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INTERVIEW


oxygen poisoning the person would turn blue and could easily die’.’ Dave returned to sea on board a


minesweeper during the Cold War in 1982. ‘We were in the North Sea looking for mines and shadowing the Russians,’ he said.


By this time he had completed


a two month course to become a diving supervisor. During his career, Dave completed


five tours in northern ireland, which including stints with the emergency diving team checking ships for limpet mines or other explosives that may have been attached to their underbellies.


He also took part in police and army


patrols, boarding vessels suspected of carrying illegal cargo. Dave often had to board questionable boats in stormy conditions, scaling their 40-ft hulls up a rope ladder in a tin helmet and bulky lifejacket carrying a sub machine gun, pistol and sometimes an alarmed sniffer dog. ‘We found quite a lot of illegal stuff,


like weapons and illegal substances that would be used for explosives,’ he said. In 1983 Dave became the chief diver


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in charge of the 16-strong Plymouth Bomb Disposal Unit team, clearing shore-based bomb ranges, dealing with trawled-up mines and, in a time of


IRA terrorist threats, suspect packages. His first job after completing the necessary Improvised Explosive Device course, was entering offices in Exeter where someone on the 11th floor had received a suspicious package complete with dubious-looking wires and a threatening note. Dave was tasked to enter the evacuated building alone to deal with the risky situation. Luckily it turned out to be a hoax, to his great relief.


The last job of his naval career took Dave, his wife Cathy and their two children to Hong Kong where he spent two years doing bomb disposal work, ship maintenance and dealing with decompression cases among chinese fishermen. Then he retired. ‘I knew


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my next job was going to be not that exciting so I decided enough was enough. I would have been working in London giving lectures about national terrorism and security. I had always been an action man, jumping out of helicopters, off the sides of ships and running around. ‘i had bought four of five diving helmets in Korea and I started selling them, so I thought I could sell nautical antiques and I’ve been doing it ever since’.


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The spills and thrills of bomb disposal remain in Dave’s life as he works as a bomb disposal adviser for a civilian company and recently oversaw the safe explosion of a large mine perilously near several oil rigs off England’s east coast. The 65-year-old, who


lives at the head of Warfleet creek, keeps fit by surfing off Bantham Beach and swimming, often for charity including the Portsmouth-based Vernon Monument Project dedicated to the diving and mine warfare heritage of HmS vernon.• by Ginny Ware


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