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Introduction
Having announced his retirement during the summer of
2002 a final dive on the fabulous ocean liner Justicia off
Northern Ireland was as good a wreck as any for Mr. Nick Legras
(pronounced Le-Grarr) to say thanks very much and hang up
those fins or should I say sell them fins after some 22 years
exploring shipwrecks. |
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I first met Nick back in the summer
of 1992 on a small jetty in Lymington harbour, on England's
south coast we were about to take a trip out to a little
old wreck by the name of the Espagne aboard Sundance
II owned at the time by fisherman Rodger Bayzand. A
rather tall wiry looking guy in a Barbour jacket suddenly
perked up from behind a small trolley loaded with dive
crates. " Alright" he said as I peered over
to someone who looked as if his head was on upside-down,
his scruffy untamed beard was touched either side by
a cheesy grin and a 6ft iron bar clenched to his chest,
I later found to his porthole prising bar! I squinted
in the bright English sunshine as the reflection bounced
back off his bald pinnacle, little did I realize at
the time that this odd chap that looked as if he was
old enough to be my uncle would in fact become a friend
for life.
Being a somewhat nervous passenger at the best of
times but the "Bentley bypass" saga was
one that still wakes me during the night. We were
on route to Poole in Dorset for a dive, the car loaded
heavily with Cylinders with Nick driving, and myself
in the passenger seat, gripping more by the second
to the door handle as the accelerator eased its way
to the floor. With a cigarette hanging off his lips
Nick glanced at me and winked as he worked his way
across the 100mph point on the Speedo. The Bentley
bypass near Alton Hampshire was beginning to run out
of width as the two lanes converged into one, but
the acceleration continued as I slumped into the seat
wedging my feet into the dash. Why oh why had I so
foolishly made the time honoured mistake of catching
a lift with this renowned lunatic? I closed my eyes,
ahh a comforting feeling fell across me as my life
no longer whizzed past, I am eased I feel better much
more relaxed although my subconscious still bleats
on in the background that Nick's foot remains stuck
fast to the foot well. I speak out loud " God
its so much better, if you close your eyes" there
is yet another momentary pause before Nick speaks
"so it is" he replies! My eyes open instantly
in horror, as this guy was now driving me at 114mph
with his eyes closed!
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So now you begin to get a feel for this months character, this
chap, this? well striking pillar of the community. This is a guy
that had walked into McDonalds and ordered 69 pence worth of small
fries, a light snack for himself just to take the edge off! Beginning
to get irritated by the length of time the fries took to arrive,
he began to pace as he caught eye of the young man serving and
the manager whispering suspiciously. Moments latter the young
man returned with large fries, a Big Mac, apple pie and a large
coke, "I ordered small fries" said Nick with a raised
tone forcing the order back across the counter. The young man
eased the order back across the counter eying him as if in disgust
from head to toe" Sir Please, this order is on the house"
Nick looked at the young man then back at himself, he was wearing
tracksuit bottoms, rigger boots an old donkey jacket with 6"nails
for buttons and was extremely unshaven! Not to mention the bit
of rope holding his bottoms up! You've guessed it the management
of MacDonald's had taken him for a Street Tramp and was palming
him off with an order simply to get shot of him from the restaurant!
I had not seen Uncle Nick for a while so I agreed to meet him
in a quaint English Pub on the eastern border of Northamptonshire
and. as the open fire cracked away and the real ale flowed, I
managed to take some notes about Nick some of which I hadn't known
myself.
Interview
DI; Nick some people have referred to you, as a fashion Icon
is this true?
NL: Please call me Sir most
people do, err I suppose I am really, I do, always like to make
the effort and dress smartly during my leisure time I especially
like my woolly hat, I even wear that during the summer diving season.
DI; Have you ever been in a decompression chamber?
NL; I've been in three actually
all for different bends Fort Bovey, Poole and Haslar but I liked
the Poole chamber best.
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DI; You preferred Poole why is that?
NL; Well it was very picturesque
and even had a crystal chandelier.
DI; So how long have
you been diving?
NL; I started diving on
a try dive in Bermuda. I then took it up seriously in 1980
when I was studying at Plymouth Polytechnic for a degree in
civil engineering as it was an option on the course and I
made it to 2nd class diver by graduation. My father was also
a diver, which of course influenced me quite heavily.
DI: so in the 22 years you have been diving what have
you focused on
NL; Lobsters, I'm fascinated
by them, the bigger the better and of course make great eating.
