John Adams has led a remarkable diving career , encompassing the original Aqua-Lung to modern day rebreathers . Along the way he started several dive clubs and introduced several generations of new divers , eventually specialising in CCR training .
BSACDECADES
1960s
John Adams has led a remarkable diving career , encompassing the original Aqua-Lung to modern day rebreathers . Along the way he started several dive clubs and introduced several generations of new divers , eventually specialising in CCR training .
How did you come to diving ?
It all started in 1962 , when I joined the Army as a junior musician in the Royal Artillery . You had to play sport on Wednesday afternoons , and I soon found out I was rubbish at football . I took up rock climbing instead , and while learning that I met a young subaltern , who turned out to be from London No . 1 branch . He brought his diving set to the pool . It was a Siebe Gorman twin-hose regulator with twin ‘ Tadpole ’ cylinders , about 25 cubic feet each .
Where did you train ?
I was about to be posted out to Germany , so I decided to get trained quickly at Divers Down , on Swanage Pier , though I had already been to the BSAC branch at Woolwich . We covered many of the skills you would cover today , but you ’ ve got to remember this was before there was any sort of surface jacket or buoyancy aid ... they had yet to be invented . The key to buoyancy and trim in those days was to be properly weighted .
Did you continue dive in Germany ?
I didn ’ t formally join BSAC until later in the decade , and that was when I started with the more formalised training back in the UK . I remember being in the middle of doing the A-Test at Tidworth BSAC , thinking ‘ Crikey , this is difficult ... I ’ ve got to make it to the end of the pool without dying !” Then someone beckoned me to the side of the pool ; I honestly thought they were going to say “ You ’ re not good enough – get out !” But it turned out that they ’ d heard I knew a little about diving theory and wanted me to give a lecture ... because they didn ’ t have an instructor ! In the very early days that was quite common in a number of clubs . They had a syllabus to cover , they taught each other and that was it .
I became a member of Boscombe Down SAC [ a tri-service base in Salisbury ], who didn ’ t meet very often . But we had access to the big air cylinders on the trolleys that they used to start jet engines in those days . I remember filling 26 cylinders from their bank of gas one day , and the next morning the club was banned from using the gas trolleys again , because they couldn ’ t get the aircraft to start !
You seem to enjoy a rich variety of dive kit ...
I also qualified as a Siebe Gorman Standard Helmet diver on a course at their Chessington works in June , 1968 . You could say that I have been qualified in using dive equipment from three different centuries 1800s , 1900s and now in the 2000s , the latest version of the AP rebreathers !
What were the biggest changes in diving during the Sixties ?
There were some massive changes generated by cylinder sizes and pressures . A 40 cubic foot tank was a bit like having a seven-litre cylinder today , and only fillable to 120 bar . We could last quite a long time even with those , but it was quite hard to get into trouble with such a paltry supply ... unless you really tried !
We were quite limited with what we could do with the cylinder sizes of the era . I remember twinning up a pair of 60 cubic foot cylinders in France , and being told I was completely mad . They thought they were saying goodbye forever as we descended into the depths of a port down in the South of France for a 50m dive . Anyway , the
John ’ s homemade camera housing , 1964
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Helping the bomb disposal squad at Netheravon in the early 1970s