#Trinity60‍

00:02:26:28 - 00:02:56:28

Fraser Macdonald

Well, thank you for coming in. Listening to me. What I want to put on record is the origins of the Trinity Sub Aqua Club, because I founded it in 1974, which is 51 years ago, which is when we started it.

00:02:57:01 - 00:03:28:05

Fraser Macdonald

But how did that happen? Well, I joined, Trinity School as a teacher was in 1971, and I retired in 2008 as Head of Spanish. When I joined, all new teachers were expected to participate in extracurricular activities. Normally, this meant coaching, rugby or hockey or, aside. And, I was interested in swimming, but there wasn't a vacancy that was covered by the sports department.

00:03:28:08 - 00:03:54:11
Fraser Macdonald

So they suggested that I take over the, officer commanding the Royal Naval Section of the CCF, so I said, yeah, okay, I'll do that. So I did it for three years and became increasingly dispirited because, you know, they paraded and then they went into a class room and learned about buoyage, chart work and navigation, position fixing, rope work, small boat handling.

00:03:54:15 - 00:04:12:29
Fraser Macdonald

But there was no practical application for that at all, except on field days and summer camps. And I thought, well, you know, this is just an extension of the school day for the cadets. They're not they're not going to be interested for much longer. Out of the blue. This is where it all changed.

00:04:12:29 - 00:04:34:20
Fraser Macdonald

In 1974, I got a phone call from Alleynes School. Somebody I didn't know who. He was a physics teacher in charge of their Royal Naval section of the CCF, and he wanted to come over to Trinity to borrow some equipment for their annual inspection. So I invited him over and sorted him out.

00:04:34:20 - 00:05:01:24
Fraser Macdonald

He was delighted. Then. And he wanted to have a look at the facilities we had, and I showed him the pool and I showed him a classroom. And then we got chatting and I said, look how on earth do you maintain the interest of the Navy cadets week after week? If you're sitting in a classroom and it becomes just an extension of the school day and you said, well, you've got a wonderful pool here, three meters deep in the deep end, you've got classroom facilities.

00:05:01:24 - 00:05:29:02
Fraser Macdonald

Why not teach them sub-aqua diving? Everything you're teaching in the Royal Naval syllabus is applicable. Divers need to know about tides and weather, they need to know about ropes for shot lines, anchor lines, mooring ropes. They need to know about chart work and navigation so they can find wrecks at sea, he said. It all fits. And you have the practical application of teaching in the pool as well.

00:05:29:04 - 00:05:54:04
Fraser Macdonald

And I thought, that sounds absolutely brilliant. And I said, the problem is, I've never dive before. I love swimming, but I've never dived. How do I start? And he said, well, I happen to be an advanced instructor for the British Sub Aqua Club, and I'm more than willing to come over on the Monday evening after cadets and take you and three boys as a pioneer group to teach you.

00:05:54:07 - 00:06:24:26
Fraser Macdonald

So I said, well, that would be fantastic. He was as good as his word. Every week for a year he came over and trained us in the pool. Snorkel diving and aqualung diving. Peter Coy was his name on. He taught us the BSAC method, which is that every skill can be broken down in two easy stages.

00:06:25:04 - 00:06:53:02
Fraser Macdonald

Give you an example. Mask clearing. He take us to chest, deep water in the pool and teach us that. First of all, he wants us to fit the mask and then release the seal at the top slightly so the water trickles in until it's half full, so you can still see what you're doing. Then say, I want you to go down underwater, put your head right back, press the top of the mask and expel the water with air from your nose, and that will clear the mask.

00:06:53:04 - 00:07:15:04
Fraser Macdonald

Why do that? Because it's easier to push the water horizontally rather than vertically. And so we learned that. Then the next stage was to go down on a full mask, clear. And the third stage was to kneel on the bottom, take your mask off, refit it and clear it and come up. Every skill that he taught us was developed in that sort of way.

00:07:15:06 - 00:07:37:26
Fraser Macdonald

Finning, no bicycling, keeping your legs straight, snorkeling again, expel the water horizontally rather than vertically. Everything was brilliantly done. Then he introduced us to the aqualung, and we assembled it on the pool side, and he, told us, when you switch it on, make sure the contents gauge is pressed against the cylinder of the of the tank.

