Heritage Open Days event

Royal Navy Clearance Diver training in the 1970s and 1980s was an infamously grueling. Former Royal Naval clearance diver, James Carlin, gives a fascinating look into the nitty-gritty of how you trained for this dangerous work.

Training to be a RN Clearance Diver involved harsh physical conditioning, open-water dives using twin compressed air sets, and rigorous closed-circuit diving drills for stealth operations.

Because physical photography from the era is heavily preserved in private archives, this talk will enlighten you to what training conditions were like on land and underwater.

Your speaker, James, will give an insight, from his lived experience, into the training received from start to finish and what it takes to become a clearance diver. The presentation will cover the intricacies of the training, equipment used for all the tasks, the length of training and details of how to discover more information.

Please arrive 10 minutes before this Talk starts to be comfortably seated.

This event is part of the annual Gosport Heritage Open Days programme, which this year take place between the 11th and 20th September and involve venues and organisations across the borough. As well as hosting a number of events, Holy Trinity will also be open every day throughout the period for self-guided tours and informal organ recitals, from 10am - 4pm each day (except Saturday 12th between 12.15 and 3pm, and Sunday 20th between 1.30 and 3pm, when there are private services taking place).