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DIVER.
Tony Groom.
A simple title - Diver.
Thats what most of you who read this are no doubt are. This could be a
book about comfortable recreational diving in warm tropical waters on the
Great Barrier Reef, or a jaunt after bottles under Portsea pier - but it's
not. We recreational divers may share the same word to describe our pastime,
but when it comes to military and commercial diving, there is no further
comparison. If you have ever thought of moving across (up? down?) to the
military/commercial field, then read this book first. It may encourage
you. Or, as in my case, it may lead to the realisation that ‘no son of
mine will ever be a deep sea diver'. Not if he is a wimp like his Dad,
anyway! This is an excellent book. Tony Groom will never win a literary
award, but thats a greater part of the beauty of the book. He writes with
an honesty of style, describing his in- and out-of-the-water experiences
after several decades of military and commercial diving. And those
experiences are worthy of reading: a Royal Navy trained demolition diver
who has experienced war (you should know which one if the time period is
the 1980s), and went into the commercial field in 1985. He tells of what
you are likely to experience in taking up one of the most demanding, and
danegrous, jobs in the world - and why you should avoid a tourist trip
to Nigeria, avoid (some of) the girls in Newcastle (UK), and what to do
when you confront a prick with a stick!! Oh yes, and don't mix it with
Geordie Shorty. Guaranteed you wont put it down once you start. Softcover,
333 pages, mono and colour photos. |
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FIVE
BELLS - WELL DONE - A Diver's Story
Tony Liddicoat.
This is an excellkent read,
a personaal biography of a British army diver, combat diver and commercial
diver. From the book: "There are three main directions with which a person
can pursue the activity of diving. These are 'Commercial Diving' as a job,
'Military Diving' as a job/ qualification to aid the Armed Forces in their
aims and as a 'Recreational Diver' as a sport or hobby pastime. Tony Liddicoat
is one of the rare individuals who has pursued all of these types of diving
activity and has mastered each of them. In this book he writes down his
progression through all three disciplines, managing to combine and mix
all three during his nearly 50 year diving career. As you will read, his
diving adventures have taken him around the world, to every ocean and to
many different lands. He has experienced the extremes of climate and terrain
and has undertaken many challenges. These vary from diving, the inside
of a Nuclear Reactor, placing and detonating explosive charges, searching
for bodies in sewers or training potential divers on a tropical island.
The book covers Tony's diving life and we re-dive all his old haunts with
him, without exaggeration or embellishment.
Softcover, 370 pages, mono
photographs, glossary, no index. |
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SUFFER
AND SURVIVE
Subtitle: Gas Attacks, Miner’s
Canaries, Spacesuits and the Bends: The Extreme Life of Dr J S Haldane
Martin Goodman
Published by: Simon &
Schuster (UK) Ltd in 2007.
Brown hard back covers with
dustjacket; 422 printed pages. Dimensions: 22.5 cms tall by 14 cms wide
Taken from dustjacket: “John
Scott Haldane endured the most startling environments of his age.
As miners died in pursuit of coal, this Scottish aristocrat with the family
motto ‘Suffer’ gulped down cocktails of toxic gas to learn what poisoned
them. Striding through the inferno of underground disasters, it was
he who introduced canaries to miners as a way of testing toxicity for air.
As a non-swimmer, he jumped overboard in a full diving suit to solve the
problem of ‘the bends’ . And as German scientists released poison
gas into the trenches of the first world war, Haldane fronted the Allied
response. He breathed mixtures of deadly substances to learn what
the enemy were using, then gassed himself and even his son to devise the
first gas mask”. The book is divided into 18 chapters: “Why Miners Die”,
“Son of Scotland”, “In the Footsteps of Goethe”, “Bad Air”, “Man as Bird
or Mouse”, “The Home Front”, “Gulping Deadly Gasses”, “Underground Realms”,
“Heat, Sweat and Larval Worms”, “Bubbles in the Brain”, “Life on the Cherwell”,
“Pikes Peak”, “Prelude to War”, “Gas Attack”, “Deep Oxygen”, “Next Stop,
Everest”, “Philosophy at a Canter” and “The Greatest Physiological Self-Experiment
of All”. [pt] |
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THE DANGER GAME
Subtitle: Adventures of
a North Sea Diver
Author D. H. F. Webster
Published by: Robert Hale
Ltd, London in 1978
Hard Cover with cloth boards
and dust jacket - 160 PAges
Dimensions: 22 cms tall
by 15 cms wide.
Details from the DJ: Deep-sea
diving is arguably the most hazardous and demanding profession in the world.
The author, whose father was in the army and would have liked his son to
follow him, and his mother forbade the RAF as too dangerous, ‘compromised
‘ and joined the navy. After service in the Mediterranean, where
his duties included searching for explosive devices fixed to ships by illegal
Pallestinean immigrants, and the experience of the first British atomic
explosion off the coast of Australia, he qualified as a diver and has many
tales to tell of salvage work, some comic, some gruesome, all exciting.
With the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea, the services of divers
were more than ever needed. And more than ever the divers themselves
had to have a knowledge far beyond their own trade – of burning, welding,
explosives, isometric drawing, rigging and mechanics and a hundred other
matters. This enthralling book will appeal to all who have a spirit
of adventure. Jacket Photograph: “Ocean Prince” oil rig by courtesy
Burma Oil Company Trading Ltd. Portrait of the author by Detty Strickland.
The book is extremely well illustrated and divided into 11 chapters:- “Life
on the Line”, “An Extraordinary Profession”, “Trial by Ordeal”, “The Nelson
Spirit”, “Salvage Great and Small”, “Oil and Water”, “Sea Task”, “Beware
Jaws”, “Conflagration”, “Warmer Waters” and “To the Drawing Board”.
[pt] |
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TO
RENDER SAFE
Author: Colin Churcher MBE
Forward by: Commander David
Hilton Superintendant of Diving Royal Navy
Published by: The Pentland
Press UK 1999
Illustrated Card Covers
– 233 Printed Pages
Dimensions: 23 cms
tall by 16 cm wide
From the book cover: To
Render Safe describes one man’s life in the Royal Navy. And the Royal
Navy truly was this man’s life with the normality of civilian life a completely
alien one to him. Conditions were hard and we learn of many, many
seaborne experiences which incorporate Arctic convoys, the re-occupation
of Singapore, a peace time commission in the Mediterranean, Royal Navy
diving and bomb and mine disposal, including the famous Blackfriars Bomb.
This is a fascinating account which will grip reader from start to finish.
The book is divided into
15 chapters:- The Rookie, First Ship, Norway, South East Asia Command,
Rheumatic Fever and Naval Review, Agincourt, Mediterranean Comission, England
Again, Commisioned Officer, Diving Training, First Diving Appointment,
Minehunter, The Portsmouth Team, US Navy and The Final Years. Sadly,
there are no illustrations or photographs in the book except what is on
the front and back cover. [pt] |