Scribe: Phil Davies

The club celebrated its 25th anniversary of BSAC 890 on the 12 August 2001 which was the date of the meeting that formed the club. In 1964 it began as the Boscome Down Sub Aqua Club, it was not a branch of BSAC and no training or qualification were offered.  It was basically a group of individuals who went diving.

We had our own premises at Boscombe Down, which consisted of a disused wooden barrack room, it had lots of space for meetings, storage and a workshop, this latter item was important as many of the members built their own aqua lungs.  No test certificates were ever applied for as we filled the bottles up ourselves from high pressure air banks used to service aircraft pneumatic systems.

Wet suits were invariably home made as were other accessories such as waterproof lights.
Pool training was carried out at Southampton but not often. Sometime later we joined the Bulford Sub Aqua Club BSAC 294 which was an Army club, and we were subject to their regulations and all had to be members of the Army Sub Aqua Diving Association.

Wet suits were invariably home made as were other accessories such as waterproof lights.

As civilians it was not always easy to fit in with the Army regulation as they required a Army diving supervisor to be present on all open water dives, this is in addition to BSAC rules. In order to get around the problems we approached the Civil Service Sports Council for help, and they were only too pleased to oblige. 

We were now semi-independent as a Civil Service sub-aqua club within an army club and members of BSAC 294.  We received a grant from the CSSC and bought diving equipment consisting of 2 Luxsfer 72 and 2 Snark demand valves and 3 Fensy ABLJ . We also had the use of the Civil Service Club at Alexandra House (now the Income Tax Office and Law Courts) in which to hold in some considerable comfort, meetings lectures etc.

Portable Air Compressors

We enjoyed many advantages by being members of BSAC 294 like the use of the pool at Bulford and the use of Army diving equipment including inflatable boats (not RIBS).  We also spent weekends away and stayed at Army barracks.  We even moved portable HP air banks from Boscombe Down to Bulford and to the coast, for our own use. (try that sort of  thing now)
Other advantages were the use of a lecture hall, a portable compressor, and we had our own club house in what was the old theatre building at Bulford.

Confiscated Equipment

It is an old saying that no man can serve two masters, and inevitably we fell out with the Army resulting in all the civilians being expelled from BSAC 294.  It was at this time that we approached BSAC an formed our own branch, BSAC 890 but we had lost the use of Bulford pool and the CSSC had confiscated all our diving equipment.

After a lot of work by all members of the new club we were able to regain the use of the pool and the CSSC returned our equipment. The rest is History.

Salisbury Civil Service Sub-Aqua Club

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