00:07:37:29 - 00:08:05:05
Fraser Macdonald

So if the glass were to shatter it won't send shards of glass into your face. Things like that. Safety was the prime consideration in all of this. After a year, we managed to, become confident enough to take over the teaching ourselves. And then he suggested we join the British Sub Aqua Club as a school branch.

00:08:05:07 - 00:08:28:07
Fraser Macdonald

Then we got our logbooks and we could record all our training. We got a diving manual, and then we open to all sorts of events and courses by the BSAC and examinations, and we could apply for those. First one I did was a club instructor exam. Well, I went on a training course first of all, then went in for the exam years.

00:08:28:08 - 00:09:02:25
Fraser Macdonald

And the club instructor is somebody who's competent to teach in the pool, not in open water. 

00:09:02:27 - 00:09:25:10
Fraser Macdonald

So there we are. That's where the Trinity Sub Aqua Club was born. The pool training started immediately, as I told you, and the BSAC standards. We had to go through A, B and C tests in those days, and it's changed now. I went on to aqualung training as well .

00:09:25:10 - 00:09:56:07
Fraser Macdonald

In the classroom he taught us these: the effects of pressure, the principles of the aqualung, aqualung use buoyancy control, burst lung and emergency ascents, air endurance as cylinders and recharging, maintenance of equipment, diving accessories and open water diving. Those were the lectures that we were given in preparation to go open water diving. A third class theory A third class diver is somebody who was, ready to go into open water.

00:09:56:10 - 00:10:23:19
Fraser Macdonald

We learned about nitrogen absorption, narcosis, decompression poisoning, burst lung in a sense, underwater navigation ropes and methods, low visibility diving charts and tides, and coastal navigation. All of these safety lectures were very comprehensive, from air endurance to small boat handling. He taught us in the pool to air share. In those days there was no octopus rig you had to air share.

00:10:23:24 - 00:10:44:12
Fraser Macdonald

Two breaths, two breaths, two breaths, two breaths. And then slowly, once you got the rhythm established, make your way to the surface while the the guy who has the air holds on to the straps of the guy who's out of air. And that's how you learned to air share. Fortunately, we now have an octopus rig, which is much better.

00:10:44:12 - 00:11:09:16
Fraser Macdonald

Oh, in those in the early days before we went open water diving, we had to make our own wetsuits, a load of neoprene in a pattern and cut it out and glued together. And that was how we started. We didn't have a buoyancy compensator either. We had surface life jackets, exactly like you get in an aircraft where the air hostess demonstrates it. Absolutely useless underwater.

00:11:09:18 - 00:11:36:25
Fraser Macdonald

Because when you pulled the toggle of the CO2 cartridge inflates the lifejacket and it only does it once on the surface. So underwater it was no good for buoyancy compensation. So we did open water assessments with Peter, 500 meter swim and rescue with expired air resuscitation. Assisted ascent from 20m, that is the air sharing exercise from 20m.

00:11:36:27 - 00:12:02:22
Fraser Macdonald

Clearing the mouthpiece and mask, horizontal air sharing buddy breathing, navigation. We learned how to use a compass, but not only the compass work. Also, if you go diving near the shore, you'll see ripples in the sand and you realise that they are parallel, always parallel to the shore. So if you're swimming over the ripples, you're either going into shore or away from shore, and obviously your ears will tell you which way it is.

00:12:02:28 - 00:12:25:06
Fraser Macdonald

Or of course, your depth gauge. Tender to roped diver. We learned how to do that, and assistant dive master duties also learned how to guide the dive. The Marshall was the guy in charge of the dive who would be, responsible for everything, who dives with whom, how deep they should go, how long they should spend on the bottom, all that.

00:12:25:09 - 00:12:57:17
Fraser Macdonald

And we recorded every dive with a log, every dive. The BSAC maxim was plan the dive, dive the plan. First open water dive with Peter because I was totally dependent on him for open water diving still. July we went to Cornwall to Porthkerris & Porthallow, which is on the lizard peninsula. 1975 76 went to Dorset, Swanage and Lulworth Cove, and we also went to Devon in Salcombe.

