Pistols, Specials and the bad ol days.

The Cockney Rejects

A change of tack from shipwrecks today. I have been watching 'Pistols' -a TV series about the Sex Pistols and how they came to be. Malcom Mclaren always said 'he invented Punk' But lets have this right- what a load of claptrap. Punk wasnt about north london university students or college kids dressing up in vivian westwards tosh. It wasnt about socialism or had anything to do with politics. It came out of the mean streets of  East london through unemployment and all the shit a country could throw at its young inhabitants. It was a mean time. Fighting and violence was everywhere you went. School, football, street gangs, gigs, night clubs,- everywhere you went there was trouble. Crap piled up on the streets because of the strikes and crime rocketed due to the black outs. All under the labour party. This sparked Punk bands like the 'Rejects' Sham69 and Ska bands like the 'Specials'  Malcom Mclaren and all his entourage of champagne socialists tapped into this but had absolutely naff all to do with it. Dont get me wrong, the Pistols did do some great tracks but essentially they were a made up Boy band all marketed and clothed by middle classed champange socialists trying to sell their wears and it worked- the college types filled their pathetic london designer shops. Punk was rougher and far tougher than that. Real punks were just scruffy lads who had no money for such things. They just wanted to blow off steam. Maclaren my arse!  By the way, my best mate used to be the drummer for the band pictured above, and is still mates with them today. They still do gigs! He also went on to drum for another punk band-the Angelic upstarts- and toured Europe with them. These lads all still go to watch my beloved West Ham United and we meet up most years and reminisce.  

The Specials.

While on the subject of bands and the old days, we hear of the sad loss of  Specials singer Terry Hall recently. Another love of my early days has been Ska and the Specials in particular captured the youth spirit of the time and the skinhead movement in East London (West Ham Skins) before the NF cowardly idiots came on the scene to spoil it all. We grew our hair as a result and went a bit more Mod.  I make no bones about it, in our youth we were little trouble makers but we weren't racist, we just loved a tear up, mainly at football but as I wrote above- you had to fight people everywhere you went back then. It was London culture at that time. Jack & me went to see the Specials live in 1978 and it was an awesome night. Another big memory surrounding this band was in 1980 the night before the FA cup final with Arsenal, we decided to go to highbury and went into a skinhead club there and The Specials tune 'Man at C&A was playing at the time. An awesome track and one of my favourites of all time. It was exciting being among the enemy all night and them oblivious of it. Inevitably they cottoned on who we were and huge fight kicked off with them outside the club. A wild night and the 3 of us were lucky to come away fairly unscathed but that was because we gave a very good account of ourselves. We had no choice! That Specials track has never left me as a result. Top Ska Band. Sad loss of a teenage hero. So many memories.

This is all stuff I have never spoken about before but was a big part of my early life before diving. My mate and me loved going to football. We used to get in to Leyton Orient as nippers at half time because they used to open the gates then to allow people to leave early. We were then taken to West Ham at 10 years old and just loved it over there. A wild place for sure!  However, I got my first real kicking at football away at QPR and I was just 12 years old. (1974)  We were on the tube home when a group of QPR got on and battered us both and stole my mates scarf. All I remember was a DM boot smashing into my head and bouncing it into the train window.  After they were done with us, all bloodied up we moved down the train but ran into some older lads who turned out to be West Ham. They looked after us and we walked up the train to look for our assailants. These lads took good care of the QPR mob for beating up two little West ham kids -and even got my mate his scarf back. They threw the bullies off at the next stop then kept singing "Mile End, Mile End" as the train pulled away. We were jumping up and down with them and joining in. It was all very exciting to me at the time. My ancestors were all from Mile End so I knew where they were all hailing from too, so I felt a bit of a connection.  My mate and I went to school the next week all battered and bruised. I had a huge lump on one side of my face and a big bruise on the other. My mate had two black eyes and a split lip.  In the playground it seemed like everyone thought we were cool but many thought we would never go again thereafter. However, the hooligan bug had bitten us and this was only the beginning. Its a strange occurrence but thats how it works sometimes. We had found out that day that we were not made of glass and the excitement of it all was an absolute adrenaline rush. After that we copped many a blood bath along the way and gave a few out too. It all stood us in good stead for our teenage years on the mean streets of East London. Wild times for sure and the music was all a big part of it. We would wind ourselves right up on the Rejects on match days then go out buzzin for a ruck. This all carried on until I found diving in 1979. Then my life started changing for the better. By 1985 I had backed right away from the hooligan scene. Although we were still season ticket holders in the West Ham south bank, then in chicken run, for years after. I only stopped going footy when I moved to Scilly in 1999.  Most of those in my early days still go now. I join them occasionally, maybe once or twice a year. But diving is my passion and has been since my first sea dive in about 1981.  

