The End of an Era…..the Third Pillar of Wisdom……

  It would not become apparent to me that I had in fact left TIDSAC at the end of exercise Triton Triangle in the Kyle of Lochalsh for many years, that realisation essentially only hit recently, going back over the last 30 years of my diving life here in fact. I had my last real dive with TIDSAC on the Port Napier which was, at the time, my favourite and by far most explored wreck, it remains one of my favourites not only for what we saw as we dived, but what the wreck had to offer and how she tempted me into wreck penetration, something I’d never done before and something I absolutely loved but respected in equal measure. I have always thought of T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” as being the 7 decades of a man as Biblically laid out in “Three-Score Years and Ten”, that’s hard to argue considering, if I am not mistaken, that Lawrence never actually mentions or refers to “7 pillars” in the book other than in it’s title……. allowing me to be as “right as anyone else” considering….. So TIDSAC was very much part of my 3^rd pillar of wisdom, by starting and ending in my 3^rd Decade on this journey. I have no poetic observations of the landscape of Tidworth and its environs, I had no part in revolt or the crumbling of empires whilst there, and it would not be for another 20 years that I would see anything of the Ottoman Empire, which makes the time I had there seem almost prosaic

As any soldier will tell you, leaving the Army is a confusion of sorts, I knew, even as we dived the Port Napier for the last time, on Thursday the 13^th of July 1995, that my time was coming to an end. I had met and fallen in love with Ellen, I had a growing responsibility towards Lee and Lewis and I had already suffered the death of one marriage whilst serving….I knew how that felt, I knew what that meant, I was not losing my Catherine to a lonely hemorrhage in some god-forsaken shithole accommodation block, I’d rather leave the Army and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than go through that with Ellen…….. So my time with the Army would come to an end soon, I would be forced to look for another way to support our little family, and my time with TIDSAC would fade from view. That hurt a lot more than I thought it would, TIDSAC had literally saved me from myself over the last 5 years, it would have been easy to spend my evenings in the Drummer, indeed I’d come close several times to the self-destruct option, but I’d always had diving to pull me a step back from the breech, and Norman and Joy to engage me in the next adventure, Swanage, Durdle Door, Chesil Cove, Bowleaze Cove….. and Kyle, every one had given me enough to keep me on a path that saw me pick myself back up, rage at the injustice, but carry on regardless……..I have said the Army made me and I owe it everything I am and will ever be, but TIDSAC underpinned my resurrection from a pit, and gave me time to find a salvation I never believed I could or would have, one that has lasted from those days to this, and one I hope will until I am gone from here to dust     

   I had loved my time with Norman & Joy, with Toots, with Adrian and all the other divers I had dived with or taught, or trained with, or joined on expeditions, they were, truly halcyon days….days which you looked forward to and back on as if they were perfect, although there were many dives spent playing Naughts & Crosses in appalling viz, and days where every living thing seemed to have seen you coming and decided to get well away from the area…… There were epic, memorable dives around the South Coast at Falmouth, Portland, Chesil and more distant locations like Skye and Kyle, when life was shit there was always TIDSAC…..to all those who dived with me or around me I offer you my most sincere thanks, you were very much part of a salvation, and I will be eternally grateful to you all!  

Although the Port Napier was my last real dive with the main of TIDSAC there is a single remaining dive which I suppose added the final “full-Stop” to that chapter of my life, after my BSAC Advanced Diver course (another post on here elsewhere) and prior to my last true Army diving, on the Falklands expedition in January of ’95 there is a log entry that reads: “23/08/95 RIB – Grove Point Portland (E) One of the best dives I’ve done for marine life – Cuttlefish, two shoals of Pouting, well over 50 fish in one, a couple of fairly large Crabs, two Blenny, two large Wrasse & some I didn’t know. Brilliant! W/Temp 19’ Air In 220 Out 90 Buddy Dougie” This is the unknown, unrealised full stop, the end of the final chapter, the start point for all after TIDSAC, and just one short exped away from the cessation of my opportunity for hostilities……..a “Farewell to Arms”…….of sorts…. They wouldn’t let me keep my SA80….the Bastards

Exercise Triton Triangle TIDSAC July 1995

Balmacara House sits in what is now the Localsh Estate, built in 1801 by Sir Hugh Innes and situated on the shores of Loch Alsh, Balmacara was purchased by Sir Alexander Matheson in the mid-19th century, while Duncraig Castle was built near Plockton to serve as his main residence

