Lunch, Fellowship Meeting

Rotary club of Stirling meeting of 3rd August.

Welcoming members, president Sandy Farquharson thanked all those who had attended the president's lunch last Sunday. Members of Stirling Inner Wheel provided a lavish lunch, and Tom Thomson the venue, and despite the break in the Summer weather, the lunch was well attended and much enjoyed by all. We will be having a visit from the Canadian curlers in Oct/November, and Gordon Murphy is looking for members to provide hospitality. Next Friday Scott Leslie from the Abertay club will be visiting us to present the trophy for our win in the district AM/AM.

Our monthly fellowship meeting was used on this occasion to allow Lilian McGeoch to take questions arising from her talk last week on diving in the Solent on the wreck of the Mary Rose. Many of the questions were about how safety is assured in what is clearly a dangerous activity. It is the responsibility of the diver to keep up to date and in regular practice, and the organisers of the dive will require evidence of this in the form of certificates, active membership of a club and the diver's own record of diving experience. Before the retrieval began safety rules were explained, followed by a dive with an experienced diver to assess competence. Divers operate in pairs and there is always a spare diver in the water to look out for problems. Since the Mary Rose many additional health and safety rules have been introduced, for instance on a project such as this air is piped direct to the diver rather than carried in cylinders. Asked what particular memories she had of the Mary Rose Lilian mentioned the boxes of longbows packed neatly just as they had been on the day the ship sank. Obviously, there were human remains, and at one point she worked next to a skull, which found herself talking to as she worked. She was reminded of all the fit young men who lost their lives when the ship sank. The human remains were all brought to the surface as the whole vessel was to be raised. We remained impressed by the skill and determination involved in the raising of the Mary Rose.

Next meeting 10th August Speaker’s host Tom Wilson, Visitor's host Alan Bradshaw.

Ian Richardson