No honestly, wreck diving through and through mainly in the
English channel, I met up with a chap called Wetlegs at the
tale end of 84, he hung out with another guy called Dog Shit,
between them they were looking for some adventurous deep diving
which was exciting by my standards. I have dived elsewhere
for instance in Bermuda, America, the Red sea and Cuba. But
I don't do fish!
In fact on my first dip in Bermuda to 10m on a wreck, I found
a glass Ampoule containing morphine, you know just like the
ones they were finding in the film 'The Deep' that film with
that tidy old bird in err what's her name?
DI; Jackie Bissett
NL: That's her anyway
what I was saying umm?
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Steam Whistle recovered
& restored by Mr Legras |
DI; Your first dive in Bermuda?
NL; That's right yes I got hooked
big time especially for finding artifacts and went on to do some
serious wreck diving for the first time, with Wetlegs & Dogshit,
we used Rodger Bayzand a top fishing charter skipper from Lymington
in Hampshire. We were also diving with Dave 'Crustie' Saywell from
Poole back then.
In the early 90s we were messing around with explosives and banging
off conning towers from Subs, we did the Safari and all sorts, of
course all we got out of it was a freebie dive Crustie went home
with the gunmetal and bronze and weighed it all in! Swine! If I
recall I think we even got to pay for our own air!
DI; So do you have any other qualifications other than 2nd
class?
NL; I've got my part III commercial
ticket, before I left Polytechnic as I wanted to be a professional
diver. I was offered work in the Gulf, I was seriously thinking
about that when the next day I accepted a job in Civil Engineering
so left the commercial diving behind. I later did Nitrox and Trimix
qualifications.
Icon of fashion Legras's trends
were followed by hundreds of
south coast wreck divers throughout the 1990's
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DI; do you have an explosives licence.
NL: No, but I did do a
one day acquaint. at Fort Bovie!
DI; You've just retired,
so I take it your going to move on, is there anything that
you have done that you regret or say for example that you
have kept secret from your diving colleagues over the years?
NL; Err I don't know really
lets have a think…….. I suppose I do have some beans
to spill but its not that bad
DI; Go on
NL; Well as you know I had my own garage gas mixing station
for years and I was selling Air as Nitrox, which was kind
of crafty.
DI; WHAT? Even to your mates Gulp!
NL: Of course! I was making
a killing and all along it was just air everyone thought they
were diving nitrox though. I had an old empty BOC cylinder that
I occasionally topped up with air stood next to my blending
system, you know for those occasions when someone chose to hang
around for his gas instead of leaving it with me. Quite often
Wetlegs got the odd twitch after a dive, all I had to do was
bite my tongue to stop me from laughing to myself.
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DI; What was your most memorable dive?
NL; Oh definitely a wreck called
the Smyrna its an old white star Clipper in a depth of 188ft off
the back of the Wight, we dived her one time in almost 130ft viz
it was orgasmic. She's a superb dive and almost certainly one of
my favorites.
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DI; What was your deepest dive?
NL; It was with the Starfish
gang, you remember, you were there, it was an unknown wreck
at 100m in the English Channel, we dived from Andy Smiths
old Skin Deep, when you guys were pulling off deep dives out
at sea in the build up for the Britannic 98 expedition.
DI: That's right I remember now of course you didn't
come to Britannic did you?
NL; No, I wasn't invited;
apparently after 20 years of diving I didn't have the appropriate
skills or social graces. I should have liked to dive that
monster and that will always be a regret.
DL: Did you regret not having the skills or not doing
the dive?
NL: Don't be a prat!
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The dodgy looking mixing station where
Mr Legras sold nitrox as, well err, nitrox! |
NL; Had you back then didn't
I!
DI; Had me what do you mean?
NL; With that Air as Nitrox
thing, should have seen your face when you thought I had sold you
some!
DI; Phew thank god for that, your right, for a moment I believed
you, good joke Nick you had me hook line and sinker on that one!
Uncle Legras getting it off the back of the Isle
of Wight during the summer of 1993
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DI; Have you ever had any real scares whilst diving
at all?
NL; I've had loads, all
diving with Wetlegs, but I was usually scared for him!
But of course the one that really comes to mind is quite a
serious one that almost cost me my life. For some bizarre
reason and don't ask why, I attached a heap of extra lead
to my twin set manifold with some old string and tucked it
in to the cylinder netting.