  In 1918 Balmacara was bought by Sir Daniel and Lady Margaret Hamilton. The house has been enlarged over the years, and the 8,770 acre Lochalsh Estate was eventually bequeathed to the National Trust for Scotland, in 1947. Balmacara House has since been leased to the Ministry of Defence for use by Navy divers during training exercises. In 2011 it was refurbished and apparently continues, to this day, to be used by the Navy as a training base

Norman & Joy Morley knew of Balmacara house, and knew TIDSAC would find it reasonably easy to use as a base for a decent expedition for the Tidworth club. Norman would plan the main of the expedition and Major Mike Eagle would sign it off, and submit to the relevant military authority for approval, it was to be an adventurous expedition increasing the experience of garrison divers, targeting deeper dives, drift dives and wreck diving in the Lochalsh area around the Isle of Skye

Now this one was going to be a hard sell for me as it was a week I would normally have spent on leave, not usually an issue, however, I had recently been thrown out of the monastery by the abbot following an incident on Christmas leave involving a very beautiful young woman, Two young kids and a Goat…… (The Goat was at a local petting Farm…. honestly!). The rest, however, is true to the letter! I had met Ellie, the girl who would break my vows of chastity and seclusion following my now somewhat distant divorce, and after an inordinately long time, agree to become my wife (initially having said “no” when I asked, but that is another story, and only marginally diving related!) and Lee and Lewis, who would eventually agree I could pay their pocket money from then on! I had no idea what I would say to excuse a week’s absence, swanning off to Scotland for a diving expedition…..but I had a month or so to think of something!

I didn’t have a problem getting permission in either direction as it happened, my CO, Maj Andrews, couldn’t think of a good enough reason to stop me taking leave, (there were clearly no remaining shit-holes, in a state of melt-down, to send me to at that point) and I had suggested Ellie might love to bring the kids up to Scotland for a week, as a sort of holiday…..she could even bring a mate up if she’d like and we’d all do some sightseeing, after I had done a little military related exercise I couldn’t get out of…. This, Ellie said, was going to be difficult, how was she going to get to Scotland with Two very young kids and Denise, her mate, without a car….and where would we all stay? I had that covered, “you can tow your granddad’s trailer tent up in my RS Turbo if you like……..” sorted!

The trip up from Tidworth on Sunday the 02^nd July 1995 was long and slow, towing the TIDSAC club RIB meant everything was in slow motion. I had agreed to meet up with Ellie and the crew at Stafford service station on the M6, and it all went swimmingly, we had a little dive-club convoy for about 10 hours or so, through the counties to the lake district and on up the Western coast of Scotland, an epic journey for Ellie, who had never driven further than Derby in a car before! When we pulled up Loch-side and took a look at the Commando memorial the kid’s eyes were wide with excitement! Ellie and Denise planned to take the car across to Skye and do the tourist bit whilst we dived….Two Birds!

  I will quote the overview from the “Exercise Triton Triangle” expedition report as a lead in….. “The exceptionally good weather allowed unrestricted diving throughout the expedition, although the geography of the region also allows diving in most wind directions. The boat was launched from Kyle of Lochalsh small Boat Slip and moored off Balmacara House most of the time. This involved the coxswain of the day having to swim out to the boat in the morning and back in the evening. The boat was only withdrawn from the water on one occasion, in order to dive Loch Carron, when it was launched from Strome Ferry.”

  Our fist dive was at Aird-a-Mhill, a shake-out dive on Loch Alsh and, at 17m, it was just a straight out fun orientation dive, my log book records nothing dramatic “Small Boat – Aird-A-Mhill – Lochalsh Shakeout Dive – First in Scotland Huge Starfish – Huge Jellyfish Plenty of Scallops & Squat Lobsters. Viz 3m W/Temp 11’ Air in 180 Out 70 Buddy Mark” a nice introduction to diving in Scottish Sea Lochs, just what the doctor ordered after the drab views recently under Swanage Pier! I remember being fascinated watching Scallops swim off when we approached, if you’ve never seen it, you’d never believe it…..they scatter in front of you, their shells clacking open and closed in quick time, as they siphon sea water in and blow it out through jets in their bodies, swimming backwards in a bizarre trajectory, up then down as they flee …….the image is one of comic incredulity which made me laugh into my regulator, and will never be forgotten