00:12:57:19 - 00:13:22:11
Fraser Macdonald

By that time the headmaster came to hear of what was going on and showed interest and came to me and said, would you agree to open the club to non CCF personnel as well, because it's obviously very attractive. So I said yes, I'm happy to do that provided they're 14 years old and provided you fund it properly. And so from that, that's how we started amassing our own kit.

00:13:22:18 - 00:13:51:10
Fraser Macdonald

So we started with four cylinders four regulators and four life jackets. We started doing CCF expeditions, and these were only available to CCF cadets because we were using, military facilities. We went to the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose on the Lizard Peninsula, a brilliant place for diving. We went to Britannia Royal Naval College. I took several expeditions there and based ourselves there.

00:13:51:13 - 00:14:16:28
Fraser Macdonald

HMS Daedalus in Portland. Very interesting. Around the Portland races, the headland where the tide really starts running, you have no option which way to go. HMS Cambridge and there's HMS Raleigh in Plymouth and over overseas we took an expedition to Cyprus based at RAF Akrotiri, and I found out that there's a base called Episcophe, which is near Akrotiri, which is where they have the transport depot.

00:14:17:00 - 00:14:47:13
Fraser Macdonald

So we borrowed a four tonne lorry and stuffed it full of diving equipment and went to round Cyprus diving, shore diving round Cyprus with Charterhouse School and Kelly. Because there's another story that I also introduced diving to Charterhouse and Kelly College. Overseas expeditions I ran. We went to Malta, Gozo and Comino, the offshore islands. At least 12 times.

00:14:47:15 - 00:15:14:07
Fraser Macdonald

Comino was interesting through the cave system is where they filmed the James Bond sequence. So we swam through the caves which appear in the film. The Red sea, went to Jordan, to Aqaba. Wonderful diving from there. Did a night dive on a wreck out tof Aqaba. In Egypt, went to Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh, and of course dive the Thistlegorm, which is, a dive everybody does in the red sea.

00:15:14:09 - 00:15:43:06
Fraser Macdonald

And we went to Florida on one occasion, which I wouldn't recommend. Again, I didn't enjoy it much then. By that time, Mike Alexander, who was also a teacher here, was also very much interested in diving and had joined us to help instruct, a great asset to us. And he and I started running national CCF courses to try and spread the idea of diving to other schools.

00:15:43:08 - 00:16:20:27
Fraser Macdonald

We ran them in Plymouth and we ran them in Jersey for Victoria College, Jersey. Charterhouse and Sevenoaks school staff came on our trip. And the guy from Charterhouse was a Cretan called Nicholas Georgia Katis. And he had friends in the Cyprus Airways. That was why when we went to Akrotiri, we were able to ship our portable compressor, over there so we could fill the cylinders while we were on the base of Akrotiri, and the senior students there, the sixth formers, we trained to become BSAC instructors.

00:16:21:01 - 00:16:54:27
Fraser Macdonald

Some of them actually qualified as instructors before they went to university. Gold dust for a university. Wreck diving. We did a lot of wreck diving one summer we spent in Plymouth and we dived a different site every day. It was flat, calm water for a fortnight. Unbelievable. We did the Volney, which is an old, festival we'll wreck day in day full of, cordite and grapeshot.

00:16:54:29 - 00:17:15:22
Fraser Macdonald

The manacles, the Mohegan, was a Victorian steamship which founded on the manacles because it's a graveyard of shipping. The manacles is a system of underwater rocks which come very close to the surface. And loads of ships have, met their end there. And it's a dive which you have to be very careful about.

00:17:15:22 - 00:17:33:21
Fraser Macdonald

You can only dive on slack water, an hour, before and an hour after slack water. If you miss it, then the tide just takes you right through the rock system, and no boats going to go after you until you come out the other side. So you've got an hour, so you got to know your tide tables.

00:17:33:24 - 00:17:59:04
Fraser Macdonald

I always have a copy of the Navy tide tables and calculated when it would be slack water. And if you can do it on Neeps, so much the better. If you know neeps and springs, neeps is when you get the less flow of water. So we did the Mohegan and in Saint Keverne churchyard, a little village near Porthkerris, which is where we dive from.