I somersaulted off the boat and plummeted to the bottom, some
190ft, below, totally inverted without clearing my ears. But
not before I had made mad frantic vain attempts to regain
the surface .I didn't know it at the time but I had landed
right on the decks of an upright steamer called the Dumfries.
All the air was in the feet of my drysuit and I was pinned
by the shoulders to the bottom by the weight of my gear, so
I was unable to roll over. Remember I'm upside down and of
course the fuckin regulators hadn't wanted to know since leaving
the surface, like dishing me say 98% water, I was continuously
purging just to breathe. I didn't know I was on the wreck
and so couldn't assume I would be found
DI: Furrkin ell man so what did you do?
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Legras on the initial dump
trials of crustie saywell's new
charter boat toilet (an old bucket) |
NL: I honestly thought I was
a goner you know brown bread big style. I went for my knife to slit
my drysuit legs in an attempt to release the air locked in them
but physically couldn't reach the height required to make it happen.
By this time I was exhausted and running out of options. There was
only one answer ditch the dive gear and get the hell out of there,
as soon as I released the harness on my wings I shot inverted to
the surface rapido, My arrival surprised the skipper, who thought
I was one of those clever American blow up doll missiles. It really
shook me up for weeks that did you know.
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DI: God man, I bet it did, so what about all your
gear? Is that still down there?
NL; No my dive partner
Wetlegs initially just thought I had buggered off on the descent
without him, something I often did, looking back now I suppose
its kind of funny because he was routing around the wreck
and bumped into all my gear. Can you imagine his thoughts,
there's all my gear on the wreck lashed down securely to the
deck with a ton of lead and I'm nowhere to be seen.
DI; So what did he do?
NL; Well like the decent
old chap he is he kindly bagged it up for me.
It arrived on the surface a little over 5 Minuits after I
did!
DI; I heard a rumour that you found a load of old
early 1970's bondage mags on a building site is this true?
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Bound to please! One of dozens
of Bondage mags Mr Legras
discovered on a building site. |
NL; Oh yeah totally true, you
see I was sniffing round this old house that our company was due
to demolish and found a stack of quality bondage mags that you would
never believe They were in an old chest.
DI; So do you still have them?
NL; No you got most of them
remember? I gave a heap of them to you when my wife moved in the
house, the rest we used on deco stops.
Lobster poaching during an illegal early morning
session on a man made farm in Scotland |
DI; Err err umm yeah-well best we move Ok What's your
favourite dive boat.
NL; Easy that one Tim
Benettos boat out of Brighton but if it was a liveaboard it
would have to be Richie Stevenson's Loyal watcher. I like
the watcher you see because it has a very private shower were
you can get away from the other divers for a quick five mins.
DI; A quick 5 mins exactly what does that entail?
NL; Well you know a quick
you know err shower like.
DI; what about Marmite do you like that?
NL; Yes as they say you
either do or you don't simple as that and I do.
DI; What do you think has been the biggest transition
in diving and particularly for you
NL; Defiantly the jump
to Nitrox and to Trimix. We began mixing gas back in early
93 and started hitting deep wrecks. The mix changed the way
we dived so much its unbelievable, before mix, you just had
to accept being out of your tree each dive, still at the time
we thought we were the dogs bollocks and impressed all the
newcomers in the bar with tales of daring.
DI; Were analyzer's available back then?
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NL; Yeah I had a converted multimeter that was sold by some
dodgy looking bloke down my local pub. He said it had fell off the
back of a lorry but I never did trust him, he had a big scar on
his face one arm and a trench coat. He also sold potting shed conversions
for 100 quid, I later found out what his name was!
DI; What was it?
NL; Can,t say not if this is being published dont want to end up
in some liability case like that one you once got involved in.
| DI; Good point, Potting
Shed conversions can you tell us more.
NL; Yea this well known
diving chap was selling these conversion kits that turned
your humble potting shed into a dungeon, all for a 100 quid
and he even slung in a stretching rack, which was not bad
quality for its day. Of course the ones you can get now are
so sophisticated, take for example the one I just brought
a couple of months back! it even has remote control wrist
and ankle locks.
DI; Do you have a favourite read?
NL: Yes, I'm fascinated
by submarines and U-boats and have a collection of books on
them. I've dived many as well in fact a cherished artefact
from such a wreck is the electric repeater compass from a
U-boat which can you believe still has the Nazi eagle and
swastika on it. Going back yes my favourite book is the U-boat
War by Lothar Gunther Buchheim the photos are superb.