The next day we headed out to the most famous dive locally, just 10 minutes across from Balmacara House to the Navy Mine Layer Port Napier. You know this blog well enough by now, I think, to know that dive will be covered in another section? Suffice to say, this was the best wreck I had ever dived to that point, and when that has included the Zenobia in Larnaca Harbour, Cyprus, it may come as a shock to those who know the Two wrecks, but I’ll let you read the piece yourself and work out why in your own time……..Our second dive on the 08^th July 1995 was to the little Island of Eileanan Dubha, which is in Kyleakin strait and slap in front of the Sky Ferry crossing route. When we were there the Caledonian Ferry was still the only means of crossing to Skye, the new Skye bridge would not open until October of 1995, in one day sealing the fate of the local Ferry, and in the same heartbeat euthanise the romance of the Skye crossing, dooming it to mundane pedestrianism and summer gridlock…..I know what you’re thinking…..and yes, I’m a Luddite at heart!

The Eileanan Dubha dive was a lovely end to the day, my dive log sums it up briefly and concisely: “Club RIB – Eil Dubha – Loch Alsh Just a bimble to finish the day – round the Isle hunting the nooks – tame Air in 200 out 100 Viz 3m W/Temp 11’ Buddies Mark & Richard” Hunting in and out of the islet’s gullies was great fun, but I’d just come from the Port Napier, you’ll understand the difference once you have read the piece on the Napier, it was clear I loved diving, but it was becoming far clearer that wrecks were where I came alive……….

The next day’s morning dive 09/07/1995 was spent on the Port Napier, seriously, by now I could’ve just spent the entire time on her, she was an amazing wreck, but there were others to consider, and a spread of diving to undertake to justify the mission statement for the expedition, so we headed out for a drift dive on our second dive of the day. Now I had done some mild drifts under Ferry-Bridge at Portland, I knew the drill, don’t get tangled up in your SMB, keep the line tight and watch your front! The currents around Loch Alsh are known to be fierce at times and Norman knew where to find them, this wasn’t his first trip up here! So we found ourselves at Kyle Rea, my dive log records: “RIB Dive- Kyle Rea – Balmacara A 3Kt Drift Dive – Dropped in by the Skye Ferry & drifted way past the Light, fields of Anemones, lovely – Air in 220 Out 100 Viz 4m W/Temp 12’ Buddy Mark” 3 Knots was a good crack for a drift, way more than I had under Ferry-Bridge, we drifted well too, somewhere around ½ mile we estimated later, a very enjoyable dive and everyone enjoyed the experience, the day had been great!

  Monday 10^th July 1995 and the day started out perfectly for me with another dive on the Port Napier, things couldn’t get much better to be honest! However the afternoon dive was scheduled as a wall dive over on the Balmacara House side of the loch, so we were heading South in the RIB, the dive log says: “RIB Dive – Kyle of Lochalsh – The Wall A really pleasant drop to “climb” back up the wall – Largest Crab I’ve seen to date & Velvet Swimmer Crabs, loads of beautiful funnels & fans Viz 4m W/Temp 12’ Buddy Mark Air in 220 Out 80” This was a nice dive, I remember being quite astonished to see Fan coral in a sea loch in Scotland, and tube fans too (Funnels). The dive was gloomy but clear and the deeper nature of it changed the noise of our exhaled air, I enjoyed the swim up this wall more than I thought I would at the time

This was a contrast to our next dive a day after (11^th July) where we dived Loch Reraig, opposite Plockton, a beautiful tourist trap, for this dive we had to trailer the RIB across the hills to launch out of Strome Ferry Slip, the wall here was barren and a disappointment after the previous day’s wall, the log records: “RIB Dive – Loch Reraig – Deep Dive down to 30m then back slowly up a barren slope but not much life – W/Temp 12’ Viz 4m Buddy Ken Air in 220 Out 100”   We quickly followed this with a drift dive in the same area which went far better, plenty to see (and more…) as the log says “Rib Dive – Stromeferry – Drift Down to 19m & drift over a sea bed full of Scallops & Starfish – Good Fun – W/Temp 12’ Viz 4m Buddy Ken Air in 100 Out 51” Now, no one was counting the Scallops when we went in….good news really as there were a good deal fewer when we came out….and an impromptu Barbie took care of the hunger we’d built up on the dives…….hand dived Scallops…nommy!

