100 YEARS AGO: SALFORD DIVERS HORRENDOUS ORDEAL IN MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL

If you are claustrophobic or of a nervous disposition, possibly best that you not read the following article from the Salford City Reporter, September 1923 which tells of the harrowing ordeal of Mr George Brown.

George who lived in Kirkham Street, Weaste, Salford was employed by the Manchester Ship Canal Company as a diver and  his work entailed underwater maintenance on the locks of the canal.

He was inspecting an engine chamber below the level of Barton Lock, he had been lowered from a boat in the lock and groped his way through an underwater doorway 30 feet below the surface into the inky blackness of the chamber, he felt his way along one wall and had almost finished his inspection when a sudden rush of water through the doorway, lifted him off his feet.

The force of the water left him hanging from the ceiling of the chamber with the water swirling about him, despite his efforts he could not grasp anything to hold onto and straighten himself upright, he managed to tug on his safety rope and gave the alarm signal to the men above waiting in their boat,

And this is when things start to go wrong, there was no spare diver with them to go and rescue George and they couldn't drag him out off the chamber far too dangerous, so they pumped air to him and and gave the alarm along the Manchester Ship Canal.

Another diver working at Latchford Locks heard the alarm and jumped into a boat and made his way to the stricken diver, it took an agonising three hours for him to reach Barton Locks, and remember poor George was still suspended upside down in a water filled chamber not knowing what his fate would be.

He hastily donned his diving suit and went into the chamber where he found the suspended figure of George, he wrapped a rope around him and dragged him to his feet, the two men were then hauled to the surface.

George was taken to hospital and was found to have no permanent injuries and was advised too.....take a week off work to recover!  a week? I would want at least a year in fact I would never go back.

He told the Salford City Reporter that..

"Nobody can imagine what I went through, it was terrible torture, I don't know how I managed to survive. I thought this was my last hour and this chamber was my coffin"

Mrs Brown said she would never forget the look on her husband's face when he returned home and she was always fearful of something happening to him.

I leave the last word to the reporter from the Salford City Reporter who appears to have been a master of the understatement said.

"Mr Brown a grey haired man, now appears to be little worse for his adventure"