Short Stories from the Reg Thompson Archives. (Part 2)

9. The Beast

The club meetings were now held in the bloke's house that had the biggest front room. As well as the BSAC's fees we imposed a levy on each member which was a bone of contention to most members including me, especially as I thought a club should be self supporting.

At one of the meetings a compressor was mentioned, A hush fell on the assembled company - you could have heard a pin drop! It was if someone had just suggested buying a Rolls Royce.

After we'd given the treasurer a strong cup of tea, and slapped his face a few times, a serious discussion began. Needless to say, after a few weeks the beast appeared. Never have I seen such a malevolent looking piece of machinery. It sat there on two six feet long 6"x 6" Girders daring anyone to try to start it.

A side valve lorry engine sat at one end with a great bell housing in the middle, separating it from "the beast". A truly surrealistic science fiction conglomeration of pipes, coolers, intercoolers, little clocks, big, small, round, square cylinders and lots of wires and string. The string I could understand but the rest was a mystery. This was before any of us had a car so the internal combustion engine was still a mystery. I had a motor bike and was well versed in that so as well as being chairman I became Compressor Officer overnight

The two radiators at each end took gallons of water to fill and eventually we drew straws to see who was going to swing the starting handle. I drew the short straw! As I grasped the brass encased foot long starting handle I couldn't help noticing my face reflected in the brass which was worn to a mirror finish by the legion of hands that had tried and failed to start the beast.

Taking a deep breath I flung all of my weight at it and - not a murmur. Again and again I did it then I realised how handy the tall radiators were for collapsing over. As I lay draped over the radiator I heard someone's say "Have another go" We've put some more petrol in" I did have another go and the beast did as well. With a loud bang the starting handle kicked back knocking me and the onlookers flying, while the alien sat quietly smirking to itself

Finally, after much plug cleaning and lots of coaxing, we assembled in the bloke's garden with a length of rope, determined to tame it. Gently, the beast was eased onto compression; a rag was stuffed into the air intake and the rope to the starting handle. The suspense on a moon shot could not have been as tense as the rope tightened. Then a mighty heave!

As if in mortal agony the beast gave a scream - and started! Great long jets of flame shot from the unsilenced exhaust pipe amid great bangs and crashes. Then the centrifugal clutch took over and the compressor began clattering and banging, making as much noise as the engine.

It was now dark and the flames were lighting up the garden whose owner, together with some neighbours, were now screaming "Shut the bastard off' but the beast, now in it's most violent mood, had the bit between it's teeth and would not be switched off, it was even coming after us, moving over the ground on it's girders

Finally some brave soul found the petrol tap and shut it off I think we made him Diver of the Year because he had to brave flailing pipes and scorched legs as the petrol was gravity fed from a tank high above the beast's body.

Needless to say, a new home had to be found for the beast. Many and varied were the locations where she rested. The Flying Dutchman had nothing on our compressor.

We were not doing much diving, we had all become slaves to the beast, carrying, dragging, pleading and cursing from one location to another. Finally, a relative of Bob King, who had a builder's yard in the industrial section of Hull, let us build a compressor house. I use the term very loosely because we had begged, scrounged and borrowed corrugated iron bits of air raid shelters to build it.

10. Frogmen's Search

Now that we had air on tap, diving became possible after work at night. Lack of transport to Flamborough Head was the problem, although most of the club could get there on a Sunday. Chick was our Diving Officer, Bob King Equipment Officer, I was Chairman and we three used to knock about together.

Then diving ceased being a lark - it suddenly became serious! Bob King was helping me to reassemble my demand valve in our house; it was Sunday night half past nine, January the 8th 1962 when there was a loud bagging on the front door. My wife answered it and came back into the room a bit flurried. She said, "Its the police." Bob looked at me as we both had an inventory of past misdeeds but finding nothing to warrant a visit we both went to the front door where a big black Wolsley stood with headlights glaring and engine running. In the pouring rain stood the biggest copper I'd ever seen. He said, "Are you Bob King?" Bob nodded. "Are you Reg Thompson?" I nodded as well because my throat had gone dry.

The copper said to Bob "get your diving gear and come with me." Bob said that it was at home "Get in and I'll take you for it. Not "Can you do this?" or "Will you do this?" Over his shoulder he shouted "I'm sending another car for you" I ran upstairs and began pelting my diving gear into my ex USA Army kit bag. I checked my torch batteries and then asked my wife to bring a french letter from upstairs.