The expedition was drawing to a close, we had a day and a half of diving left and a decision to make, wreck or wall, on this one I was out voted, we ended up going back to the Loch Alsh wall for a deeper dive to 35m, one of the objectives of the expedition, so I wasn’t arguing the choice. The log book says enough: “Rib Dive – The Wall – Kyle of Lochalsh Down to 35m & 4m Viz – But well dark – back up through all the local sea life & a Lump Sucker as well – W/Temp 12’ Buddy Ken Air in 160 Out 70” That was the lowest fill I’d had to date at 160 Bar, and maybe pushing what I would do now, beyond comfort levels, we had planned the dive as a simple bounce though, with no real bottom time, just a “touch and go” affair which worked out ok at the time. Our next dive that day was another drift, they were popular with everyone as you just got in, let the current do the work, and enjoyed the sensation of “flying” over the sea scape, this one was special too…. “Drift Dive – Kyle of Lochalsh – Channel Marker Buoy – Down to 11m & over a field of Brittle-stars that was staggering – literally a carpet! – A large amount of Sun-Starfish & Huge (18” – 24” ) starfish – with the odd Urchin & Crab thrown in for luck – good dive 3 ½ to 4k Buddy Ken W/Temp 12’ Air In 215 Out 90” This would be one of the most defining memories of the Kyle of Lochalsh and I can still see in my mind the carpet of what would now be called “Bio-Mass” that we drifted across that afternoon, both Ken and I couldn’t believe the scale of what we saw, anywhere you looked….Brittle-stars….an amazing sight!

The next day we managed a farewell dive on the Port Napier and I had to say goodbye to what was the best wreck I had dived in all my 100 plus dives at that point, even now the dives on the Port Napier have taken some beating and she is one of my fondest wreck memories…..

One of the most iconic dives on the South Coast, not a wreck, not deep, not an offshore anomaly…..easily reached and often way overcrowded, Swanage pier is in just about every South Coast diver’s log book I’m sure…..and I’m no exception. Tired of hearing about the place from those in TIDSAC, and with nothing better to do in January in Tidworth, on a weekend, I finally said, what the hell, and Toots and I packed the car for a trip down the A303, passing “The Stones” on the way! I always slowed to take in the stark contrast of the Stonehenge Sarsens to the surrounding grass hills of the henge. These were the days you could drive past and see them from the road, or pull up at the road-side and walk across the field, to get close and wonder at the organisation required to drag and raise such huge stones onto the top of a hill, a hundred plus miles from the quarries they were hewn from, in days where tools were made of stone and wood…….

I loved the drive down to Swanage in January, it isn’t packed with tourists to anywhere near the extent it is in the summer months, and the frost on the ground and mist adds to the mystique of the journey. We were lucky, as the miles rolled away it got sunnier and more pleasant the closer we got, by the time we were dropping down the hill through Swanage town, it was a bright and sunny day, we were anticipating an empty pier with easy parking…….just like everyone else who had decided to get in an easy dive very early in the season!

Like anyone who dived Swanage pier back in the day will tell you, get there early, or you end up miles down the road….Toots and I were lucky, we had been warned, and despite me taking in the sights and making it a leisurely drive through the counties, we ended up not too far from the pier itself, on a glorious morning you could have believed was mid summer. There were others from TIDSAC down there to meet us and we fell in with Norman and Joy’s plans for our little dip, under the new pier supports in search of Tom-Pot Blennies and crabs…..and we stripped off and kitted up in our dry-suits, 12l cylinders already filled from the club compressor the night before. It would be an easy shore entry from the beach with a surface swim to then descend at the side of the pier

The log book reads: “Shore Dive – Swanage Pier – Escorting Novice – a root about the pier footings. Very little to see, the odd crab and a Pipe fish. Practiced AAS Breathing W/Temp 8′ Air in 200 out 150 Buddy Toots Viz down below 1m throughout” Which just goes to show that everything “up-Top” can be great, and the dive can still be a little disappointing! I had hoped for better, this was the early days for Toots, in diving terms, and I didn’t want her put-off, she was a good kid and I liked her. Still, we had some skills ticked off and we had not sat on our arses back in barracks, it was a worthwhile trip for those reasons if nothing else!