Return to Steval

Steval is a point around the Garrison shore line of St Marys Island. Its a rock that juts out into the sea and by it is the remains of an old fort. On top of the fort they built an ugly concrete search light emplacement which I think went up during world war 1. Well the old fort used to be totally buried in the earth but now, due to natural erosion of the cliffs, the walls of the old fort are becoming exposed and these too are crumbling into the sea. See images below. I used to walk around this area with my dog and as I went I used to see small bits of pottery that fell from here and laid thereabouts among the rocks below. One day I found a small cannon ball there in the earth that had also fallen away. I got into trouble for taking it home and putting it into conservation. The police came around and accused me of stealing it. I gave it to them along with a small box of pottery fragments I had also saved over the years from thereabouts. These items they took to the local museum- whom Im told, (suprise, suprise,) - didnt want them. What happened to these few items is a mystery to me. As a result of this stupid saga I no longer pick up the bits that fall from the cliff there any more, instead I let them get lost among the rocks and taken by the sea. Then when these walls started becoming exposed to a point of degradation- I ignored it. Not my business. I stopped caring about it all because it got me into trouble. Well recently coastal erosion here claimed one of our ancient kelp pits. I took pictures of it and sent them to an archaeologist. He was disturbed by this fact but seemed strangely uninterested about the Steval fort being exposed and lost in the same way. I found this odd but sent him these pictures of it crumbling away anyway, and I think he was a  little shocked as to what was on show and so decided to send my images on to Historic England. I had told them years ago this was happening and noone cared- until I saved that cannon ball and then they only seemed interested in getting me prosecuted for saving it.  After they failed in that regard they stopped caring about it again. They have a strange logic. Its ok for artifacts to fall away and be lost, but its not ok to pick them up and store them for posterity. The Police asked me what I was going to do with the small collection. I said at the time that  " I didnt know." and that I simply thought it wrong to just let them be lost.  The last time I tried to do something with them was when Historic England sent over archaeologists to excavate a trench in a random spot about 200 yards away along the cliff...

......I went to where they were working and pointed at the Steval nearby and told them they should be recording what was there rather than disturbing a new place and offered them my bits n bobs to show them what was being lost nearby. They seemed totally disinterested in the Steval fort and found very little in the way of archaeology where they were digging. They could have recorded this fort before it started falling into the sea and have a record of how it originally looked before degradation occurred to it. My images are the only record taken thus far and my collecting of the pottery sherds the only collection of items saved from the site. Yet I was wrong for doing it!! I could have carried on recording and collecting but the fact that it got me into trouble put me off continuing -now all has been lost. The fort, the artifacts, and with it all went the information too. I was told that by picking up items from around the base of this fort I was stealing heritage. Well if that was stealing from an historic monument then so is every single beachcomber that hunts for and picks up artifacts from around St Marys old quay every day which is also an historic monument. 