She looked a little bewildered, maybe thinking that it was connected with a condemned man's last request. Her face relaxed as she saw me struggling to fit it over my torch. In my haste with hands trembling, I split it so the wife found me a long plastic bag which I tied on. I must explain that underwater torches had not appeared in 1962. Then another banging on the door. This copper looked more human as he threw my gear into the car.

By this time all cinemas and music halls were emptying onto the Anlaby Road, a main thoroughfare in Hull and we were flying through rain and sleet to the centre of the city, doing a steady 70 in a 30 limit. The copper was crouched down talking to a microphone under the dashboard whilst he dodged other cars whilst I cringed. As he surfaced I asked him if he had any French letters with him. He shook his head before diving down again saying. "I have plenty in my car, but none in this." In between the head up and down routine I asked him what was going on. He could only answer in snatches as but he told me that was taking us to rendezvous with another police car from East Riding which was coming to meet us on the City boundary.

Finally, after travelling a lifetime, I think about 40 minutes really, he screamed "Here he comes" and I saw a big pair of head lights heading straight towards us. They both did Steve McQueen stops and my copper threw my gear into the other car and nearly threw me in after it. Then we were off again in another black Wolsely, the back end skating as we cornered. Another 20 minutes of terror.

Eventually I found out that our task was to look for a lad who had gone into the river. Suddenly two gate posts loomed up as we left the road sliding and bucking. I thought this is it as we finished up in a field, but all he did was accelerate across the fields, faster and faster until, through the murk I could see flood lights.

At last we stopped in front of two fire engines that were lined up on the riverbank with their floodlights trained on the water.

A police inspector came up to us, (Bob King, Maurice Reynolds and myself had formed a group near the water) and explained what had happened. A lad had got this boat for Christmas and, exited, had wanted to try it out, regardless of the conditions. When we entered the water we lost the lights of the fire engines and had to rely on torches. The drag against our bodies was horrendous, but it was a very old brick lined culvert and lots of mortar was missing from between the bricks allowing us to wedge our fingers in and get a hold. Even so I got washed back into the river and had to start again.

There had been heavy rain as well as snow melting on the Wolds and the river was in full flood. It went underground via three culverts, allowing the Beverley Beck to pass overhead. Driftwood and timber was stacked up almost completely across the river, only the centre tunnel remained clear. No trace of the entrance could be seen because the water level was above it. Only a whirlpool marked the entrance to the centre tunnel, now taking the full volume of the water. This is where the lad had vanished along with his canoe. It must have upended in the whirlpool and gone in point first. Our brief was to search the tunnel to see if he was fast.

After kitting up we had a council of war and decided to go in against the current, which due to a 30 ft wide river passing through an 8ft wide pipe was really something! If we had gone in with the current it would have held us against any obstruction like a fly on fly paper.

We searched for three hours but found no sign of the lad. After coming out the inspector told us that the search had to be done to prove that the lad was not trapped. We were taken to the police station and given a cup of tea. One poor bloke was on his break but he sacrificed his tea for us. I always thought that police stations had stacks of the stuff. Even though it was an exiting night, the poor bobby having to surrender to rank sticks in my mind more than anything else.

The next night, much to my amazement, we had hit the headlines. A full front page spread of the Hull Daily Mail, Monday, January 8th 1962. Frogmen's Search. I didn't like to tell them that we were now BSAC but we got a nice letter of commendation from the Chief Constable of Hull.

11. Giant Lobster

The "Sea Urchin" was completed just in time for us to join in the hunt for the Giant Lobster that lived in the wreck of a trawler in Bridlington Bay. We had dived the wreck once before. Most of the plates were missing up forward in the bows. Coils of wire rope stowed there had rusted together, forming a solid mass with the hole in the centre of the coil forming a convenient home for a lobster.

We could always find the wreck because we had the meets written down. A crane situated on top of high ground on the cliff in line with the Priory Church spire and the tun house at right angles brought us directly over the wreck. This wreck had suddenly hit the headlines - even the London Papers were spouting about it.

I quote from the Sunday Express, May 1967: MONSTER LOBSTER DEFIES RESCUERS. That was the headline. It went on to say that a giant lobster, believed to be the biggest ever seen in British waters, had made it's home among live ammunition in a wrecked British mine sweeper, off the East Coast. Naval officers want to blow up the ship but they do not want to destroy the lobster. The lobster, weighing 501b (who weighed it?) and believed to be 80 years old was found 40 feet down and has, so far, eluded all attempts to lure it from the ship. One diver had his metal air line snapped by its huge pinchers. (Unquote).

