DIVER is a book about a life underwater. I have been paid to dive since I was 17, I am now 48! An enviable position to many I’m sure. I have been diving all over the world, well almost! From the south Pacific, to the war torn Falkland Islands during the conflict in 1982. Searching for mines down there or quickly evolving our EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) skills, repairing bomb damaged ships during air raids, all set me up for a career that never had a dull moment.
I had kept a diary whilst ‘Down South’ and yet twenty five years later, I had still never read it. The BBC found out about this through a mutual diver friend and asked me to read them on camera in Feb 07, as part of the 25 year anniversary.
(See Falklands war page for the film) During filming the cameraman said, “These diaries are brilliant, have you ever thought of filling in the gaps, writing it all down?
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Well I hadn’t ever thought about it. But I started that night and it just flowed out of me. Day and night for about 9 months, I wrote and re-wrote about my diving life. About the intensive training in the Navy required to become a sneaky beaky ‘attack swimmer’. Getting trained in re-breathers that give out no bubbles, enabling you to sabotage ships, or work on mines unseen and undetected. .
About life at sea on a warship as a member of the closely knit team on board, and my part in a war at the age on 23. The jobs that came my way over the years were so wide and so varied, I needed 330 pages to get some of it down. I've dived for mines, sunken helicopters, trawlers, cars, bodies and stolen money, to name a few. Then it seemed to flow effortlessly into my career out of the forces.
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In 1985 I left the Royal Navy and had to go in search on employment as a commercial diver. I soon found myself in some of the dodgiest areas of Africa in the oil industry. I then did years of deep-sea-diving (down to 700 ft / 220 meters) saturation diving in the North Sea oil fields. This is diving like no other. Between 6 and 8 hours a day, actually in the water, everyday for 28 days at a time.
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Sat diving is different in that you don’t decompress after every dive. You live in a decompression chamber on board a ship or oil rig and ‘commute’ to work every day
in a diving bell, then decompress just the once at the end of your 'sentence.'
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As part of the project of writing the book, I interviewed a number of close friends and fellow 'plongeurs' about situations they would rather not have found themselves in. Grahame Murr about his witnessing the disaster that was the Piper Alpha, Mick O'Leary about being turned turtle in a bell at 500ft, Phil Kearn's on his first sat dive, involving 22 bodies and a crashed helicopter, and Garry Sewell about his first day in his first war dealing with a 1000lb bomb, whilst under air attack!
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I then embarked on what everyone told me would be the hardest part of the operation, getting a publisher. I thought I’d try and get it some kudos first, so I wrote to an Ex naval officer who commanded the amphibious task force in 1982 to the Falklands, Michael Clapp CB. I asked him if he would consider writing a foreword. He sounded enthusiastic and once he read the book he immediately said yes. He then suggested I send it to Seafarer Books to see what they said. He wrote me an introduction and. . . Well, the rest is history.
The foreword is written by Sir Jonathon Band, KBC ADC, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval staff. Michael Clapp CB, has been instrumental in getting all these high ranking officers, serving and retired, to first read it, and then write about it. Major General Julian Thompson CB,OBE, then wrote a superb piece for the back cover. See book reviews. Julian was the commander of 3 Brigade in the Falklands and is one of the most recognized military historians in the United Kingdom, on TV and in print, so is eminently qualified to give the book some credence.
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