I needed more lead than anyone else with a conventional suit.
I enjoyed my time with the Dolphins, especially when I married and moved to Bounces Road in Edmonton. June and I went on a number of diving trips, mainly to Lulworth Cove in Dorset, and it was there that I made my first open water dive. As usual when I'm impatient to start, I was ready, but there was no one available to accompany me as a first timer, so I had to hang about waiting. Luckily, when a chap named Stuart heard I needed a partner, he offered to go with me, so we set off into the bay. I was delighted to be underwater for real for the first time and although the visibility was fairly poor - as is normal for British waters - there was plenty to see, and we both enjoyed the experience. On the surface on the way back to the shore Stuart said how reassuring it was to be with an experienced diver for his first outing, just in case of any problems. I didn't feel it necessary to mention that I had thought that he was the experienced one, not me! Besides the Cove at Lulworth, we also sometimes climbed down to the beach at the adjacent Star Hole, to dive from there, and it was there one time that after kitting up, I decided to leave my wedding ring with June as we did not have neoprene gloves in those days and I was afraid the ring might fall off. When I came back from my dive, I asked for my ring, but June did not have it. For safety, she had placed it on her thumb whilst sitting on the beach, but had forgotten to take it off when she went for a short dip in the sea, where it obviously had fallen off. To try to find a small object like my ring amongst the rocks and seaweed even in the small area of Star Hole was obviously a waste of time, so we were resigned to its loss. On the return trip, we all stopped our cars as usual at a café on Salisbury Plain for an evening meal, and it there that I heard one of the Club members bragging about how he had found a gold ring in Star Hole. I asked to see it, and it was my ring. He naturally gave it back to me, but was obviously quite disappointed, especially as an underpaid, married, student apprentice, I could not afford to reward him appropriately.
I was just a little more of a veteran on a later dive, and offered to accompany a less experienced diver, Tom, on a trip outside the Cove, using a Zodiac inflatable, fitted with an outboard motor. We managed to persuade a chap named Alistair to be the helmsman, despite his claiming very little experience with outboards, by saying how easy they were to start and manage. We set off with another pair of divers, who were dropped off just outside the entrance to the Cove. Tom and I went overboard a little further along, leaving Alistair to wait until each pair reappeared, when he would re-start the motor and pick them up. Tom and I had a good dive, but eventually had to surface when our air ran low. We could just see the Zodiac some way off, but struggled to make Alistair aware of our waving, so began to swim towards him. We did get a little closer initially, and it appeared that between unsuccessful tugs on the motor's starter rope, Alistair was being sick over the side of the dinghy. Eventually, we realised that the wind was blowing the dinghy away from us faster than we could swim, so decided to turn round and swim to shore. We could hardly see it! The tide had taken us quite a way out. We had a long, tiring swim, even with our flippers, and I got cramp in my right and left legs during it - luckily not in both at the same time. Eventually we got to the shore, at Durdle Door, which was about 6,600 metres or 4 miles from where we had been dropped off. We were exhausted, but our ordeal was not over as we had to climb up the very steep cliff path to get up from the beach to make contact with our worried friends back at the Cove. We later found out the other pair of divers had swum back into the Cove when they could not see Alistair, who was himself rescued by a passing yacht. I have to admit that in those days we were not very safety conscious, but we made so many fundamental errors on that trip, we were extremely lucky to survive, and learned not to be so unprepared in future.