The next weekend we had another opportunity and decided to give Swanage another look, it was a lovely place and I didn’t take much persuading even if I thought the viz would be similar, it takes a good week or so of good seas to get the suspension out of the water-table….but you never know! So off we went back down the 303….to the end of the road… and down to the harbour-master’s office in the little pier hut, to pay up for parking and get access

This time we had decided skills were the primary aim if the viz wasn’t up to much, it set the ambition and meant Toots wasn’t expecting too much from the dive to begin with! So, 08th January 1995….back into the sea at Swanage and the log says “Shore Dive – Swanage Pier – Confirmation of Novice Skills _ Mask Clear – Air Share – A ferret about for a while – very little to see though – CBL/AV Finish Viz 0-0.5m ……” So that was two weekends and Alternate Air-Source use (AAS), Controlled Buoyant Lift (CBL) and Artificial Ventilation (AV) completed for Toots, she was chuffed, and a little closer to Sports Diver than she expected and we’ed got a couple of shore dives in too! If nothing else, Swanage had provided a couple of good days out, and a couple of great training opportunities too!

April of 1994 TIDSAC decided to take an inland dive-trip to Waterlip Quarry in Somerset, it was half the distance to Stoney Cove and that proximity, in the day, meant it was easier to get divers interested. I suppose I was lucky, Stoney was not so far out of the way for me and made a decent dive on the way back to Tidworth after weekends, or leave, spent with my then girl-friend Ellie and the family. Obviously those serving in Tidworth Garrison found no real benefit from such a long journey North, and the traffic on the return could be a pain too, after all, these were dives to be taken when the weather was blowing out South coast dives, which were obviously far more of a pull than a quarry dive!

Waterlip Quarry is located near Cranmore, in Somerset, and is known locally more often as Cranmore Quarry, originating from around 1860, it was originally Two Quarries with a road between them but became One, larger, edifice somewhere around 1890. The quarry was extracting Carboniferous (Black Rock) Limestone, a product of Volcanic activity in pre-historic days, and a result of the “Coalbrookdale Formation” of Silurian Volcanic rock. Basically the debris from a huge volcano eruption which settled onto sea-water, and became layers of sediment (pumice) and pyroclastic flows over the existing bedrock. I am sure there will be geologists horrified by that very inadequate and basic description, but I’m not giving a geography lesson here, I trust I can be forgiven such basic ignorance……

The journey from Tidworth to Cranmore, in the Mendip Hills, takes around an Hour or so, a pleasant journey across to the West from Salisbury, and a picturesque one. It is hard to believe there was ever a Volcano, nor that the eruption of such a thing created the local landscape, no matter how long ago that might have been. But whatever it looked like, the strata of the local area was precious enough and plentiful enough to break it out from the ground to use and to sell. Most people have seen working quarries, or at least pictures of them, I personally like the historic images, the way things were achieved, before the introduction of modern commercial methodologies and massive plant equipment

Waterlip is another quarry with a transportation story, similar to Stoney Cove’s….. The quarry owners found it difficult to get product to market, in a similar conundrum to that faced by those at Stoney Stanton, the original method being horse-drawn carts, with all the limitations implied by steep quarry access roads, and the energy available from the horses! The canals were little help, several canal ventures locally, the Nettle-bridge Valley & Radstock canals, failed, and the Somerset link to Kennet & Avon was too far North for the Mendip quarry production, so it wasn’t until the 1870’s that a rail network was established which opened up wider possibilities

If nothing else, understanding the way rock is quarried, even back in the day, makes understanding the underwater topography (Bathymetry?) far better, and therefore aids navigation to some extent! I also love to see the “Health and Safety” of the day and reflect on what a “cotton wool” society we have become of late! Arriving at Waterlip you made your way over to the Quarry head, where there was a building and access (if there were divers there already), or, if I recall correctly, an improvised key-collection arranged beforehand. To be honest I’m not sure as to how that worked at the time, but the kitting up area was out of the weather, and clean with plenty of room, no luxuries, no shop, no cafe or bar, but it was out of the wind and comfortable!

Access to the water is a different affair than elsewhere, there is a set of steel stairs, adequate but still slippy if you are not careful, and a series of pier affairs, at the time a legacy of military testing for acoustics and for early torpedo systems I believe. Nowadays they are owned, or at least operated, by Thales and likely still being used for similar purposes, knowing the areas of engineering Thales are mostly involved with….. We assembled our kit outside of the dressing rooms, and buddied up with those others that had joined us for the day. I was buddied with Adrian, the albeit temporary TIDSAC DO, Norman having been very glad to pass on that role for what he hoped might be at least a couple of years, but ended up more a couple of months due to Adrian’s onward posting

My log book records: “Inland dive, Waterlip Quarry Somerset, Cold & Dark, No Viz from 12m – Nothing to See, W. Temp 6′ Air in 200 – out 50 Viz 0.5m -nil Buddy Adrian” I clearly was not impressed on our first outing, and remember trying to find anything to guide navigation other than the quarry wall, which we eventually used to go around by putting it on our Left shoulder, and then at half the allotted air, turning about and putting it on our Right shoulder for the return journey…….and we saw nothing, it was an effort to keep in touch!

