Recent Posts - page 2

  • Helium: a, “philological atrocity”.*

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    Opening the first International Seminar on Helium Conservation (held in the UK in 1979, at Plymouth’s, Fort Bovisand Underwater Centre – then a world leader in providing commercial diver training for the North Sea gas and oil fields) Surgeon Vice-Admiral… Read More ›

  • Trouble Brewing

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    Given the passage of time it’s probably safe to now tell a story about the evils of strong drink, hopefully without fear of incrimination and reprisals. 😊 During the 1969/1970 winter, Sylvia and I were living in Naval married-quarters in… Read More ›

  • The Diver Who Saved a Cathedral

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    With one of Europe’s largest Gothic cathedrals in danger of collapse when its 11th century foundations began to sink into the peat bed on which they rested, the authorities in charge of Winchester Cathedral, in Hampshire England, began an ambitious… Read More ›

  • Cutting The Cable

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    Adapted to meet the warmer conditions encountered in tropical climes, the XE class of midget submarines, developed by the Royal Navy during WWII, were slightly larger than the X-craft used in the attack on the German Battleship, ‘Tirpitz’, in 1943…. Read More ›

  • A Silent Legend

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    Seen by many moviegoers, but known by few … Joining the Royal Navy on his 18th birthday in 1938, the late Commander Philip White, R.N., was one of 370 survivors when, on the 14th October 1939, the Royal Navy battleship,… Read More ›

  • Tech Diver 1934

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    In the America of the early 1930’s, popular radio broadcaster, Phillips Lord, created a character that he named, ‘Seth Parker’, an imaginary backwoods preacher whose simple, homespun philosophy resonated with a listening audience drawn from across the country. In 1933,… Read More ›