Tuesday 7 December 2010

"Give me back my Woolly Socks"

There's a few people from Scotland not being very nice about the video that I posted yesterday! (see yesterday's blog). What they're missing is the shot overlooking the beach 52 seconds in - check out the line up and the banks. If we get a decent swell, Polzeath will be firing like J-Bay!

I lived in Scotland many years ago - firstly in Fort William where I was training to be a deep sea diver, now that was cold. On occassions we used these special wetsuits that were very thin, 1mm but they had these veins running through them. Hot water was pumped through the veins from the surface, so when you were down 100ft or so, it was like being in a hot bath. Fantastic. Couldn't see anything mind - you could just about make out your hand if you put it on the glass of the Kirby (helmet). Dark, cold, murky - happy days. It was my Dad's idea to go on the course - apparently I'd given away too many of his ladders! (ref blog 19th November, One small step for Man).

I remember there were quite a few students on that three month course that were 'unstable'. It was quite a tense environment. One of them, Simon was a 28 year old, 6ft 6, ex SBS Shrek lookalike - a thug of the highest order. During our explosives section of the course, he put a stick of dynamite up a dead sheeps bottom, blew it up and then went off in search of the head so that he could keep it as a momento. Yeah, give this guy a wide, wide berth was my instinct! (slight aside - he didn't prove quite so hard when we were both in the decompresson chamber coming up from a 150ft dive when his ears started hurting. Ah, love.)

On one particular day his woolly socks had gone walk about and he was hunting down the perpetrator like the enemy. (Although he was ex SBS - I'm not whether he'd actually ever seen any action). He was looking for someone to accuse of the theft. Did I say accuse? I meant kill! It was like a scene from Midnight Express. He was warming up with the others. Some of them were Scallop Divers from the Orkneys - they would give him no joy. They were proper tough, but gentle with it. They'd didn't feel the need to be the Alpha Male. As the only soft southerner there it was only a matter of time before he turned his attentions onto me. I could hear his heavy footsteps getting louder. The room fell silent. He found me to be honest at a very inconvenient moment. All I had on were my pants and, yes, my woolly socks! I was in a position of great weakness (hm, toastie tootsies though). Now backed against the wall, he launched into a tirade of abuse, we stood nose to nose as his spit splattered onto my face. "You've stolen my socks!" he spat! "Give me back my socks!" What to do? I knew that the threat of telling my Mum of his poor behaviour was unlikely to swing it.

I have no idea why I did, what I did, next. But inside I felt a deep injustice. I had my socks, they were mine, not his. Why should I give him mine? I fixed him in the eye and yelled as loud as I've ever yelled, "I HAVEN'T GOT YOUR WOOLLY SOCKS!" The room fell silent...... story to be continued, Janey needs the computer!


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