| Two years ago in Deep Breath, Andrew Phillips warned of stormy times ahead for wreck-divers if they did not improve their image. Now, he says, they need to go much further - voluntarily |
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IT'S NEARLY FOUR YEARS SINCE the maritime division of the respected charity Friends of War Memorials was established, dedicated to protecting the final resting places of those who died at sea in the cause of our freedom.
Two years ago, I drew attention in this column to the habitual "wrecking" of war graves. Our low-publicity campaign to see that they were properly respected by divers eventually bore fruit, as the Respect Our Wrecks initiative was launched by the diver training agencies.
But no one could have foreseen the lurid and sensationalistic reporting by the Western Daily Press on the back of a campaign by the HMS Prince of Wales & Repulse Survivors Association.
This did much to frighten and offend the responsible diving community of which I am part. However, it must be said that masterly inactivity from the training agencies over a number of years, coupled with an explosion in the number of divers, and in high-profile incidents, meant that it was only a question of time before this ticking bomb went off.
TV programmes, such as that showing the deepwater search for the submarine Ml, appear innocuous enough to divers, but they disquiet survivors of wartime sinkings, who wonder when their comrades' final resting places will be found, dived and eventually plundered.
HMS Dasher was sensitively dived by Mark Reeves, but others soon followed without seeking the consent of the survivors, much to their annoyance.
HMS Hampshire was sunk off the Orkneys in 1915 with the loss of 737 lives, including Lord Kitchener. Recently, we were contacted by the 95-year-old daughter of one of those lost when she was 10. She has never wanted sport divers visiting her father's grave but, dived since the early '80s, the Hampshire is now an established training ground for trimix use. Sadly, it was open season for souvenir-hunting on it until recently, when growing local pressure meant the Orkney police took greater interest.
I come from a Cornish fishing village. When a boat is lost, communities there always want it found and raised, as they feel they can no longer trust the sea to be an honourable grave. When one sees how quickly the Estonia and Salem Express were dived, one sees their point.
Spend an hour on the Internet and you will see the races among trimix teams to be first to dive a "virgin" wreck, to get the bell. One can only hope they all show appropriate respect to those which are war graves.
In the case of war graves, such a competitive attitude is unseemly. The first to dive them usually do so respectfully, involving the media, saying the prayers, laying the wreaths and the plaques, consulting families of those lost, but those who quietly follow in the wake of the resulting publicity might not.
Concerns about sport divers' ability to dive war graves were raised in The Times back in 1955. How more settled things might be today had proper controls been established then, before the rapid growth of our sport. Strenuous efforts are being made to catch up, to educate divers, to point out that the sea is not a moral-free zone, to sort out our rotten apples, but we know it will take far more than education and peer-group pressure.
People I meet are not talking simply about banning diving on war graves; some want to see all sport diving banned, such is the contempt in which they hold us. As recent press coverage has shown, we ignore public opinion at our cost.
We desperately need to find ways to restore public confidence. One means we are looking at is a licensing system for helium use by sport divers.
Deep-water wrecks are being found at an alarming rate, and few are reported to English Heritage. Only a few sport divers are yet diving to the depths we are now seeing, but their numbers will no doubt rise rapidly over the years, causing further disquiet to a public wondering which vessels are being found and dived.
Conditions of such a licence might be not to damage a wreck, and to report its location and condition to English Heritage. If a war grave, an undertaking would be required not to dive or enter it without permission from the survivors' association. Such a system would help compile the wreck database on which English Heritage is working, and do much to restore public confidence.
It will take such substantial measures to make any lasting impact; anything less will be laughed at as applying a Band-Aid when open-heart surgery is required.
The training agencies asked us to write to MPs stating: "I believe divers are not vandals..." Presumably they were unaware of the immediate vandalisation of the Christmas tree placed in Stoney Cove by scouts for divers' amusement.
Respect Our Wrecks, letters to MPs and PR campaigns will never placate the public, but responsible divers helping to frame workable legislation and, above all, being prepared to enforce it in future, will.
I believe such divers are coming to realise that they need the legal means to control the irresponsible, to protect our heritage and build a good name for sports diving.
Then we will all be able to say: "I'm proud to be a diver."
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