Eventually, I wanted my own aqualung, and took the cheap method of buying two small air cylinders - tadpoles or tads - which had previously been used for air supplies in military aircraft. I needed a manifold, which was used to enable the two cylinders to be connected together, and to provide a mounting for a Demand Valve. This valve was the means by which the high pressure inside the air cylinders - around1800 lbs/sq.in - was reduced to the same pressure as the water in which a diver was swimming. Normal air pressure is around15 lbs/sq.in - 1 Atmosphere or ATM - but in water, this increases by 1 ATM for every 10 metres descended - so at 10 metres it is 2 ATM, at 20 metres it is 3 ATM and at 30 metres it is 4 ATM, and so on. It is only by inhaling air at the same pressure as the water surrounding him that a diver is able to expand his lungs, and breathe normally, so a demand valve is a necessity. My apprentice training proved useful here, as I was able to make the manifold, and a demand valve during free periods in the college metal workshop after sourcing brass materials from helpful store-men at Ediswans. The single-stage design popular at that time used a spring-loaded lever to control a plug sealing the entry of high pressure air into a chamber which was topped by a rubber diaphragm about five inches in diameter. The lever was resting on the inside of the diaphragm, so that water pressing on the outside tilted the lever against its spring to release the plug and let air into the chamber. When the pressure inside equalled the water pressure, the spring on the lever pressed down on the plug once more, stopping the entry of high pressure air. A corrugated soft tube, of the type used to supply oxygen to aircraft pilots, was connected to the chamber and to a mouthpiece for the diver, who could suck air from beneath the diaphragm and thus operate the lever to get air at the correct pressure for easy breathing. A second tube connected to the mouthpiece carried exhaled air back to a perforated cover on demand valve, releasing bubbles there rather than in front of the diver's face. I had the demand valve chromium plated, so although home-made it looked quite professional, and it served me for some years without killing me. One important point in the previous description is that the demand valve was delivering AIR to the diver, not OXYGEN as in aircraft. Although naval frogmen did use oxygen-filled breathing apparatus, they were limited to depth of around 10 metres. Below that depth the pressure of oxygen gas above 2 ATM could inhibit the normal breathing function, and divers would forget to breathe!
One of the aspects of my home-made aqualung was that it was slightly buoyant, whereas the larger air cylinders other members were buying were quite heavy, so their users did not need as much lead on their weight-belts to achieve overall neutral buoyancy. I forgot this on one occasion when diving in Portland Harbour on sunken sections of the Mulberry Harbour used for D Day in WW2. I exhausted the air in my Tads, so finished my dive, and got back into the boat we were using. One of the other divers was suffering from seasickness, and decided he would not dive, so I asked if I could use his air cylinder. He was quite agreeable to this, as long as I refilled it that evening, so I fitted my demand valve onto his big cylinder, adjusted the harness to fit, put on my face mask, went over the side of the boat, and sunk like a stone! I should have removed lead from my weight-belt to compensate for the heavy cylinder, but I had forgotten to do so. The water pressure increased as I rapidly sank and I frantically tried to clear my ears - equalise the pressure in my inner ear by holding my nose and blowing in the recognised manner to let higher pressure air from my throat get to my inner ears through their Eustachian tubes. However in those days, face masks with recesses in the rubber around one's nose to enable it to be easily gripped had not yet been invented, and the only way to block my nose was to push the flat surface of the underside of the mask up to try to achieve a block. I could not do this efficiently or quickly enough, and my eardrums perforated under the pressure difference, allowing cold water into my inner ear, where it threw my balance system haywire and I no longer knew which way was up in the murky water. Luckily I landed on part of the Mulberry Harbour, so sat clinging there for some minutes until my balance returned to something approaching normal. I managed to get back up to the boat, but only by finning like mad to overcome the negative buoyancy. The really stupid part of this story happened that evening in the pub where we were staying, when someone pointed out that if there were holes in my eardrums, then if I held my nose and blew, to open my Eustachian tubes, smoke that I had just inhaled from a cigarette should come out of my ears. Like an idiot I tried the experiment, but as there was no mirror nearby I could not see whether the others were being truthful in saying smoke was appearing. I did not continue the test for more than a few seconds, as the effect of nicotine on the raw edges of my perforations was extremely painful. Luckily, one of our party was a doctor, and had some very strong painkillers that eased my agony.
Another occasion when buoyancy was a problem was when I achieved my deepest ever dive, on a wreck near Torquay. This was in the days before ABLJs - Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jackets - were available, and I was wearing my bargain price quarter inch thick neoprene wet suit. When we were down on the wreck, I indicated to my dive buddy that I was going down to the scour around the propeller of the sunken ship, to get the lowest possible reading on my depth gauge, which indicated 165 feet. Happy with this reading I started to fin back up, but found that I was not making much progress, so I finned harder, but still with little effect. I realised that my thick neoprene wetsuit had compressed so much under the pressure at such a depth that I was now extremely negatively buoyant. Had I been wearing a ABLJ, I would just have opened its air cylinder for a moment, to get the necessary lift, but alas this was not the case. If I dropped my weight-belt, I would shoot to the surface too fast, and probably get The Bends, so that was not an option. I resolved the situation by hauling myself, hand-over-hand up the hull of the ship, using convenient barnacles, until my suit expanded enough for me to swim back over to my buddy - who had probably thought that I was intent on studying molluscs. I did have an encounter with a bivalve version of mollusc, the scallop, on one occasion when diving off a beach near Brixham in Devon. I was looking for these without success until I noticed indentations like horseshoe prints in the sand, and realised that these were the rings of eyes at the edges of the shells of scallops that had buried themselves just below the surface. I had read stories in my youth about divers being trapped by giant clams closing their shells over a diver's foot, so before I lifted each scallop I tapped it with my knife handle. This ensured that the shells closed together and would not trap my fingers. I had collected several fine specimens before my shadow must have been detected by a whole bunch of very small scallops, who immediately jumped up and began swimming to escape what they probably thought was a large starfish. Their swimming technique involved rapid opening and closing of their shells, which exposed their bright white inner surfaces. It looked just like an aerial dance being performed by a large number of sets of false teeth, and I nearly choked as I involuntarily tried to laugh around my mouthpiece.