Undeterred we went back in for another try, determined to try a different tack and head out direct from the wall, all was going swimmingly, albeit in very similar visibility, until we reached bottom at around 15m when Adrian signaled he was in difficulty….. my log book again records the detail: “Inland- Waterlip Quarry Somerset, Dive to 15m – Adrian lost a fin – controlled buoyant lift from 15m for D/L qual otherwise same as above Air in 200 out 150 Viz 0.5m to Nil Buddy Adrian” I remember Adrian being pissed off at losing his fin, which we did manage to recover, but by then I think we’d both had about enough of the abysmal visibility and cold to push another attempt out. On this occasion Waterlip had beaten us, we’d seen precisely nothing………..

  I am told that Horsea lakes, even now, sends shivers down the spine of many service divers, this was the Royal Navy Diving School where many would be Military divers were “Beasted“…… an Army expression meaning physically pushed to the point of, and sometimes well beyond, breaking……  I remember my own “Introduction to Basic Fitness“, back in 1986, an unassuming term one could be forgiven for thinking might be quite fun, educational even……….No………. just 4 hours of constant sprints, star-jumps, sprints, press-ups, sprints, sit-ups, jogging on the spot….. sprints……  burpees…….sprints…… more sprints…... screaming PTI’s (Physical Training Instructors) and people around you breathing their last, or being sick on the floor…..   “did you just puke on my beautiful shiny floor you disgusting PoS…..take off that fcuking shirt and wipe it up then….get on with it….don’t look at me…..you don’t deserve to look at me you sack of sh1t…... ”   Now we were only joining the REME, not the SAS, but that didn’t seem to matter to the resident PT Corps “Staff”  (You call me staff…..I don’t belong to your unit and I don’t answer to your OC…..I answer to God….and he works in Aldershot…… so shout loud if you want him to help…….)  They had a million of these, for every occasion, and I guess those trying to get their “Hard Hat” Divers quals on their sleeves heard different, but just as chilling, shit that their PT staff thought just as funny to shout…… as they watched us all die 

  Horsea was originally Two Islands, Great and Little Horsea, they were joined to form a torpedo testing lake in 1889, using chalk excavated from Portsdown Hill, 1 km to the north, by convict labour. A narrow-gauge railway was constructed on the site by the army to distribute the chalk. Although the lake length was increased from 800 yards (730 m) to over 1,000 yards (910 m) in 1905, rapid advances in torpedo design and range had made it all but obsolete by World War I (Wikipedia) It had become the home of the Royal Navy & Royal Engineer Diver Training Facility Portsmouth.  I had suggested we try to dive at Horsea having heard that, years before, the club had been allowed in, as one of the units had an Engineer E.O.D diver attached. The guy enjoyed scuba as much as he did hand over hand searches along steel ships hulls, looking for mines or covert devices whilst docked in foreign ports, and crawling up drains looking for IED’s before Royal visits. It seemed like getting “in” was a bit of a challenge, and I was up for a challenge. I telephoned the Horsea Admin office from the directory number we had at our unit in Tidworth, and spoke to a clerk who promised to send me a form to fill out….etc… That usually meant you would never hear from them again, and they’d been “transferred to another unit” if you asked for the bloke you’d spoken to last week…….Par for the course….. But, on this occasion, he was as good as his word! I received a “request for access” form and had to get various permissions, including a visit to Major Andrews Adjutant, who reluctantly signed to say I was who I said I was, and the unit could call and verify that at will…….. Everything seemed positive and I gave our intended visit dates, suitably a weekend, which pretty much guaranteed “usual” activity would be minimum, if anything, at the lake itself as even PTI’s don’t like working weekends………..

