There was no better person than Boggie to have in your pub quiz team. He had the most amazing memory and knowledge of pub trivia. He would give the answer before anyone else however expert they were and could win a quiz on his own.

With regards to diving he was a great buddy, being safe and communicative. Indeed, he spoke to you underwater which unbelievably, you could often understand. I remember him coming out of one cold sea dive after his dry suit zip had not closed properly and seemed to bring half the sea back up with him. He was straight down to the laundrette to the tumble drier and back ready for the next dive. That was the sort of person he was, no fuss, just there and dependable. He is truly missed.

– By Alex –

One of my many memories of Boggie is when we went to Isle of Eigg. The stitches of the right cuff seal of my drysuit came off when I took off the drysuit after the second dive on the first day. The cuff was half hanging and I unhappily murmured to myself that my dive trip had ended short on Day 1…Upon seeing my drysuit and hearing my murmuring, Boggie, who always carried tools and other stuff in his dive bag to deal with potential problems, simply told me “No, it’s not the end. You can fix it. Bring back your suit to the accommodation.”

On return to the accommodation, Boggie told me what I should do to fix it and then gave me a sewing kit, latex tape and Black Witch from his dive bag. I followed his instructions step by step and Boggie said “The fix is not perfect but should last for a week. Just be careful not to pull the cuff seal when you put the drysuit on and take it off.”.

I donned the drysuit on the following day and hurrah!, he was right, the fix worked and I was able to do all dives at the rest of the trip, thanks to Boggie! Boggie was a knowledgeable, resourceful man. We will miss him.

– By Akiko –

Boggie was one of the first people I met in the club, as he did my try dive. My only memory of this was doing somersaults in the water – which I guess either meant Boggie thought I was vaguely competent underwater – or he was bored! Probably the latter!

I have memories of some great dives with Boggie. He was my buddy on one of my favourite ever dives – when we saw hammerhead sharks in Egypt. The thrill of that dive will always stay with me. I also remember a fab dive in Swanage where we’d dived the Valentine tanks – I think getting down before anyone else so the vis was great, and seeing the usual conger eels, but also some fabulous cuttlefish eggs. Swanage in good conditions is brill!

I think my last dive with Boggie was less good. Murk in Northern Ireland. We could see literally nothing and abandoned the dive after about 15 minutes. I loved the fact that Boggie wouldn’t bother staying down just for the sake of it if the dive was rubbish!

Of course, a lot of my memories of Boggie are out of the water. He was always one of the first to the pub, and always had a story to tell. Whether it was how he had to put a recalcitrant buddy on a buddy line as he wouldn’t behave (that was on my first trip with the club, and I learned the lesson not to misbehave underwater). Or the stories of “Scary Emily” in Scapa and Boggie rebelling against her dive briefs. And he always had a great yarn to tell about the Argonauts – he was a font of knowledge on the history of the club of the last 30+ years and previous members. Boggie also had a habit of “lowering the tone” of Argonauts conversations – which was quite a feat!

– By Emily –

I’d met Boggie a few times before, and he’d done one of my Ocean (called Novice in those days) Diver theory lectures, but the first time I really spent much time with him was on a trip to the Farne Islands in 1997, which would be my first ever offshore dives. The trip was arranged for the late May bank holiday weekend, but for reasons I no longer remember, during the week before people kept dropping out like flies, until there were only Boggie, Steve Williamson and myself left. The boat was all paid for so on the Friday morning Steve and I set off in my car aiming to meet Boggie in Seahouses, and given it was bank holiday weekend, by the evening we were just passing Newcastle. It would be the first boat dive for either of us, and we had loads of time to wind each other up about things which may or may not happen – for better or worse.

Saturday dawned a glorious calm, sunny day; we loaded our gear onto the boat, and set off to the Pinnacles. I followed Boggie’s descent at speed with a leaking mask and regulator which I found very nerve-wracking. He helped me sort that out, and off we swam. Steve and I were so pumped up with adrenaline that we set off trying to pre-empt all Adam Peaty’s times for the 100m breaststroke in one underwater swim (I claimed afterwards that I was just trying to get warm, but have to confess to some fabrication here). At one point Boggie attached a buddy line to me, and swore ever after that towing him along behind made absolutely no difference to the speed I was going.

My logbook entry for the dive (in one of the bigger understatements of my life) contains “got severe bollocking for swimming too fast”. The actual language Boggie used cannot be detailed here, but suffice to say, if any educational establishment were to create a course called “Creative Use of English in the Verbal Context”, it would provide enough material for the first four lectures.

We were suitably chastened, but both learned a valuable diving lesson from Boggie that day – if you actually want to see something when you’re diving, you have to take your time and look under and behind things to find them. I never forgot that, and I am sure my diving experience was much richer because of it. Thanks, Boggie. May you be forever bottom-trawling somewhere without ever needing to worry about air consumption or deco stops.

– By Joe –