Then the rest of the papers joined in. The Hull Daily Mail's headline was: LOBSTER BEATS OFF NAVY ATTACK. Whilst a London paper had: NORTH SEA MONSTER IN PERIL. More nationals joined in: "Frogmen guard giant lobster weighing 50 lb with claws big enough to shear clean through brass tubing, has been placed under guard to save it from poachers. One diver who tried to pull the lobster from the ship had his brass snorkel sheared in two". I made a scrapbook with almost two pages of newspaper cuttings of a similar vein.

All this hooha was beginning to get up Hull Branch's nose as East Yorkshire BSAC, Bridlington was our deadly rivals and they were hogging the headlines. I think the feeling was mutual because we always beat them at spear fishing. Their diving Officer was a bulls----er, we christened him "Knife and Trousers" because of his habit of going into a pub full of summer visitors with the bottom part of his wet suit on and a knife strapped to his leg. We had a council of war and decided to dive the minesweeper that Sunday.

One of the lads leapt off the catamaran, so keen to be first in he forgot his fins, wallowing about like a pregnant whale until someone took pity on him and passed them to him. We searched that wreck from stem to stem. It was well broken up so it was relatively easy. We saw plenty of lobsters but no giant. It was a glorious sunny day, the underwater visibility about fifteen feet as I swam into the ship's funnel, lay on the bottom and looked up at the daylight. Suddenly a black shape cut off all the light. It's not very easy to swim backwards but I managed it quite well. Once well clear I waited to see how big the thing really was. Suddenly the head and shoulders of Bob King emerged. Seeing me he shrugged his shoulders implying "Not a thing here"

The general opinion of the club was that East Yorkshire club were spinning a yarn so one of the lads, who worked for a big aircraft factory, did a guvvy job on a stainless steel sign whilst another lad liberated a steel stake. The gist of the message engraved on the plate, now bolted to the stake, enquired as to the whereabouts of the mythical monster, the honesty of certain Diving Officers and expressed some doubts as to their parentage.

We took the notice out with us and after making another fruitless search of the wreck, picked a prominent position at the bows and hammered the stake well into the sand. Needless to say, we never heard a mention of the giant lobby again.

12. Another search

Having exploded the myth of the Loch Ness Lobster, things went very quiet for a time, until one Sunday lunchtime a familiar black Wolsely with two policemen appeared at my front door. After they had explained the nature of the incident I declined their offer of a lift, having sampled it before, saying that I knew the place well and would use my own transport. I stopped only long enough to get my diving gear which now lived permanently, ready packed, in a kit bag for such emergencies.

This time, I had no problem with waterproofing torches because it was broad daylight. I arrived, with a police escort, and met a commercial diver who had also been called out, and another lad from our club.

The Inspector Mr RE McKinder briefed us. It appeared that a nine year old boy had tried to paddle in this drain which was 14 feet deep and very fast flowing. With the lock gates open to allow it to flow into the Humber the results were inevitable. We were then told that a 14 year old boy had jumped in after him but a police man had lost sight of him.

Before going in, we asked if the lock gates could be closed which was done, easing the current slightly. This request was queried and I had to explain in words of one syllable that as the gates were slightly open we could be held against them underwater with no chance of pulling away.

Submerging was like going into a thick brown fog. Holding your hand in front of your face revealed only a white blur. The visibility was nil, the search had to be conducted purely by touch and feel.

We spread out across the drain feeling our way across the muddy bottom plunging our arms up to the elbows in the mud. I thought that I could be doing better things than this on a Saturday afternoon. We searched for about three and a half hours. I had a bad moment when I grabbed something big and squishy. I felt round it and finding it square realised that it was a cushion from a settee. Finally we found him on the bottom inside a 50 gallon oil drum. The end had been cut off and the current had carried him in and held him there.

Once again the Hull Branch hit the headlines with 3/4" capitals in the Hull Daily Mail June 2nd 1967.

13. Making An Exhibition Of Ourselves

Following the publicity from the river incident we had a request from The Sailors Orphans Homes, on Cottingham Road, to put on a "Frogmen's Display" on their Gala day, on August Bank Holiday Monday. The gala was a big thing in Hull and thousands of people attended. It was almost a mini Hull Fair with stalls and rides. 

The high spot was always something spectacular, to end the day - and this year we had been chosen. As it was for charity, we agreed to do it. We racked our brains for something to amuse the crowd because by no stretch of the imagination could diving be called a spectator sport.

The home had it's own large enclosed pool with seating and a balcony so the divers would be visible all the time. We did the usual things, finning races, lifting things off the bottom with army kit bags filled with air, fitting gear under water, all of which brought great applause.

Our planned last event was to have been a Treasure Hunt. A chest sunk at the deep end filled with balloons was to be found by a diver who opened the chest releasing balloons.