 Seeing this old fort being lost is heart breaking but noone cares unless you try to save something. And then they only seem interested in prosecution rather than recording whats there.  All the items I could have saved had I been left alone, but as I walk over them today I just say to myself- "Not my problem" and the sea takes it all.  Ever since then our museum lost its home and was forced to farm out most of its displays and is still in transition. It had to have a good clear out. They are currently getting rid of books. I have no idea what happened to the items I collected that were given to the police. All I know is that the museum wasnt interested in them at the time- so it possibly all went into the police bin.  So now that an archaeologist is finally interested in sending my images to Historic England, they may finally decide to send someone over to record whats remaining of this old civil war fort.  Had the police returned the items I collected back to me- I could have given them to the archaeologists when they eventually turn up- as they now surely and finally must do.  However, all my information is probably now lost forever due to the stupidity of government workers being over zealous with the small things, when the bigger picture was always right there in front of them- yet they totally ignored it until it was too late. How utterly Typical.  

The 'Duchy take'.

When years of searching & research pays off.

Im always on the hunt for treasure wrecks and found a couple of nice sites in my time and I'm often asked-"So what happens when someone in the UK finds treasure?  This is a big question with too many variables  to be able to it answer easily. However, one thing is for sure- it depends on where you find your wreck and whom owns it. In the past a salvor would gain possession of his wreck and because the original owner no longer exists-or the owner exists but does not want to pay the salvor for what he brings up -then the salvor usually gest the material in lieu of salvage and rightly so................ 

                                             

                                         The small treasure currently held by the Receiver of Wreck

.....................Im the one going home empty handed each night while feeling queezy from all the rolling around, going back and forth at sea through, all the hours god sends. Then, also, all alone, I go out when its calmer and safer, to dive all the anomalies I have identified during the survey. All that dive kit is also expensive to buy and maintain and even more so when you live on a tiny island as everything has to be sent to the mainland for servicing and repair.  Not to mention all the years of dive training to get me to this point. I even have to spend hours on end filling my own dive cylinders, with my own compressor, in order to perform the many dives it takes to actually find a wreck. In this case one of those anomalies identified in my survey turns out to be the wreck I'm actually hunting for. I then place myself in mortal danger for over two years mapping the wreck site and identifying everything on the sea bed that is all but hidden from view under thick weed. The tides flow fast over the wreck site. I can enter the water when it is slack tide but by the time the dive is over I come up in the tide and dare not let go of my rope to the boat for fear of being lost at sea. Sometimes the visibility is lousy, and sometimes the swells come over making the diver feel like he is in a washing machine. Sometimes I have to make a decision to abandon a dive for any of the many reasons above. Amidst all this I eventually identify an area on the site worthy of further investigation and amazingly find a small but not insignificant treasure. All I can think when that happens is that for once Im actually going to get paid!! I have been diving for 43 years and found 18 new wrecks in that time. So I can tell the reader that more often than not, the work is seldom profitable and thus far, when added all together- I am in financial deficit. The only way to make money is to find a big site like the Merchant Royal.

Government archaeologists on site.

 I salvaged that small treasure and nothing else on the sea bed has been disturbed. No artifacts are moved aside as they always did in the old days. I then call in the Government archaeologists to come and asses the wreck site as a whole. They get to see it pretty much as I found it. They get the benefit of my research and of my site plan of the wreck. I ask for nothing in return. Now is when the authorities suddenly take a great interest in what I am doing.   

Diving the site alone.

                                          A cropped version of my site plan of the wreck site.

There is one last thing to consider here- The RoW thinks it fit to allow a museum the advantage to buy the collection of artifacts without going to auction to bid for it. The RoW think it is fairer to get 3 independent valuations and to take the middle amount of the three and offer the collection to a museum at that middle price. This is neither legal, nor fair, on either myself or the original owner or the crown. Let me explain- A while back I took this material to Spinks, who are the biggest coin auctioneers in the world, and I was told by them that 'valuations are completely subjective'. That any valuation of this kind of material could never be accurately predicted. I was told that such items are most likely to go for far more money than any valuation undertaken. So if the items are likely to be worth far more than any valuation-then it stands to reason that someone will be unfairly treated if a museum has the benefit of buying it all without having to go to the auction- with the price paid by them based solely upon a subjective valuation only. Only an auction can set a true value of anything.  Similarly, if the valuations have been 'over estimated' then the auction will set the price here also. Better to let the Museum bid along with everyone else on the day- that is 'the' only fair way to proceed. 

