Adrian Barak 1 - Touching timbers that had not been seen for 400 years
Adrian first heard about the Mary Rose Project in 1971 from a television programme. He had also see the Mary Rose divers when travelling on the Isle of Wight ferry. He was a member of the Brighton Sub Aqua club, and travelled to Portsmouth in 1971 to get involved with the project.
Adrian held a number of roles over the 13 years he worked on the project. Starting as a volunteer diver, then becoming a Diving Officer, an Archaeological Supervisor, and then Personal Assistant to the Salvage Director.
In the clip below he describes his very first dive on the site in 1971.
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Extract Text (Duration00.40)
I went down for the first time and Margaret give me a very good briefing on the surface, Margaret Rule. Two of the experienced divers, Reg Clowsdale and Peter Powell went down with me and I'm looking at these four pieces of timber which was all that was showing, which were actually proved to be the tops of the stern frame on the port stern quarter, in the end, but at the time were just big, square timbers. And they started labelling these and I was given a job of labelling them and then moving along the line, excavating by hand to see if what we could find. And we started to find more of them and so on and so forth. And I thought, gosh, here I am diving on a site and touching timbers that have perhaps not been seen for over 400 years.
Touching timbers that had not been seen for 400 years
00.40 mins - mp3 File
This kind of archaeology then was in its infancy
00.35 mins - mp3 File
Archaeological work 40 ft down on the seabed
01.16 mins - mp3 File
We were amazed by the condition of the timbers
01.29 mins - mp3 File
I came across what looked like a stick
00.30 mins - mp3 File
Could this ship be raised?
00.52 mins - mp3 File
I may have an idea how we can raise your ship off the seabed
02.20 mins - mp3 File