We had borrowed a BOC cylinder and it lay at the shallow end at the side of the bath. We wanted a long length of hose to feed air to the diver who was wearing a full-face mask. One of the lads was to feed the hose to him as he swept from side to side of the pool pretending to search for the treasure.

The only problem was that we couldn't get a hose long enough. Then I remembered that I had two Stirrup Pumps, with long hoses attached, at home. For the uninitiated, these were issued to householders for fighting incendiary bombs in the last war. One end of the pump was stuck into a bucket of water. The bloke doing the pumping stood his foot on the foot rest (stirrup) and pumped like hell. Then his mate crawled forward, squirting all the time, to the extreme length of the hose keeping the pumper out of danger. Anyway, with the two hoses joined together, we had more than enough.

We chose Dave Parkes to be the treasure hunter because he was the best looking lad in the club, with a little goatee Viking beard and he had the most hair.

Everything was going well the hose being fed out yard by yard and the commentator was explaining what Dave was doing. The crowd was very silent as Dave was lying on the bottom, not doing much at all. Suddenly the pool echoed to a thunderous bang and a great spout of water rose into the air. It looked very spectacular, but the people on the front row were not impressed.

When the visibility cleared Dave was still lying on the bottom, near the box, so we reeled the hose back in. Correction, we reeled half of it back in, the rest was lying with Dave on the bottom. Two of the lads fished him out unconscious and lay him on the pool side whilst the announcer appealed "Is there a doctor in the house?" A little fat doctor appeared, knelt by Dave and tried to take his dry suit off. "Give me your diving knife" he said, "I want to cut his suit off."

Bob shook his head "Like hell you will, it's my bloody suit.

Dave finally recovered with a bad headache and a complete suit. The applause brought the house down, the audience thought that the whole thing had been staged!

That was the first and last display and we were not invited again. When we analysed the event later it was obvious that the hose was too weak for the pressure involved but it was thought that a blockage had caused the pressure to build up.

14. Diving At Flamborough

Three of us regularly dived at Selwick Bay (also known as Silex) at Flamborough. It only needed someone to say, "It's gin clear" for all thoughts of tea to be forgotten. Chick would pick me up in the car and we would wait outside Bob's place for him to finish work, then it was first stop Flamborough.

As I have said before, money was very tight and Chick and Bob shared the car. Each one had it for a week in turn and they shared the expense of running it. The old Hillman Minx was called Emmy and always ended up at the change over point with the tank bone dry. To this day, I still don't know how this was accomplished.

As we belted along to Flamborough, sometimes topping thirty-five miles per hour we sorted out the goody bags that we'd scrounged from the local greengrocer. They were onion bags and had string threaded round the neck to draw it together. We dumped the car near the lighthouse and ran to the cliff edge to check the visibility. What a lovely sight, the water was as clear as crystal with only a slight swell.

It was the top of the tide and only a small strip of sand was showing. A long swim out but quite worth it when you got there. We had two resting places on the way out, one a ledge on the left of the bay, the other on the headland. At the first stop Bob King would take a small brass cylinder, as thick as a cigar tube, from under his suit and from it would take one cigarette and one match. After a leisurely smoke we would continue the swim.

All of our diving was done at this relaxed pace. We had no opposition, no other divers went there but as diving became more popular, more and more came until now, on a Sunday, its like Piccadilly Circus.

Before entering the water we would check our "lobby tongs" and eventually we would swim and snorkel, spreading out until we lost sight of each other and then the serious business of Lobby hunting would begin.

The drill was to work a gully then surface with your catch, snorkel to the next gully to save air and then dive again to work the new gully. For the uninformed, the gullies are ravines about thirty feet across with jungles of kelp on the top and silver sand on the bottom with lobbies living on the left hand side in cracks and crevices. Hence the lobby tongs. Ours were developed from Blacksmiths tongs.

One particular night we did very well. I even swam back, with one of Chick's bags full to the brim, to hide it in a rock pool for later collection. That night we got three onion bags full of lobbies.

The following Sunday we let the rest of the club into our favourite spot and organised a club shore dive. I had thought about dragging a goody bag behind me but found that a bit tedious so I devised my own floating cache.

A car inner tube was inflated then a string of nylon loops were fastened round it. An onion bag with small lead weights was attached to the loops together with sixty feet of nylon parachute cord wrapped around a small anchor which was made from the axle of a child's push chair. The net was rolled up and tucked under the nylon loops to reduce drag.