Association debris Trail?

There was a time when I longed to find an intact onion bottle. Found many broken ones over the years. In fact, found a whole gulley of broken ones near the wreck of the Coronation in plymouth once. Little did we know that we had landed on the then unknown deeper site  which had not been found yet at that time. We had no idea how close we were to a great find. But thats diving.  As for eventually finding a whole onion- I  have since located numerous and on one occasion even two at once. Whilst 99 per cent of my bottle finds over the years have came from anchorages, basically debris thrown overboard at that moment in history. Occasionally I find old bottles in very different circumstances. Found a few nice ones on or close to wrecks and so have to be declared from that wreck just in case. Heres a story of 3, that many years ago, came from deep water out by the Wreck of Association that sank in 1707. Two of them on one dive... As so often happens in my life, a local fisherman asks me to help him retrieve some trapped lobster pots.  Two questions are my inevitable response- 'Where are they stuck and how deep'?. Quite often the fisherman will tell a little white lie to both questions. Firstly they will always underestimate the depth. In this instance I was told 30m max. Secondly- they always say that they have been getting rusty crabs from that particular spot; implying there must be iron down there and thus must be a wreck. This is said in an attempt to get me more interested into going and nothing more. If this is said tongue in cheek and the guy is a friend I will go along, but if I think its a genuine attempt to dupe me -then I think twice and sometimes decline as a result. In this case, I liked the guy and his answer being 'near the gilstone' and thus the Association wreck site, made the decision for me. Any offer to be looked after on a dive out west here is acceptable terms. 

2 onions circa 1710

 

....I generally think twice if the pots are lost in water deeper than 35meters but for this friend I said I'd try. He didnt lie-as the down line was located at the foot of the eastern side of the Gilstone reef at the foot of east'ard ledge. This is normal as a good fishermen will always try to lay his pots at the foot of a reef where the rock meets the sand. That is where the lobsters are. I followed the 'up line' down and  found it passed by an old anchor in about 30m off in the distance to my right. Thats interesting I thought, not seen that one before! Further down I found where the 'up line' joined onto the line of pots. I went along this and passed by two pots to where I found the 3rd one in line was caught among the  boulders in that exact depth of -35m as stated. I soon released the offending pot and moved it out onto the sand nearby. I then followed the line further checking the rest of the pots were free too.

Close up of an onion circa 1710

 Being a shipwreck hunter, as I went along, I naturally kept my eyes open for anything else that may be of interest to me.  Heading in a SSE direction, pulling myself along the rope, hand over hand, I swiftly moved along the line of pots checking on each one as I passed them. Very soon I found myself in almost 40meters of water and started to think about not wanting to go any further down.  Having cleared the earlier obstruction I felt I was now free to go up if I wished as every pot was now in sand. However, me being me, I decided to use what little time and air I had left, to have a quick look around in the sand. There was the odd unidentifiable bit of iron work on show,  and also quite a few bits of broken glass from what were clearly once onion bottles. Mooching along and still following the same direction, it felt like the pot line was following a trail of bits n bobs. I soon came to the other end of the line where the other 'up rope'  marked the end of the line of pots. The sea was gin clear and there was no tide to speak of.  As an experienced diver I knew I was most likely a bit narked now, as I felt totally at ease- even when realising I had ended up in well over 40meters I still felt completely in control. This was not unusual to me at this time, as over the previous couple of years I had been performing an ongoing search of  deep water while looking for the wreck of the Romney off Isaacs ledge; the Crim; and also Retarrier; where I often ended up alone in these kinds of depths or even more. This time was actually easier, as today I had a fisherman to look out for me up top and so I was not totally alone.   I was just about to ascend the 'up line' when I spotted the neck of a black glass bottle poking up out of the sand. Thinking it was just a broken off fragment I went to pick it up to make sure. To my utter surprise, as I pulled it from the sand, I found it to be totally intact. After seeing so many broken bits I was utterly astonished; as well as thoroughly thrilled. 

