Diver by Tony Groom, Seafarer Books, £9.95.
Tony Groom joined the Royal Navy at 17, determined to become a diver. As a member of the Fleet Clearance Diving Team, he found himself diving for mines, dealing with unexploded bombs and being shot at in the Falklands War. He left the Navy in 1985 and has since travelled the world as a commercial diver.
This book is his honest, moving and sometimes hilarious account of a hair-raisingly exciting career. “From the age of 15 onwards, I have spent most of my life on, in or under the sea, and I feel very privileged for that,” he writes.
Anyone who shares his passion for the sea will find a lot to enjoy in this book - after all you can't get much closer to the water than being a deep sea diver. And the book gives an interesting, insider's view on a career-choice that would certainly not be to everyone's taste!
From training raw recruits to living for months in a pressurised bottle, “commuting to work through a hole in the floor in the freezing, black depths of the North Sea,” the author has some great - and often highly educational - stories to share.