   I settled on the 15/12/1991 as it was a couple of weeks off and it was before my Christmas leave, in fact I was on leave the weekend after so it was perfect.  I had a word with our DO, Norman, and he was surprised but made-up that we had an opportunity to go back there, Norman had been with the club for years, he was a bloody good DO and a great bloke all round, he and Joy, his (ex-Major QRANC) wife had forgotten more about diving than I know, even now. I think even Joy, taciturn as she was, was chuffed to be going back to Horsea, who knows, maybe I earned a Brownie point for this one…… Norman suggested we make a job of the dives and did some underwater work whilst we were there, which was another tick in the box for me, I had never thought of really “doing” anything whilst diving! So we decided there would be some cutting (Hack-saws) and some assembling, basic nuts and washers with simple metal plates to bolt together, sounded like a plan to me and I set about getting some kit from the unit to make it happen, we would add to that some simple surface and under water navigation exercises to round off my 21st dive, and close the day!

  I recall the gate guards looking at our paperwork and my I.D card with suspicion on our arrival, they rarely saw visitors, especially with “civvies” in tow, being allowed in. But after some odd looks and a phone call to the admin office, we were in, and directed to go a mile down the lake to the office blocks, and behind them to the car park…….brilliant….it was a “go”! We briefed the dive, kitted up quickly, as if at any moment this could all be called off, and I found myself on the quayside and rolling forward into the water………it was cold, 4′ cold and even I took a sharp breath as water hit me and was forced into my semi-dry Icelandic suit, but it was clear, and I signalled OK and in came my buddy Burnie and Norman after him. We had decided to have a general look about, the depth was never going to be an issue being between 6, and occasionally 9m, we had all day on 12l cylinders and there was plenty to see……dummy torpedoes, inert pieces of real torpedoes, shoals of tiny jelly-fish….seemingly pretty much everywhere, and other pieces of kit, metal plates, odd looking metal parts, (perhaps naval pieces), every ten meters or so there was something new to puzzle over

Norman hadn’t forgotten the task he’d set and we settled on the bottom to take out the metal bar I’d already drilled, and between us both we hack-sawed it into Two halves and then each set a bolt, a washer either side, and a nut to bolt the Two bars we had created together as One. Sounds easy, not in thick rubber gloves, necessary because of the cold, and practically feeling-less due to numb fingers………but with a sense of what I can only describe as exaggerated delight, we had achieved our goal! The second dive Norman took us up under what was, to all intent and purpose, from the outside, just a building, perhaps a work shed? From the lake, as you went under it, it became something completely different. You could surface inside it and look round what was indeed a workshop, of sorts, one where surface fed divers might have exited, or divers carrying out covert entry and exit drills, perhaps navigating in and out without being seen from the surface by patrolling guards? The imagination could easily run away with you, once you had surfaced inside and looked around at the benches and equipment contained within….it was great, something truly different and I loved it! 

   An introduction to Tidworth Garrison and it’s one redeeming feature….. TIDSAC or Tidworth Sub Aqua Club. Those of you who have read the “About Me” and the “Early Days” pieces on this site will have already heard mention of Tidworth, the shot below shows the typically bleak and, even then, rather old barrack blocks used to house the local infantry, armoured transport, tanks & support arms that used Salisbury Plain to train on. Tidworth was to be my home for Six years, Two deployments and eventually a divorce. I went from married quarters, back into the “Block” and if anything that was a relief…..  

   There was so little to do in Tidworth, as in many “Army” towns, the Two pubs (The Ram and the Drummer) were typical “holes” where you could get a beer, or several depending on your mood, and while away the hours… days…weeks….months… until something happened. Option Two, find something to do, that was easy for me, I had my wages pretty much to myself again now and could get away more, and I looked forward to Thursday evenings in the garrison Sub-Aqua Club as a break from the tedium of Tidworth military life

  Tidworth Sub Aqua Club was a welcome distraction whenever you could get there, there were weekends away, sometimes Saturdays but more often Sunday’s, as most of the civilian half of the club (TIDSAC was a joint military, civilian BSAC Dive club) relied upon “overtime”, an odd thing to a squaddie, who got no extra pay for whenever the higher echelon spammed you to carry-out “dark-o’clock work” or the endless “Stags” or those fantastic “away-days” on tasking’s…..even better, the Two week “winter holidays” trying to break pick-helves digging into Salisbury Plain’s chalk and Flint substrate, to create “trenches” in which you could freeze to death overnight, or guard endless re-runs of WWI movies playing out in front of you, or boil to death in NBC suits re-digging the same bloody trench in the August heat waves of halcyon summers! It was a blast……