German impression of the disaster drawn in late 1707.

  We are talking only minutes in time here- and now being so deep I had only a  very short bottom time before incurring some serious decompression stops to do. I was now all but out of time. This is when seconds start to feel like minutes. Again I was about to leave when just a few meters away I could see another possible intact bottle-and felt I couldn't leave without checking it out. 'It couldn't be another one'- I thought,  as I again moved and pulled at the bottle. Again it was as intact as the first. I was now trying to think how I was going to carry these 2  up to the surface and do all I needed to do with my hands, at the same time, as I went up. There was keeping an eye on my wrist depth gauge while holding onto the 'up line' - all the while trying to hold two fragile bottles and trying not to drop or break them was not going to be easy.  I dashed back to the up rope and again moved to go up. However, I noticed that right by that last pot on the sand, there was yet another buried bottle. Feeling I couldn't possibly now stay to check it out too, let alone carry it, I kicked out at the sand with my fins. As I did this, some of the sand moved aside and it too looked likely to be an intact bottle as well.  "Bloody hell" I thought-"the one time I don't bring a goody bag along is the one time I needed it most" Sods law! With that I left the bottom and looked at the 3rd bottle as it receded away into the distance below. I never thought I would ever have to do such a thing and it was heart breaking!  

It took a while to ascend so some deco stops were needed. There hovering in 6meters I wondered how to get back aboard the boat without breaking either find. I had to try. Luckily I got them home safely and vowed to return for the 3rd another day. Yes I returned to the spot and got it eventually along with a small clump of coins.  So are these just a few random lucky finds?- or were these part of a trail to the Stern of Association? There are those that believe that, because they never found much gold when excavating the Association site back in their day, that the stern of this wreck must have broken off and thus lies elsewhere. Totally understandable thinking when you see what has happened to other wrecks here. And when you look at from where the prevailing swells over this wreck emanate- then these items could well tell their own story. So is it just a small area of items from the famous wreck nearby? or does the stern of Association lay in even deeper water and this is a debris trail leading out to it? Or were the items I found above from another wreck incident entirely? There have been so many out that way its hard to tell!

(Everything I write about has always been declared to the RoW first. In this case I wrote them up as merely- "possible Association")

The lost cargo.

Its pretty much shore dives only now for winter as my boat came out a couple of weeks back and my mates came out just recently too. The only other news I have is that I went away for a bit to see my mum on Mersea Island-oh and a spell in the sun on Lanzarote. I did some mudlarking on Mersea during the recent low spring tides but now back to beach combing Scilly. Theres a couple of shorelines here that are being very disturbed indeed at present, as they are doing sea defence work there and it is currently totally changing the whole dynamic of the beaches involved. Therefore, its worth a little look every now and again to see if anything of interest turns up.  The piece of pottery below was found on a recent dive and its the sort of thing that im hoping will turn up with all the disturbances. To the untrained eye, the sherd below dont look like much but it is in fact a fragment of ancient Greekware over 2500 years old and its the sort of thing that can be found at Scilly diving or beachcombing. If you look at the sherd you can see two legs and a hand of a figure holding a round object to the left. On the right is another hand holding what I now know is a bunch of grapes. The hand with the grapes is actually the arm of a second figure that is even less on view on the far right hand side. I know this because you can just make out the figures thumb which shows it to belong to the figure on the right.  So how did ancient greek pottery get here? Well this has to be a fragment from a vase from the cargo of the shipwreck of HMS Colossus. It was found while bottle hunting due south of Nut Rock.  I know from experience (and research) just how far the vases travelled away from the wreck site. There were 1500.............

