Press call

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This is the transcript of the article about my trip to the South China seas which was published in the Barnsley Chronicle this week. So was this a fair appraisal? Yes it was, but I’ve made a few comments myself at the end.

John to dive in foreign waters
By Matthew Murray

"A WOMBWELL man is to dive more than 150ft into the South China seas this year to view a ship sunk by Japanese bombers in the Second World War.

John Awty, of Brampton Crescent, is a member of the British sub aqua club, and will join a handful of divers on his expedition this May when he will view the wreck of the battle cruiser HMS Repulse. The Repulse was sent by Winston Churchill to the Far East to try to stop Japanese aggression.

John, 49, has been scuba diving and looking at shipwrecks for more than nine years, and on his next trip, will also view the Prince of Wales, the Seven Skies as well as other ships.
He said: "I've always been interested in engineering so when I'm down there I love to see the wrecks and focus on their structure and how they were made. People accuse us of prowling around war graves but we don't touch anything. All we do is have a look round and see how much they have deteriorated over the years."

John, who is a lorry driver for ASDA, started diving when he took his daughter swimming at Wombwell baths. "I took her swimming and she wanted to have a go at diving but because she was young they asked if I would do it with her. I agreed and from that day, she has never done it again and I've turned into a qualified diving instructor."
He estimates he has looked at more than 300 wrecks in the last decade".

My comments,

Firstly, I can’t emphases enough, that dives on any wrecks are “look but don’t touch” dives. Any shipwreck belongs to someone whether it is a war grave or a peacetime loss and should anything be recovered from any wreck, then it must be reported to the Receiver of Wreck who will then endeavor to contact the rightful owners.

Secondly, I got the impression the reporter was looking for a bit of sensationalism when he asked me if anything had gone wrong while underwater. Well yes, things do go a little astray and 2 examples I gave were not mentioned. One where I got hooked up in fishing line but was quite easy to release myself by reversing my actions once I realized what was wrong. Another was when my mask strap became un-threaded and my buddies re-threaded it underwater and we finished the dive as planned. Above the surface this would have been like threading a needle wearing boxing gloves. Below the surface, it’s down to not panicking and good training.

Maybe I should have invented a story about being attacked by a giant squid, but then again, I did get on the front page of the paper.

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