We had our own rules for Selwick Bay, if you could see the Coast Guard Station at North Landing you were too far out Sad to say, this is another landmark that the authorities (in their wisdom) decided to knock down. If you could see the station it was a very long swim back to the shore. The other option was a quick trip to Norway if the current caught you and you could not make the "last chance bay." Its some way south of Selwick, the name is self explanatory , the fishermen call it "Stacks" but I called it Last Chance Bay and the name stuck. I have a chalet on the cliff top at North Landing, where I have lived for many years, and have many fishermen friends including one very good one who comes in our place every day. He served in the Lifeboat for thirty-five years. One day, in the course of conversation, he referred to the Stacks twice as Last Chance Bay, proving that the name had stuck.

I finned out into the bay, bobbing under now and again to see if I had passed the tidal zone where only bladder wrack grows. Finally I came across the big stalks of kelp, to all the world like palm trees, with big spreading leaves on a four to five foot long stalk, set so close together that it needed a lot of effort to force yourself through. Each kelp stalk was held to the rock by a "holdfast", a bunch of tough fibrous fingers ideal for slotting a small anchor through, making sure it was secure.

I finned down the gully heading further out to sea, just skimming the bottom, lobby tongs at the ready. As I got to the end of the gully I saw a small cave, but big enough to get my head and shoulders in with my cylinder banging the roof. It wasn't very deep and I could see, by reflected sunlight, the back wall. Suddenly the wall moved! It was not a wall but a giant lobster with barnacles on it's back.

Underwater, looking though the glass of the diving mask and the air in it makes everything look bigger. I knew of this phenomenon but even knowing that it looked a third bigger than it really was didn't worry me because a quick subtraction sum still left me with a big lobby.

He had now adopted a defensive stance with claws as big as my hands opening and closing menacingly. One claw, the holding claw had stubby bumps on it for holding prey was about a foot from my mask while the other claw was wide open showing me the serrations inside, like a big hack saw blade. So I backed off.

Lobsters, as a rule, if they are startled immediately swim backwards into a warren of holes in the rock. All you see is a dusting of sand settling as they vanish like lightning. The technique I used was to quietly approach the hole. When I saw long feelers I waited. Lobsters are very curious and will come a small way out of their lair, not far enough to be grabbed but far enough to be seen. Then I would back off as if I was scared. In nature if an animal backs down in front of another one - the victor closes in and this worked with lobbies too. As I backed away the lobbies would come out and rest on their elbows, but they'd only do it once. This was the time to reach behind them with the lobby tongs. A quick snap and you either had your lobby or you hadn't. This lobby true to tradition went through the stock moves. I backed off but this time I wasn't pretending to be scared.

As he came further out I saw how big he really was and the thought stuck me - I've got to get him even if it kills me - if I don't no one will believe that a lobby as big as this exists. With a thought of shit or Bust I grabbed him with my tongs. After a tussle I managed to drag him out of the cave by putting one foot on the rock face for leverage and pulling hard.

Finning back to my float I dropped him headfirst into the onion bag, deciding that that was quite enough for one day as his tail was sticking out of the net and I was afraid that he might escape. On reaching the beach I was soon surrounded by the club to cries of "Lucky Bugger." We weighed him on a coal merchants scale in Flamborough village, as he was too big for an ordinary scale. He weighed just over eight pounds and was thirty-seven inches long. A Daily Mail photographer took pictures of my wife holding him, then we took him home and boiled him in a baby's bath (the only thing we had big enough to hold him) on two rings of the gas cooker. It was like a turkey at Christmas, we got fed up with lobster teas. 

The picture of the lobster being held by my wife was published in the Daily Mail on a Monday in August 1967. Needless to say, after this Selwick became a very popular place for divers.

15. Oxygen Experiments

One winter, we went to Bob's house to discuss the next season's diving. I have said earlier that Bob was a clever lad, he only had a menial job but he had a good brain. He was always talking about how wasteful an aqualung was, expelling air with plenty of oxygen still left in it. He always said that it should be possible to breathe expelled air again.

He must have been on the right track because, remember, this was 1962 before mouth to mouth resuscitation was generally known. One night, in his house, in the true spirit of pioneers, he decided to put his theory to the test. He lay down on his settee, we put a plastic bag over his head and he began breathing his own exhalations.

When the CO2 built up and he was passing out we had to take the bag off. We had already filled an aqualung cylinder with oxygen so we gave him a whiff of that. Then we filled the bag with oxygen and replaced it over his head. This time he was conscious a lot longer!

The theory was sound, there is enough oxygen in exhaled breath to keep you alive but the mechanics of building a re-breather was too much for us so we dropped it.

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