Death seems intent on proving itself to me to be life’s last ‘Great Adventure’. On the weekend of October 4th & 5th 2025, yet another of my closest – and longest lasting – friends died. John Whitehead was a man… Read More ›
PADI
The Cell Door Saga
On Tuesday, 13th April, 1999, John Lippmann, the late, Bob Ramsay, Grahame Weir and myself settled down in the former Billiard Room at Raffles Hotel, Singapore, for a quiet little drink as a prelude to the start of the following… Read More ›
Vale Michael Menduno
On the 3rd October 2025, Michael Menduno – one of modern diving’s most enigmatic personalities – died following a stroke. Despite a public persona as the person whose name will, forever, be synonymous with the advent of ‘Technical Diving’ (as… Read More ›
Selling Diving
Tarnished by an image that’s become associated with the high-pressure techniques of a used-car sales-person or the indifference of a poorly trained ‘phone-blower’, selling is often considered to be nothing more than a stop-gap vocation for people who happen to… Read More ›
The North Sea Bus
In the early ‘Seventies, the work-horse helicopter of choice for North Sea operations was the Westland Wessex – usually flown by former Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm pilots – with the pilot sitting higher than the cabin. Obliged to always… Read More ›
The Mother Lodge – by Rudyard Kipling
The Mother Lodge by Rudyard Kipling There was Rundle, Station Master,An’ Beazely of the Rail, An’ Ackman, Commissariat, An’ Donkin o’ the Jail; An’ Blake, Conductor-Sergeant, Our Master twice was ‘e, An’ ‘im that kept the Europe-shop, Old Framjee Eduljee…. Read More ›