In at the Deep End

It is always interesting meeting someone for the first time.

There can be a bit of a stand off with awkward silences, a realisation that there is no common ground on the basis of age or upbringing, a wary and mutually suspicious approach or to the contrary you can just hit it off and feel like you have come across a long lost acquaintance.

To get to this latter stage can take a bit of time as I found out just the other day.

I was at a house in Scarborough, North Yorkshire doing an inspection for a prospective buyer.

The purpose of my visit can instil mixed feelings in a home owner. They are, on the one hand, keen to put on a good show in order to progress a sale but at the same time not wanting to seem too keen in case it comes across as anxiety or just wanting to offload, as soon as possible, a money pit, house of horrors, burdensome dwelling or millstone.

This can manifest in what I find to be an amusing attitude of nonchalance or just outright rudeness.

The home owner in this case was immediately a bit distant and prickly. He, in true wartime prisoner style gave forth only name, rank and serial number and I had to force the conversation with the usual pleasantries to find out how long he had lived there, if he had had much work done to the place and the age of the services and fixtures.

Gradually he realised that he had to contribute as much information as I was asking questions but that can have the opposite and rather unhelpful effect of loosening the tongue and before long I was being told his full life story.

I do try to make time for such autobiographical moments because I do genuinely respect and value everyone as individuals with a tale to recount. In a nutshell he had worked for all of his adult life but had taken early retirement due to heart problems. His typical day was now one of long empty hours as a house husband until his wife returned from her own employment. The house, granted, was spotlessly clean and well maintained which was testament to his hard graft even if only in frenetic bursts between bouts of feeling faint and short of breath.

Each room held different illustrations of his life. What was now a spare bedroom  was formerly that of his son now grown up and working away from home earning big money doing contracting, in what he was not entirely sure. The kitchen and bathroom had been recently refitted thanks to a matured endowment policy and the decorative work was his own through the whole house, well at least he had managed to do it before his last health scare.

Pride of place went to the garage. It had been a bit of a cold, damp and draughty affair causing his hand and power tools to develop overnight corrosion until, with another small savings policy, he had re roofed and insulated the whole thing transforming it into a cosy, warm and dry retreat and refuge from daily humdrum existence.

It was during my tour of the garage that I remarked on a strange object nestled in a corner by the up and over door.

About two feet tall, conical and in brass and glass I was not sure what it was. I must have lingered briefly musing over the item as the householder noticed and took this to be the catalyst to launch into another chapter of his personal history.

It was a mast head lantern that he had found and salvaged from an ocean going ship whilst diving off the North Yorkshire Coast.

This activity had obviously been quite a passion and for many years prior to his enforced retirement due to ill health. He had travelled widely in pursuit of diving experience from domestic waters to European, The Tropics and in variable underwater conditions of crystal clear and coral blue seas to zero visibility even under strong lights.

The lantern had caught his eye in the murky depths of the North Sea, quite accidentally in that only a small round base section had been protruding from the sea bed giving no idea of what it actually was. In being swept along in a deep current he had simply plunged his hand into the circular void and hung onto it until reaching the surface.

It had certainly cleaned up well, possibly in the former unpleasant incarnation of the garage.

Research into what was evidently a very bounteous maritime graveyard off Whitby and Scarborough, well charted and documented pinpointed the lantern to have come from a vessel wrecked in the 19th Century. Colleagues and friends in his diving club had fared better over the years with genuine treasure trove from clay jars crammed full of gold coins to ships' bells and bits of armaments, flatware, flotsam and jetsam.

I knew a little bit myself about the more famous wrecks in the Yorkshire waters including the Bonhomme Richard, which under the command of John Paul Jones brought the American War of Independence to Bridlington in 1779. This started off a new line of conversation about how the diving fraternity had offered all practical help and local knowledge to National Geographic in their bid to locate the iconic ship but yet this had been completely ignored. Consequently an expensive expedition had been wholly unsuccessful and the secret still remains to this day. He was glad of the fact.

We chatted a bit more about the hazards of deep sea diving and he was able to dispel a few myths which I admit to passing off to my own children when they were younger such as the benefits of urinating in a wet suit (Cornwall Holiday 1998), bodily explosion or implosion due to over rapid surfacing ( Kefalonia 2000), drinking excessive amounts of sea water (Corfu 2002), stepping on a Weaver Fish (Fraisthorpe Beach 2006), how to pick up a live crab (Robin Hoods Bay 2007) and the prospect of being eaten by a Great White Shark in only ankle deep shallows (Coral Sea, Australia 2008).

We could have talked for hours but it was time for me to leave. Incidentally, the house passed the survey with a clean bill of health.