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The Club 1953-2003 by Reg Vallintine
The Club 1953-2003 by Reg Vallintine
Reg Vallintine deserves special recognition from the British Sub-Aqua Club for writing its 50-year history, The Club. This is a detailed, if at times selective, account of the club's past, its triumphs and trials, largely culled painstakingly from the pages of Diver and its predecessor Triton.
What the book reveals is the extraordinary vitality of BSAC branches and their members, particularly in the early and middle years, as demonstrated by the level of enterprise devoted to launching and participating in diving projects. This energy was a major factor in the BSAC's development.
For example, Imperial College Branch and Enfield College of Technology erected an underwater house off Malta in which five divers spent more than 200 hours. A task force made up of 25 branches took part in a David Bellamy investigation into marine pollution off the North-east coast, harvesting 7052 kelp plants weighing 1.5 'wet, slimy tons'.
North Essex Branch searched for the remains of the port of Dunwich, which had slipped beneath the sea in the 14th century. Harrogate Branch trained a fell rescue association to rescue and recover injured potholers through flooded sumps.
Aldershot Dolphins recovered nine 19th century clay pipes from the River Wey and presented them to Guildford Museum. Southsea Branch, led by Alexander McKee, helped to find and excavate the site of the Tudor warship Mary Rose. And Folkestone Branch battled for nine hours to save homes from floodwater in Kent.
These and many other stories can be found in The Club. As branches formed regional federations, the BSAC organised two World Underwater Congresses and ran annual chairmen's conferences and diving officers' conferences. Branches also staged the club's annual AGMs around the country.
So much for the glory years. But don't look to The Club to find out the real story of what has gone on in the BSAC in more recent times. The events surrounding its financial crisis in 1999, for example, are dealt with summarily in the final chapter to leave the impression that it was all just a bad dream. Everyone but the hapless Financial Controller concerned is exonerated, and it's soon back to business as usual.
Also, because the book is heavily based on nuggets culled from decades of magazines (the introduction reveals that the BSAC itself has no historical archives), it does read like a chronicle, leaping relentlessly from event to event. It might have been more interesting to martial the material thematically, had the author had the time to do so.
All that said, there is much here to inform BSAC members curious about how the club came to become the force it did in diving.
Bernard Eaton
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The Club 1953-2003 by Reg Vallintine, Circle Books ISBN 095389195X. Hardback, 280pp, £25.95
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