DI; U-Boats that's interesting. So have you heard
of a geezer called Innes McCartney?
NL; Heard of him I've
slept with him!
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Uncle Nick mixing nitrox on the Isle
of wight in the summer of 1993. Note
the terrible effect his bald head has
against the camera lens when the sun
is high in the sky. |
DI; You've what?!!!!
NL; Yea true story this, again
I was diving with the Starfish Gang out of Looe in Cornwall, England
and we were stopping at this place that accommodated quite a few
of us. I was early arriving on the Fri night and snatched up the
double bed in the corner before anyone else had a chance. Christina
Campbell had booked the accommodation and there were supposed to
be seven guys in three rooms although I only counted 6 beds I just
thought she had fucked up. It was about 1.30am and Innes arrived
looking for his bed; after a few minutes rustling around and falling
over things in the dark he turned the light on to find his bed.
It appeared that the only space left was in the double bed I was
in.
Loading the dive boat at Lymington. Legras (circled)
shows off his
porthole removal bar for the camera. Again the photograph has
been
destroyed by the severe reflection to the camera lens from sun
off his head.
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DI; I guess he wasn't happy about that
NL; No he wasn't infact
he stormed off out demanding a refund!
DI; So where did he crash?
NL; Oh he came back about
half hour later stomping and swearing claiming he had no where
else to sleep, and was going to complain to the landlady in
the morning and refuse to pay. Basically he had to slip in
between the sheets with me.
You should have seen he face in the morning it was a real
picture, he looked horrified.
DI; No!!! Tell me you two didn't!
NL: God no you must be joking
I'm not like that, nor is he, infact he's married. No he was
horrified because I sat up in the bed like a zombie and lit
up a fag.
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DI; That's a cracking story.
NL; Yep let me tell you son
there's a few more in the bag where they came from.
DI; You've been an avid collector of artifacts over the
years what has been your best piece?
NL; Has to be the bell off a four
masted barque, one right out in the channel.
It was right at the end of the 97 season the come back dive after
my accident when the ears had healed. 14 bells had come up between
our crew that season alone although I didn't have one. I'd bagged
about three for other people I'd done my
time I wanted one,
DI; fare enough
NL; Yea, then it happened right
at the tale end of the season I found my bell, got down on the seabed
and prayed a big thank you to god.
DI; So any advice to someone
say who does not have a bell,
NL; Tough
DI; Is there any strength in the rumour that Well-known wreck
diver Chris Hutchison came round your house once for Sunday lunch
and left with a bill?
NL; Certainly not that a vicious
rumour or complete bollocks.
DI; Do you have any children?
NL; No I'm a self confessed
Jaffa.
DI; what you're had the snip?
NL; Yep
DI; Nick, do you hate anything?
NL; Police speed cameras needless
to say, being sea sick before a dive as all the bits get in your
regulators, DOGS with a passion, fuckin things and cheese and beetroot
sandwiches, especially if they were made the night before,"
a la Bones"!
DI; Dare I ask what you Love?
NL; Of course you can Fine food,
Living in general especially for the moment and finally you Leigh!
Oh and of course My Wife.
DI; Arr thanks, I'm touched do you have a favourite album
or type of Music?
Editors note; Due to circumstances Nick's answer to the above was
UN-publishable for reasons of his own public safety. Ok you've twisted
my arm Click
here to find out more.
DI; What of the future for you then?
NL; Well my good wife Gill and I are
going to do lots of paragliding together and I have just discovered
believe it or not at the grand old age of 44 Real Ale so no doubt
I'll be popping a drop of that back I'm also a fanatical filer so
I suppose it I'll re-file all my files once again and of course
Tea.
DI; Tea?
NL; Old English panacea young
man this empire was built on the stuff. and you just reminded me
I might even restore my U-boat compass sometime.
DI; Do you have any advice for someone reading this interview?
NL; Don't carry additional lead
especially lashed to your manifold. Also watch out for single, Northern
motorcycling females, they make you give up diving!!
DI; Nick on behalf of everybody at the Deep Image team we
wish you the best of luck in the future
NL;Thanks very much I'm touched.
Deep Image team what's that supposed to mean I thought it was just
you at home in your bedroom?
DI; Shoosh now there's a good lad!
Editors note; Never take everything
you read as gospel! Remember taking things seriously can defiantly
damage your sense of humour. Be sure to tune in again folks who
knows the BIG interview could be you!
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