Stan Holford
Stan belongs to: The Diving Centre Ltd
Stan became fascinated with diving from an early age from reading stories about the frogmen. He started The Diving Centre Ltd in 1959.
Stan was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 7 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 1 hour, 27 minutes and 45 seconds.
Starting The Diving Centre
"By that time I had accumulated an aqualung- an aqualung as per what you would class as an aqualung today"
By that time I had accumulated an aqualung- an aqualung as per what you would class as an aqualung today, and unfortunately the air containers that we used in them days were only little tubs- 40 cubic foot bottles. But even with this stuff when we used to come out, exiting the North Sea, at whatever point, whether it was at St Mary’s Island, Beadnell, wherever, crowds used to gather because you were like a man from Mars. And the questions that used to be fired at you then were “what’s it like underneath there?”, “how can we see it?” And I realised that there was an opening there for teaching these people, that maybe there was a business here. And that’s how the diving centre in Newcastle started in 1959.
As I say, diving, scuba diving, Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus as it was known was so much in its infancy that talking to the bank manager, you were just shown the door straight away. So literally it had to be done on a shoe string and trying to earn a living at sports diving in those days was, well it just couldn’t be done. But I formed another company at the same particular time as the diving centre called Trail-a-boat Ltd with the idea of hiring a boat that you could trail behind your car- Trail-a-boat Ltd. And we did manage to keep going and build the diving side up on the back of hiring boats, canoes etc and it was success.
Stan has 19 memories in the memorynet:
Stan's memories with a Lifestyles theme:
Starting diving- Starting The Diving Centre
Diving in Malta- Commercial diving
- Trail-a-boats
- The Lobster Pot
- Waterskiing the English Channel
Stan's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Change | Equipment | Leisure | Lifestyles
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