    But you had to do something on the odd weekend Major Andrew’s forgot to book Salisbury Plain to bugger you about on……….and luckily Tidworth wasn’t that far from the South Coast, and there is plenty of great diving to be had along the accessible stretch Tidworth sits above, the Jurassic coastline of Dorset and Hampshire, by far the easiest to get to is Weymouth and Portland, a straight run down the A354 through Blandford Forum (Tidworth 2….. but for the Royal Corps of Signals) without stopping……..It was so accessible that I regularly grabbed a Land rover 90 or 110, a couple of packed meals and “Toots” (Denise Tuttle, another squaddie, albeit of the female persuasion and another member of TIDSAC), on a Wednesday afternoon and scooted off to dive Chesil beach or Church Ope Cove or the Harbour at Portland. Wednesday “Sports afternoon” was something of an anomaly in the services, a time to practice whatever “sport” you were involved in whenever “duty” allowed it. This helped break the monotony of the working routine for what it was, as long as you had no other duties and you had a recognised membership of the sports governing body, (in this case the BSAC) you could officially engage in the activity with the limited support of the garrison if it was free from other needs, hence the transport and packed lunches, very civilised to be honest and I loved taking the Army up on its philanthropy

   Of course you got a fair share of digs from other’s in your unit, given that getting the use of a “company car” (Army Landrover) as a Lance-Corporal, was pretty unheard of, however, when you pointed out that interfering with sheep was not an officially recognised sport, and the one taking the piss should either register it as such or take up a “genuine” sport, they usually backed off on the comments……. The Diving Officer (DO) for TIDSAC was Norman Morley, he and his wife Joy, an ex-Major in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC….pronounced Kwa-Rank), were the stalwarts of TIDSAC. Having been a local building contractor for donkey’s years in Weyhill, Norman was a great inspiration to me, grounded, accessible and possessing a dry, but cutting sense of humour, and endless patience with the more military side of me than any other “civvie”. I loved Norman and Joy, Joy being the typical ex-Army Major, no BS and direct, but with the nursing and caring side inseparable from her personality, you would always get a sarcastic “well that didn’t go to plan did it” kind of look, or comment, and then you’d invariably get a follow on…..”but it looked hilarious, or how about doing it this way…..”.They were truly giving and wonderful folk without whom TIDSAC would’ve been a very different place!  

  There were plenty of sites to dive and we were lucky, having Two inflatables at the club, one which was a little more modern than the other, but neither had the GPS of modern day and all of our sites were dived using “triangulation” straight from the BSAC training manuals of the day. We also did quite a bit of shore diving, apart from the trips to Portland we dived Birdlip Quarry in Somerset,  Lulworth Cove, Bowleaze Cove and Chesil Beach, and were fortunate enough at the time to be allowed to dive the Royal Navy training site at Horsea Lakes which, at the time, was not accessible to the public, being used still to train Navy and Bomb Disposal (EOD) Divers and Royal Engineer Divers too

  The club ran expeditions too, there were a couple in my time there, the one I managed to get time to attend was in Scotland, specifically out of Balmacara House, which, at the time was a military retreat used for expeditions across Scotland and ideally placed as it looked out to Skye and the wreck of the Port Napier (perhaps more on that later in the “Wrecks” section!). Balmacara was a great location and we easily ran the ribs up onto the shore right in front of the house itself, and dived around the area with ease as there are plenty of great dives on the Kyle of Lochalsh and in the surrounding area like Plockton and Kyle Rea, Strome Ferry slip and Loch Carron, all great dive sites with something different to offer at each, from deep walls to drift dives and Scallop hunts to wreck diving, a truly great dive location! 

  Closer to home the sites at Portland and Weymouth, particularly Swanage, a kind of Mecca for divers with its “New” and “Old” piers, both giving a look at the myriad of small aquatic creatures that take shelter in and around the pier pilings, Tom-Pot Blennies, small Wrasse, and the odd crab,  were exceptionally popular with us and we enjoyed many dives in the area as a club, and often in dive pairs, on sports afternoons and occasions where the club couldn’t get enough members to warrant dragging the RIBs down to the coast

   Well, that’s enough of an introduction for now, I’ll take up further dives and diving with TIDSAC as we go on and hopefully there’ll be time to get several posts on some of the more popular dive-sites I dived with the ever changing Tidworth Sub-Aqua Club membership over the years I had left in the Army