...............such vases on the wreck returning from Italy in 1798; a cargo collected by and belonging to Sir William Hamilton.  The vases were wrapped in putty which made them bouyant; so that when the ship had broken up, many of them simply floated off on the tide. Many went out to sea to be lost forever, whereas about 10 vases floated ashore onto the beaches of St Martins Island. Sir William Hamilton had to get his nephew to come to Scilly to buy those vases back off the locals whom had saved them in the surf. Many other vases would have eventually sank and thus are still hidden on the sea bed around Scilly somewhere. Many others would have come to grief on the rocks and reefs here too. This is also bore out by the fact that most of the fragments I have found over the years have all been well away from the Colossus wreck site. As I remember, the one immediately below was found many years ago about 400 yards away to the south of the site where some other items of wreck had come to rest too. Just look at the fabulous face on the right in this picture below- Going by what looks like a horn by his head, it could be the head of Theseus looking at the Minotaur; the half man half bull creature he defeated in Greek mythology.

My brother first alerted me to the fact that bits could be found high and dry on rocks away from the wreck when he found a sherd on a rock called the 'Hulman' between Tresco and Samson. From then I have been looking for them on the shore line here ever since while beach combing- and eventually I found a fragment, also near Tresco Island, on a reef called 'Tobaccomans Ledge'. The big curved piece below was the furthest I have found a sherd away from the wreck. I found it while drift diving between the North Bathlomomew reef and the Garrison shore line. Thats about a mile and a half away from the wreck!  The diversity of places these bits and pieces have been found just proves that sherds could be located absolutely anywhere here. I believe some will one day be found by the eastern isles or in Crow Sound as that seems to be the direction many of them travelled first.

The three fragments below all came from the Wreck and all from the Bow site which is over on the Southard Well Reef.  Strangely, I never found any on the Stern section of the wreck which is out in St Marys Roads, 400 yards away from the reef bow site. I dived the stern for years after finding it but strangely/sadly not one fragment turned up there-possibly buried out of sight in the deep sand.  I went searching around the bow site for bits before it was re-protected and found two of the pieces below at that time. The other fragment (with the face on it) was gifted to me by a good friend who sadly died. He did not dive himself but had a fascination for Greek pottery. He told me he got it from a member of the salvage team who first found the bow site of this wreck back in 1979. It looked rather too perfect to me but I had no reason to doubt that it came from the ship. Then one day I found one small fleck that was just as crisp as it. (That fleck is shown below just above the gifted one). What I mean by 'crisp' is that it still retains some of its white decoration which is something that normally disappears first when under the sea; whereas the black slip on the vases is far more hard wearing-sometimes almost indestructible by comparison-which is why the black slip is clear to see on every piece. Also the edges are still sharp like its only just been broken-whereas most fragments found have slightly sea worn or rounded edges. This is encouraging as any whole vases still out there could well be found totally intact with perfect decorations still remaining. One can only dream! I say that but Scilly is one of the only places in the..

 ....world where one can find this type of 2500 year old type of pottery. Out there somewhere on the sea bed, will be whole vases buried in sand or just laying in bits among the rocks of the islands or reef tops here.  I am convinced that one day I will accidentally drift over a whole vase. However, it may not look like a vase -no- I think it will look like a blob- a big ball of putty protruding from silt or sand and containing an intact vase. I wouldnt be at all surprised if the putty will be hardened by it being in contact with sand and reacting with it. Either that or an exposed vase, partially showing above the sand, will be sea worn- and that part of it still buried will retain its putty and thus still be in perfect condition beneath it.  On my travels I never stop keeping my eyes open for this pottery every time I dive out in the Roads here or am walking the coast line. I expect to find bits during every dive but the reality is, its a very rare occurrence indeed- the few I have found over the years have gained over the 20 or so years.  So when I do locate a fragment I am 'cock a hoop'.  Bit sad really. Each to their own!

(All those fragments I have found and raised myself were declared to the Receiver of Wreck even when they came from nowhere near the wreck site itself.)