00:17:59:07 - 00:18:24:13
Fraser Macdonald

There is a grave of 80 people who died on the Mohegan. The Navy, very good to us at Porthkerris. So they had a great, building on the foreshore, Porthkerris, which housed a huge compressor and so we had access to that and could fill our cylinders every day from that. Inland, we've been to Stoney Cove and Gildenburgh and Wraysbury which you're probably familiar with.

00:18:24:15 - 00:18:49:25
Fraser Macdonald

In Plymouth, we dived a low directs the James Egan Layne. Everybody dives that one. The Poulmic, the Elk out of Plymouth. Glen Strathallen the Persia here the Galicia, a Dutch tug, Eddystone, and Hands Deeps. Hands Deeps is interesting. It's a rock pinnacle that comes almost to the  20m from the surface. And what you do is you shot it first of all, and you got to be aware of which way the tide is running.

00:18:49:28 - 00:19:07:21
Fraser Macdonald

So you put the shot line in, so the tide drives it into the rock. If you put it the other side, it drives it off the rock. So you have to be careful. But that was a really good dive. That's called Hands Deeps, by the way.

00:19:07:23 - 00:19:36:10
Fraser Macdonald

My own diving experience, 1976. I qualified as a snorkel diver. 1977. Ocean diver. In 1978, I was a sports diver, advanced open water diver. Then in the mid 80s, every school that had a cadet section, had a letter from the Ministry of Defense, which said that no cadets can go diving unless they're accompanied by a military diving supervisor.

00:19:36:12 - 00:20:02:17
Fraser Macdonald

SADs. So I thought, well, that puts paid to our use of military facilities. But I investigated and found that I could actually get on the course. It wasn't a training course, it was an assessment. So you had to go down and demonstrate your ability. So it was a week spent at Fort Bovisands in Plymouth, in a casement where there were 12 bunk beds.

00:20:02:19 - 00:20:27:00
Fraser Macdonald

I was the only civilian. There were 11 regular Army, Navy and RAF personnel. And we spent a week being assessed all the time. We had to give briefings in the classroom, debriefings and control all the diving, choose the dive site and control it. So I asked the Headmaster if I could have a week off to do it.

00:20:27:02 - 00:20:59:00
Fraser Macdonald

And amazingly, he said yes. So I took a week off school to do it, because he realised the importance of it. And eventually, a few of us got through that. There was a quite a number who failed the course, but, then my name was on the computer list at the MOD, who phoned me up twice to see if I'd go out to Ascension island to run training for the RAF out there, because they're based on Ascension Island

00:20:59:00 - 00:21:26:05
Fraser Macdonald

they can't go diving unless there is a SADS accompanying them, and therefore you know, I went to Brize Norton. 8.5 hours in a Hercules transport plane to Ascension Island and ran diving for the RAF twice. I did that in two three weeks stints. In 1990 I went in for the first class diver exam, which is an hour's theory paper, before you're invited to take it.

00:21:26:07 - 00:21:52:13
Fraser Macdonald
And then two days, one day in a small boat, a rib, and one day on a hard boat where your diving skills and abilities are assessed continually. 1979 I became the club instructor, which meant I could run diving in the pool safely. 1982 I was in advanced instructor, and then advanced instructor is somebody who can take open water diving.

00:21:52:15 - 00:22:26:06
Fraser Macdonald

That's the qualification. And then finally I went in for the National instructor exam, which is four days at the coast. One day in the classroom doing, pool based activities, training, teaching, and and giving a lecture, and then a day on a rib and two days on a hard boat doing serious diving, and teaching all the time.

00:22:32:18 - 00:23:06:16
Fraser Macdonald

Once you become a national instructor, you're expected to, take part in national events and teach and examine on national events. So I, I did that, I was an examiner for advanced instructor and first class diver and also, club instructor.

00:23:06:18 - 00:23:28:05
Fraser Macdonald

Overseas, the BSAC sent me to Germany to an army barracks at Gutersloh to examine the Army divers there. They sent me to Northern Ireland. I went to Belfast to run a course there. They sent me to Holland, where I also ran a course, and they sent me to Cyprus again.

00:23:28:07 - 00:23:58:21
Fraser Macdonald

We were running, a course there for, people from England were there, you know, from other BSAC branches to be assessed as, instructors. BSAC sent me to Ascension island in 1997 to run courses they knew I'd been before and therefore they thought it was useful if I went there. And, of course, for the RAF, I went twice to Ascension island to train the divers there.

