The independent MDG went from strength to strength, its fame spread throughout the land. As mentioned in the last issue we won several competitions. One of these, held in the lake district, involved finding a sunken treasure chest (you must have seen the scroll on the club wall). The prize of 100 guineas - a princely sum in those days - was put towards a compressor for the club. The sale of books of advance air tickets helped raise more funds and an old transportable 5cfm compressor purchased. This was 'electrified' and installed in Davy Jones' locker, who was the Equipment Officer of the time (actually it was put in his cellar!). We had no clubhouse or storage for equipment back then.

We held meetings in a room over the Trevor Arms and later at the Bowling Green. Friday evening meetings after the baths were just the same as they are today, but Mondays were originally for lectures and, believe it or not, suit making! Yes, most people made their own wet suits in those days. The club bought rubber-sheet (single skin) in bulk and had a stock of several sized patterns. You just bought your sheet of rubber, cut out all the bits required and butt joined the seams with Eveostik, all under the guidance of older members. You then donned your suit and had a fitting. This involved chalking, slitting and resticking any bulging seams. When the fit was satisfactory, the seams were then reinforced with yellow tape. You have probably seen photos of old members in these 'wasp' suits. I remember my first suit was not even 'single skin' - it was just rubber, no nylon. These suits tore easily, and you had to put them on very carefully.

Equipment was generally pretty basic in those days. The club bottles were 25 or 40 cu. ft. capacity. The bottle most members bought was a 65. This meant you did not have to worry about decompression too often, but it did encourage bad habits: You used to savour each lung-full of air for as long as possible and overdoing this resulted in a splitting headache. I was a great exponent of this technique and managed to stay down longer than most people! If anyone was going to get a bend it was me, so I bought one of the first SOS Decompression Meters. This was non electric and worked using a membrane which was supposed to have the same permeability as body tissue. Trouble was, they soon fell to bits. Mine was held together with insulation tape but is still working and I used it right up to last year. I think it is quite accurate for single dives, but does not have a good enough memory to cope with the multiple dives we are doing in the North Sea.

Not many people had content gauges back then and they weren't seen as being really necessary. Most demand valves were 'upstream' so they started to 'drag' when you had five minutes air left. Depth gauges were a luxury. A buddy of mine had one which consisted of a clear plastic block with a fine hole in it. The hole was open at one end so that as you descended the water crept in and the depth could be read off a scale engraved on the plastic. Personally I judged depth by ear: My demand valve started to whistle at 50ft and the tone became louder and higher until it became a shriek at 100ft.

The one piece of equipment everyone had to have was a lifejacket. These were Beauforte surface jackets with oral and CO2 cartridge inflation. However, these could not be inflated underwater. Dave Jones, still the Equipment Officer, utilising fire extinguisher cylinders and parts from Radiator Valves concocted a conversion for these jackets that transformed them into some of the first ABLJs. Arthur Croston was involved in making parts and subsequent development led to the ABLJ as it is today. We now had the advantage of being able to inflate our jackets with air underwater and inverting the oral inflation valve enabled us to suck air out of the Bag instead of blowing into it, which also doubled as a safety blow-off valve. We set off to test this new-fangled equipment on a 200ft dive off the Manacles in Cornwall. The kit worked fine from 200ft up to 100ft where we had left our weight belts. Unfortunately, at this point I lost my grip on the shot line and started a free assent! In spite of all my efforts I exited the water like a Polaris Missile, luckily with no ill effects. This new safety equipment obviously had its dangers and cynics of the day prophesied that ABLJs would kill more people than they would save.

So, were they really the good old days? Well, we're warmer in our dry suits and Stab-Jackets make kitting up easier and quicker. But even with all this fancy gear available today you really can't do any more than we could 30 years ago. It just makes you nesch!