Lagan

You’ll hear a lot of stories near the water, stories about lost ships, buried treasure, and fish as long as your arm. It’s mostly harmless rubbish, spun by blokes who’ve spent too long staring at the horizon looking for land. But let me tell you something, not all the stories are made up. Some are true, hidden in plain sight. And there are no sirens in my stories, my girl.

Everything is anchored in the truth. That’s the best kind of story. And for you to know what you need to know about this one, I need to tell you about a little strip of water called the Solent.

Picture this - you’re on the South Coast of England, sandwiched between the mainland and the Isle of Wight. Now, the Solent is peculiar in that it is a strait that is so very close to land on both sides, no more than a mile at times, especially around Hurst Spit. But she is deep. And another thing of it, formed millions of years ago by I don’t know how, means that the ports of Southampton to the west and Portsmouth to the east are readily accessible, and sheltered. The Isle of Wight sits in front of them like a little buffer, taking the blows that the English Channel has to throw. And when you are at sea and you need to get into a port, shelter is what you need. The fog will come down, and come down it does, rolling in like a thick, grey soup, but that’ll be your only problem. You won’t worry about storms or swells. The blanket of fog will be so dense you can’t see your own hand in front of your face let alone the starboard lights of another vessel, and the fog horns will be blaring across the town, but you don’t ever get worried about storms. The Solent will keep you safe.

So why am I telling you this? Because a lot of boats and ships will choose that little lane of water to make their way to port, or just to skirt along the South Coast of England. It’s busier than Oxford Street in the Christmas sales. And it’s always been like that. Vast ships coming close to land. You ever seen any of those old Pathé newsreels? Black and white, of great big ships coming back to port after the war? With lads, decked out in their dress uniforms, waving furiously from the rigging? Likely that’ll be shot as the navy ships come back to Portsmouth. Always been a naval thoroughfare. Always has been and always will be if the locals have anything to say on the matter.

Anyway, in the 1970s they found a ship, and not just any ship. One of King Henry VIII’s boats, the Mary Rose it was. The archeologists suspected that it was going to be there, at the bottom of the Solent, in the silt and the soup. And eventually, with scanning and science and whatnot, they found it.

And can you believe it? These great beams of beautiful English oak, cracked and swollen in the mud, that grey sludge that held her safe for over four hundred years. And how do I know what it looked like? Well, I was lucky enough to dive down to it.

In them days I was doing a lot of saturation diving. It’s a kind of commercial diving, but it's the one where the money is. And the money is there because if you don’t know what you’re doing then you’re not ever going home to your missus again. Get yourself six months on one of the rigs in the North Sea and you’ll be set for the year. Nice cars, fancy home, double glazing, the works. But, and here is the kicker, you’ll be locked into a month of going down to the bottom of the sea. You’ll be in a pressurised container or you’ll be in your suit down at the dive site, for a month. The company saves money because you dodge the bends and don’t spend weeks in a decompression chamber getting the nitrogen out of your system. And the company is so good to share some of that with you to make up for the fact you’ve been stuck between a diving bell and the deep blue sea for weeks on end.

I’m going off on tangents here.

Anyway, the Mary Rose, that thatch of beams all battered from the brine over the years. Slumped like a drunk on the sea bed. Not much to look at, initially. But there were some proper smart people who were sure there was something down there. Something else. Clichéd as it sounds, a bit of treasure wouldn’t go amiss. But honestly, she was the King of England’s warship. That’s what the Mary Rose was - the pride of the English Navy. She was supposed to be filled to the gunwales with ammunition and arms, but more importantly the spoils of war. But initially, nothing. We found nothing. Not a sausage.

I helped them bring up bits because I’m a local lad and it was something to do between being on the rigs. But I’ll be honest with you, I always did fancy having a proper poke around.

But you see, this was all going on in the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, that’s right - the Solent. Bunch of academics swimming around digging up the past, whilst cargo ships and fancy yachts and that bloody hovercraft like a leaf blower on steroids in your lug hole bob around above. How are you going to make that safe for divers to go down? So this is what the powers that be did… they marked off this little section right, with buoys and things, and that’s it. The passing vessels agreed to temporarily give it a wide berth, and it bobbed around as a little no man’s land at sea. And you can’t be bringing that in and out each day, so it just stayed there, all week. For weeks which turned into months which turned into years. And the whole time, a whole revolving team of people was diving and surveying and working out how to right this ship.

Five days a week. Monday to Friday. Diving down and scrabbling around and attaching floats and bringing up the derelict from the bottom of the sea. Derelict. Nautical term. Flotsam, and jetsam, and lagan, and derelict. I’d look those up if I was you. It can be handy to know the difference sometimes.

So me and a mate thought we’d make use of that five day week, and we had ourselves a little look around one weekend.

Now, what do you know about diving? Ever done it? Ever been underwater for any amount of time? Sure when you’re off on your holidays in Hawaii or Thailand the water is as clear as your best Waterford Crystal, but cold water is dark water. But that was good for us. With a few diving lamps it’s easy to see what others are missing. And the dark keeps you hidden if you know what I mean. We borrowed a boat and some spare tanks off a mate as you do, no questions asked, and took an afternoon to explore around.

And that was the Mary Rose. Slumped on the seabed. Marred in mud, a mass of twisted timbers. They never did find any gold down there. But it did get a lot of press nonetheless.

Shortly after me and my mate had a look around on the sly, I was back on the day job. And one day we had word that we were getting a special visitor - Prince Charles. Bonny Prince Charlie. Now he’s the King, but back then he was just our next in line, the big eared bachelor, coming down for a look around. He didn’t dive down to the wreck that day, but he came out onto the boats that bobbed around above site. We was all meant to be on our best behaviour that day, and rightly so. The visit made front page news around the world. All the Times; New York Times, London Times, maybe even the bleeding Bombay Times I don’t know. And all of them, they all printed this same picture. And you can see, if you look closely, you can see the marker buoys that sectioned off that little bit of the Solent. And they are all yellow in colour. Except one. One of them is red. Interesting that, when you know what to look out for.

Few years later when the site was officially closed, the press did another picture. Didn’t make as many front pages, but you can still find it online if you fancy having a look. Again, you can see all the marker buoys. Bunch of small sailing boats and day trippers in the foreground. And all the markers are there, holding that little piece of sea safe for a few moments more. And those buoys are all yellow. Every single one of them. Funny that.

I settled down after that. Early retirement. Pure coincidence of course. Diving can pay very well as I told you. And I wanted to put my feet up for a bit. After all, I’d made a good living off of diving and all that.

And what of the Mary Rose? Well, if I’m honest, that old girl has seen better days.