00:23:58:23 - 00:24:25:13
Fraser Macdonald

Anyway, when I left Trinity in 2008, I left it fully operational. It had 15 full kits, cylinders, regulators and B C's. We had a large compressor feeding to storage cylinders so you can decant and make filling much quicker. We had a purpose built RIB, a rigid inflatable boat equipped with a GPS echo sounder, a magnetometer and marine radio.

00:24:25:16 - 00:24:47:03
Fraser Macdonald

If you don't know what a magnetometer is, it's something you tow behind the boat and it detects metal under water. So it's a wreck finder. So that's what we. What I left, you with. And there we are. Thank you very much for listening. I think I can answer any questions.

00:24:47:06 - 00:25:10:10
Jim Hammond

I dabbled, as you know, in Suffolk, but I felt very confident because of the exam and the tests that we had. Did every exam you took subsequently, did that give you the confidence?

00:25:10:13 - 00:25:34:28
Fraser Macdonald
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean it was a it was a different world because you were meeting with people who were much more qualified than you were and who were rigorous. I mean, I remember doing, a 50 meter dive with, with the national instructor who was the examiner who gave me a slate. And I had to answer ten questions, including decompression calculations, which was a test for nitrogen narcosis.

00:25:34:28 - 00:25:55:24
Fraser Macdonald

Then we continued the dive and then coming back, we had to do two decompression stops because we'd overstayed our bottom time at nine meters and six meters, go back to the surface. And I was pretty knackered by that. And, but we got back on board the boat, took all my kit off, and the national instructor came up to me and said, can you tell me how your regulator works?

00:25:55:26 - 00:26:18:07
Fraser Macdonald

So I said, yes. The first stage, you connect to the pillar valve and it reduces the pressure from 200 balls to something like 50, 40 balls. And the second stage is a mouthpiece, which further uses it to ambient pressure. So whatever depth you're at, it delivers air at that, pressure. So I said, yeah, I know that, but how does the inner workings work?

00:26:18:10 - 00:26:40:23
Fraser Macdonald

So I had to get a pencil and paper and sketch a regulator to him to explain how the the balanced valve inside the first stage was operating, all that sort of thing. And it was like that relentless for four days, people coming up and asking questions and really testing your knowledge and your ability all the time. It was, that was the hardest thing I've ever done.

00:26:40:26 - 00:27:07:02
Fraser Macdonald

Yeah. The national instructor exam. I couldn't do it. Now. Diving for students is a wonderful educational opportunity. You become inter-reliant on each other, you know.

00:27:07:02 - 00:27:33:06
Fraser Macdonald

Your mates, your buddies and and you operate like that. It's a wonderful experience educationally. I think you teaches you a lot.

Simon Grey

So what was your favourite dive out of these?

00:27:33:06 - 00:27:57:29
Fraser Macdonald

One of the best dives I did was in Ascension island. There was a container ship containing, fuel for the RAF base out there, which was anchored just off Georgetown, the jetty., and we got permission from the captain to swim under the hull of it, which was 20m. So we swam under there, looked down 50m below, there were hammerheads feeding, and then a great shadow appeared on the port side of the ship and, I swam like the clappers and the RAF sergeant who was with me did the same, and it was a Whale Shark.

00:27:58:02 - 00:28:17:18
Fraser Macdonald

The biggest fish in the sea, and it was the length of the Maersk container ship and he swam up against the tail fin. And he was over six foot, and the tail fin was towering way above him. It was an enormous thing. It's a filter feeder.

00:28:17:18 - 00:28:45:06
Fraser Macdonald

So it had jaws which are wide open. It gives you a nasty suck but it doesn't bite you. But it's that was a huge that was a wonderful dive. I remember diving the Red sea going behind the coral stack, and there was a pod of six dolphins, who were aware of our presence, but they performed. They did all sorts of tricks in front of us, you know, it was like watching the RAF, you know, you they're brilliant.

00:28:45:06 - 00:28:55:17
Fraser Macdonald
Absolutely brilliant. But you can't touch them. That was another stunning dive. Yeah, I've had some great dives.