Ken 1968                          Ken in his workshop                                       Ken 2005

Ken has been diving for over forty years after a friend encouraged him to join the Stevenage Sub-aqua Club in 1964.

When he made his first dive 'on the reef’ in the middle of Swanage Bay on the south coast of England in 1965, he could not have possibly imagined that diving would become a central theme throughout his life.

Early diving was a big adventure; home-made wet suits, weight belts and backpacks. Cylinders and life-jackets were ex-RAF and there were no contents gauges. It all seems a far cry from today’s diving, which is warmer and safer with easy access to worldwide travel.

His first dives were made for adventure and exploration so it wasn’t long before he was diving along the wreck strewn coasts of the UK. If there was a wreck between 10 and 100 ft deep, the club would dive it and enjoy a good rummage looking for small items lost by the unfortunate passengers and crew of the luckless vessel.

Ken had been diving for almost twenty years before he took a camera underwater. Whether it was his desire to show the family where he had been all weekend, or an increasing interest in his underwater surroundings he is not sure. He ‘borrowed’ his wife’s Kodak instamatic camera, built a plastic housing in his home workshop and took it diving.

The early pictures were challenging and if anything recognisable appeared on the film there was a great sense of achievement. Replacing flash bulbs underwater was an art form. If you went too deep they would implode and if you let one go whilst taking it from its holder and trying to push it into the bulb holder it would take off to the surface like a missile. Misfires were common and back scatter was normal.

Then, in the early eighties, he bought a Nikonos III on a business trip to Hong Kong and he was hooked. It took several years and one of Martin Edge’s legendary weekend underwater photo courses before the odd acceptable shot ‘came off the roll’.

Since the early years of designing, building and customising underwater camera kit, Ken is still absorbed by this activity to this day. Between dive trips one can find him enjoying a few days helping his friends and contacts get the most out of their underwater camera kit by some serious customisation.

Today, Ken dives with his camera, family and friends, selecting dive venues for their attractive reefs and fascinating animal life, see 'Dive trips’: click here >>>

Ken’s three children and two of his grandchildren (so far) are divers and accompany him on trips whenever possible, see 'Meet the Family’: click here >>>

We hope you enjoy looking at the pictures as much as Ken enjoyed taking them.