When June and I moved to Harlow, I left Edmonton Dolphins, and joined Harlow Sub Aqua Club, a branch of the British Sub Aqua Club - BSAC. This diving club affected my life in unexpected ways, as explained in the chapter First Marriage, so eventually instead of June, it was Avril who accompanied me to club nights and on occasional diving weekends. Avril was rather a surprise for Club members, with her always smart appearance, correct language and rather County accent, and they probably wondered what she was doing with a North London lad like me, so were initially a little reserved with her. Eventually they realised that she was OK, and only a few of the wives who had been particular friends of June remained a little aloof with her. One person with whom Avril got on well with right from the start, however, was Daphne, wife of Bob Page, who later became the Club's Diving Officer, and the pair would sit in the bleachers at the side of the pool during diving sessions. During one of their chats, Daphne related how her big white dog, a Samoyed, had been used in the photo' shoot for a campaign advertising refrigerators, but had initially been too hyperactive to control. A vet was called to administer a tranquiliser shot, but overestimated the dosage required, so the dog became too lethargic, even falling over when trying to lift its leg for a pee. As a result, the dog kept sliding down the artificial snow slope upon which it and a refrigerator were posed, so Daphne had to hide behind the hill, holding on to the dog's tail to keep it in position.
At the end of pool sessions on Club nights, we would repair to a bar at Moot House Community Centre at The Stow, where we had obtained the use of a couple of outhouses to store our equipment, including an air compressor driven by a petrol-engine. This was a great asset, although it took many, many hours to get it into working order. We also used rooms at Moot House for lectures on the technical aspects of diving, with me usually getting the job of delivering them. After the existing chairman, John Godfrey, left to start a diving school in Spain, I became Chairman of the Club, with Avril as my Secretary, and I persuaded another member, Con Goss, to take on the role of Treasurer. The Club's finances were in quite a dire state at the time, but showed a startling climb back to health when Con's wife started coming with him on Club nights at the pool, and took over the job of collecting the attendance fees. There was no messing with Thursa, as remarks like Can I pay next week?, and other excuses about joining fees, etc., did not wash with her.
One of the diving sites that we often visited was at Black Rock, Brighton, where there was a low reef underwater a little way offshore, under which crabs, lobsters and eels could be found. Early on a Sunday morning a group would set off from Harlow, to dive from the stony shore when they arrived. On one occasion, I recall that one of the children had brought a small inflatable dinghy, which we divers borrowed to carry any catches we made back to shore. At the end of our dive, only one plaice needed to be conveyed, so we took the opportunity to relieve ourselves of our weight-belts by putting them into the dinghy. On the way back, the plaice started flipping about, and looked as though it might escape, so Bill Deemer took his diving knife from the sheath on his calf, intending to stab the fish. Unfortunately he missed the fish, but got the dinghy, which immediately sank, carrying our weight-belts to the bottom. It would normally have been simple to dive down and retrieve the belts, but without them, the buoyancy of our wetsuits made it extremely difficult to go deep enough. I think the situation was resolved by one of us going to shore to get a currently unused weight-belt to help him get down to the sea bed, but he then had the problem of swimming upwards with a double weight load. Bill was not too popular that day. Another visit to Black Rock was to inaugurate a super new large Zodiac inflatable that the club had purchased. Jim Porter, who owned a company that formed metal sheets, had designed and made a beautiful curved stainless steel transom for the boat, upon which to mount a powerful outboard motor. We all arrived at the beach, and got the Zodiac unloaded and inflated. The motor had been meticulously tuned the previous evening and that was placed ready for mounting, but when the van was opened up to get the transom, it had not been loaded! Some rather heated discussion regarding who was at fault took place, but it was decided that the Zodiac would be launched for its maiden voyage anyway, even if was to be powered by oars. The Zodiac was carried down to the water's edge, where it was loaded with all the gear needed by a couple of divers who were going use the voyage to visit the reef. There were quite a lot of people helping to launch the Zodiac through the waves, but nevertheless the implacable forces generated by the sea turned it sideways before tipping it completely over, discharging all its contents. After rescuing the Zodiac, luckily undamaged, and collecting - most - of the dumped gear, it was agreed to abandon diving for that day!
