How things change - from Famer to Diver…‘Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred, strong in the arm and thick in the head’. Youngster living on a farm in West Yorkshire, with two older brothers (what could go wrong)Life was two halves, 1. boring bit of going to school. 2. Out and about where the real learning could commence – who knew that using an old tractor exhaust on your shoulder, sliding in a lighted fireworks rocket was a great rocket launcher.The surrounding households do, as do I when egged on by brothers (what could go wrong) inserting three at once only to find they jammed together starting a sequence of fire balls about two feet from my head. Arriving to take my exams, and parking the tractor and plough in the staff car park causing a few giggles when during the exam it was announced ‘’’will the person who has parked the tractor blocking the staff car park please move it’ . Did this have a detrimental effect on my result?Farming for me, even attending College, and achieving the giddy heights of HND – Then the wheels fell of the cart and into the world I had to go, with my HND in hand.Tree planter, Steel erector, car salesman, truck driver, – stuff it I’m off to Australia after seeing a small advert in the Farmers Weekly Magazine. I landed in Perth WA, no boots as they were confiscated at the airport because they had MUD on them.A few weeks in Perth to acclimatise, try the ‘amber nectar’ and then off to a farm & quarry in the outback – ‘hope you get on OK Coober as its 6 hours to dive back and we won’t be coming back for months’ was the singlet wearing guys comments as he collected me. I stayed for months – driving the biggest tractors I’d ever seen in fields as big as a small country, herding thousands of sheep with a motorbike plus three funny looking dogs. Driving a road train that long you couldn’t see the back.The best advice was on the first day – if you get bitten by a snake Kill it. ‘I bloody will’ I said all warrior like – ‘no kill it and bring it back so I know what to inject you with’ - gulp!!! Eventually I heard tell of the Barrier Reef, buying a clapped-out Holden (Vauxhall) estate my plan was to drive up one coast, over the top, and down the other side. (What could go wrong), well for one it’s a bloody long way, arriving in Cairns without a car. ‘What do you mean it’s all underwater’ I said when inquiring how to see this wonder of the world. Signing up to the cheapest diving school my underwater life started, breathing underwater, this must be magic or something. This is a bit of my story, what’s yours...?