N-E inventors: Diving in at the deep end
November 2009
Dustbin helmet: Ingeniously made from a copper-wrapped dustbin lid
by Ivor Howitt
It may surprise many readers to learn that the first organized undersea sport diving club in the UK was formed in Aberdeen soon after world war two.
This came about through my desire as a young teenager to escape the grey years of war by searching out tales of warmth and sunshine in the travel and adventure section of the Aberdeen Central Library.
Soon, my heroes included John E. Williamson who, in 1914 amid the corals reefs of the Bahamas, made the first ever undersea movies. Then came William Beebe, director of tropical research for the New York Zoological Society, with his tales of ‘open’ helmet diving (surplus air simply spilled out at shoulder level) in the shallows around Bermuda, and in 1934 submerging in a bathysphere to a depth of half a mile with the sphere designer Otis Barton.
My talk of diving interested several of my mountaineering friends and I made up a variety of home-made equipment for us to experiment with, there being nothing on the market. Gas masks, motor tyre air pumps, an ‘open’ helmet made from a copper-wrapped dustbin lid, a modified rubber bedpan and car tyre inner tube to form air ‘economizers’, war surplus bomber intercom telephones, submarine escape lungs and condemned standard diving helmets sold as scrap. All these helped us to breathe underwater. The main obstacle remaining was the frigid temperature of the North Sea and the river Dee.
A giant leap forward came in 1948 when I was probably the first civilian to purchase Siebe-Gorman’s new aqualung, better described as an air self contained underwater breathing apparatus, or air-scuba, which allowed distinction from pure oxygen and mixed gas scubas. This cost £60 at a time when my weekly wage averaged about £4!
We were invited to inspect the Royal Navy operation at Tobermory, identifying the 16th century wreck of a Spanish galleon. Upon learning the extent of our experience, they allowed me to dive with a professional breathing apparatus, complete with a warm suit.
We met Cdr Lionel Crabb and Sydney Knowles, both famous for their searching underwater for Italian limpet mines attached to British shipping in the Gibraltar anchorage during WW2, and Crabb kindly arranged for us to have two of his surplus rubber suits.
Otherwise, our adventures included diving to the wreck of the Alirmay, a fishing vessel sunk south of Aberdeen.
This almost ended in disaster when a heavy surge tipped me over and my open helmet filled with water. My air hose and safety rope had been lashed together to avoid an embarrassing entanglement with the wreck. Ditching the helmet would have anchored me to the sea bed unable to reach the surface, so I had to wait for the helmet to refill with air.
Aberdeen Amphibians
This took some time as my pump attendant was unaware of my difficulties and continued his leisurely rate of pumping … a very leisurely rate of pumping!
Because the public always assumed that our diving was of the springboard variety, I invented the word fathomeering as an association with the sea and this was the title of my article published by Open Air magazine in Spring 1949 – probably the first about organized diving in the UK.
By 1950, student members of our club had to do their stint of National Service and this combined with my own departure for Australia resulted in the demise of the Aberdeen Amphibians as a group.
I became the first sport diver to bring an air-scuba to Australia and there followed four years of amateur diving and photography using home made camera cases, with expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef.
I became involved in search and recovery operations with the police as they had no dive equipment. These searches were usually carried out at dawn and the police would then drop me off at the office. On one occasion I had to search at midnight a deep part of the river Yarra in Melbourne.
I also dived with Ted Eldred, inventor of a unique oxygen-scuba which prevented the user exceeding the safe depth for oxygen. Ted also invented the most advanced design of air-scuba in the world. He started up the first sport diving school in Australasia which we attended in 1953. This all seemed a long way off from our first bumbling attempts to dive in the 1940s.
Family circumstances required my return to Aberdeen and there followed a two-month tour of Europe with Australian friends. Then we split up and I had a few weeks exploring New Zealand on my own.
On the voyage home I met Mary, a New Zealand nurse. We married in London and have been together since. I had nothing more to do with diving until I was asked by the Historical Diving Societies to write a book about the early years: Fathomeering – An Amphibian’s Tale, (Mountain Ocean & Travel, Melbourne).
Further reading: The Porpoise – Australian Diving Technology the World Copied, available from deswalters@westnet.com.au
Ivor Howitt was born in 1927 and went to Rosemount Junior Secondary. After eight years in a design office and six years studying mechanical engineering at Robert Gordon’s College, he emigrated to Australia. Has lived there and in New Zealand since. He and his wife have three children and four grandchildren.
This is an article from the November 2009 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.