Besides actual diving trips, we also visited Naval training establishments like HMS Vernon at Portsmouth, where we were shown around the interior of a submarine. I am not sure I could have survived more than a few hours in its claustrophobic interior, where the bottom of the bunk above was only a few inches above where I would sleep. Some of us also had the opportunity to have a dip in a training tank, wearing standard diving dress - the canvas suit topped with a brass helmet. I was lucky enough to have a go, and was dressed by two ratings, who then attached heavy lead boots to my feet, and tied lead weights to the front and back of my chest. After explaining how to use the spit cock the faceplate was screwed in, and further communication was just by hand signals. I was lifted up - I could not stand unaided - and helped to move my booted feet across to the ladder on the tank where I struggled to climb down into the water. Once in the water I descended down slowly, squashing the end of my nose against the metal helmet collar to clear my ears as the pressure increased. The spit cock controlled the egress of the air being pumped to me down the supply pipe, so that my buoyancy could be adjusted to be just slightly negative, so I remained on the bottom of the tank, but could move relatively freely. Walking was strange, as I had to lean forward rather than stand upright, and I decided that I certainly preferred the freedom of aqualung diving. I was joined in the tank by another Club member, Mike Ruocco, who, after a few moments, suddenly disappeared upwards. Apparently he had left his spit cock closed for too long, allowing his suit to overfill with air. The effect of this was to extend the arms and legs of his suit straight out, so he was unable to bend his arm to reach the spit cock on his helmet and let the excess air out. His increased buoyancy whizzed him up to the surface of the tank, where he floated like a huge starfish. I was glad it was not me who had to endure the comments and jibes form other members for the rest of the visit.
Although the Club had its own air compressor to fill air tanks for weekly sessions in Harlow pool and before going on diving expeditions, we had to find local places where we could pay to have them re-filled if we stayed away for more than one day. To remedy this situation we obtained some large air cylinders which we could fill at Moot House, and decant into our smaller tanks when away. These cylinders were too large to go in a car, so we decided to buy an old Bedford Duple coach, which could easily accommodate them and a manifold in its boot. We had some good engineers in the Club, so the renovation of the coach was not a problem, even if sorting out the air brakes system was left to me. To save fuel, we would sometimes switch off the engine when cruising down hills on the A303 across Salisbury Plain, but would have to frantically restart if the brakes were really needed and a couple of previous dabs on the brake pedal had exhausted the vacuum in the brake reservoir. We did have problems with engine carburation, however, with petrol consumption dropping to about four miles to the gallon on one trip. A whip round to buy more fuel was needed, but it was touch-and-go whether we would reach an open petrol station before the tank ran dry.
One of our very active Club members, Terry Tarbuck, died rather unexpectedly, not for reasons to do with diving, but it was decided that it would be a fitting tribute from the Club if some members were to scatter his ashes on the sea at Shoreham, where he regularly dived at weekends. So it was that myself as Chairman, and a group of his fellow divers took his wife, Mona, to Shoreham one Sunday morning for the ceremony. Unfortunately the weather was terrible that day, pouring with rain, and blowing a gale, so the skipper of the fishing boat that the divers usually hired said it was unsafe to go more than a short distance offshore. Nevertheless, when the local vicar arrived in his cassock, we boarded the boat, and motored a little away out. The vicar began the ceremony, but as the boat was pitching and rolling alarmingly, he clutched at a wire stay for support. He did not notice that this was covered in protective grease, which stuck to his fingers and the pages of the texts he was trying to read. With the wind trying to tear the pages from his hands as well, he struggled to complete the service, but did eventually get to the point where the ashes were to be dispersed on the sea. Mona took the lid off a large container, but as the gunwales of the boat were very high, and she was a tiny, bird-like woman she could not reach high enough to tip out the contents. It was therefore necessary for two of us to lift her up and hold her by her legs as she scattered Terry to the deep. I think the wind may have coated each of us with more of Terry than the sea received, but the deed was finally done. I'm sure that if Terry was watching from above he would have thought the whole situation hilarious, but it was very hard for us down below to remain in solemn composures appropriate to the event. When sitting in a café later, one of the divers suggested that Terry's ashes might have done more good if they had been added to the active charcoal filter used to absorb impurities from the output of the Club's air compressor.
One Saturday evening I received a 'phone call from Sergeant China, a member of the Police Diving Team, based at Chelmsford, seeking the Club's help with the search for a possible drowning at Dobbs Weir, on the River Lea. Members were contacted and on Sunday morning congregated at the Fish and Eels pub beside the river, where we were told that a worker on the overhead power lines had been in the pub with friends on the Friday evening, when a challenge had been made about who could swim across the weir pond the fastest. Two of the party went into the water, but only one came out. His friends initially though he was just playing about, but at closing time, his jacket containing his week's wages was still on a chair unclaimed, so they raised the alarm. The Chelmsford police divers did a search on the Saturday, but without success, so Sergeant China sought help. We organised a sweep across the weir pond, with divers touching hands in the almost zero visibility water. Although I would have liked the kudos of being the person who found the body, I did not really relish the thought of coming upon a dead person with our faces only inches apart. I was therefore relieved when the message came down the line that someone else had found a body, which we brought to the shore outside the pub. A later autopsy revealed the drowning was actually the result of sudden immersion in cold water after drinking lots of alcohol causing involuntary vomiting that hindered breathing. As a result of the Club's co-operation, we forged a link with the police team, often getting together at each-other's meetings, and I formed a close friendship with Sergeant China. This friendship resulted in him asking me to act as his tender when searching for someone who had fallen overboard from a rowing boat hired from the aforementioned Fish and Eels pub. He was willing to turn out to do the search even though no other members of his team were available, but the section's rules stated that he must have someone acting as tender for his own safety. We met on the banks of the Lea again, and I took control of his safety line and his air supply pipe connected to a large cylinder on the river bank, whilst he waded into the water. He quickly found the lad, who had apparently hit his head on the side of the boat from which he fell.
My last involvement in a drowning was when I was asked to help search for the body of a toddler who, that morning, had apparently fallen into a small stream that ran into The River Stort not far from Harlow Town station. Ian Juniper and I searched along the stream to no avail, and returned to the little dock where we had based ourselves. Ian suddenly said that he felt something strange under his feet - we had not been wearing flippers in the shallow stream - and when he ducked down to investigate, found the body of the little girl, no more than a foot or so from where she had obviously fallen in. Whilst dressing, I saw the child lying on the grass being examined by a doctor, and though she was very pale, she just looked as though she was asleep. As the father of a daughter of roughly the same age, that was a very affecting moment. Club members did have another call from the police, to investigate a vehicle which was just visible in a small lake near Broxbourne railway station. It seemed that it was necessary to determine if there was someone inside before the van could be dragged out of the water. There wasn't! We did assist, however, in the moving of a stock of fish from one lake to another for a local angling club, controlling the movement of huge nets that gathered the fish together, and ladling them into drums for transport elsewhere. A fun day for all concerned - except, perhaps, the fish!
Besides the water-based activities of the club, there were also a number of social events - including my wedding celebration - but another party I recall was given by Derek Meyer. This took place at his home in Enfield, for some reason I cannot now remember, but I do recollect his saying that it was a fairly unique sort of occasion for him. Because of this, perhaps, when we all arrived and asked for some music for dancing after enjoying his wonderful party food, he admitted he only collected classical music. Also, as he had not mentioned this to anyone, nobody had brought any records, so we were music-less. Various solutions were discussed, but they mostly involved a long trip back to Harlow - that is until one attendee remembered that he might have left a 45 in his car. He brought it in, and played Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum. As this was the only music we were going to have, we lifted the drop arm on the record player up and away, and continuously played Spirit in the Sky for the next five hours or so. Everyone present got to know the words quite well!
As mentioned in the chapter, Cossor and Marconi, I had to leave my local job to work in Crawley, so I resigned as Chairman of the Club as I could not attend weekly meetings. My diving activities had in fact already become reduced due to the fact that shore based dives were being replaced by those from boats, with trips out to The Eddystone Lighthouse being one of the favourites. I do tend to suffer from sea-sickness, although I am OK when I am lying down. Even if I could hold my head sideways to fool my balance mechanism into thinking I was prone, it is difficult, however, to get kitted up for a dive under those circumstances. Having had one or two experiences of impending underwater sickness, which luckily did not amount to actually being overcome, I realised that my best diving days were probably past.