New Survival Tank Opened By James Prior

Scenes of survival training exercises at a new pool designed to prepare for accidents at sea.

Men wearing orange outfits including lifejackets jump into a pool of water. To counter the shock effect of the cold water they encourage one another by shouting and swim backstroke together to huddle in a group. They shout a number rollcall and begin to sing ‘Ten Green Bottles’. A life raft is thrown into the pool and one of the men swims towards it. Giving a speech beside the pool, MP Jim Prior refers to his experiences in the past two weeks and jokes that he might be looking for a job. He states that the survival course is now compulsory for anyone who will be working on a North Sea rig. In the water, the men swim towards a domed inflated life raft and start to climb aboard. Bill Hurst (or Bill Hirst) talks about the purpose of the survival training course. The training has to be tough because it is tough to survive in the water at sea. They aim to prepare for any kind of emergency which might cause people to enter the sea from an oil rig or a helicopter. The course covers how to instil the will to survive and good drills to ensure the best chance of survival. Men in yellow outfits sit inside a cabin attached to the side of the pool which is then tipped so that they are immersed in the water upside down. This simulates the effect of a helicopter capsizing and sinking. The men emerge through the windows and swim to the poolside. The reporter was Chris Young for this video made to be shown in a news story on Anglia Television early evening news / magazine programme About Anglia.

Keywords

Survival at sea; Lifesaving; Emergencies; Rescue; Oil rigs

Additional Description

James Prior (Jim Prior) served as MP for Lowestoft 1959 – 1983 and for the renamed constituency of Waveney 1983 – 1987.Jim Prior was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1981 -1984 during a period of several high-profile IRA attacks in Northern Ireland and on mainland UK including the 1982 Hyde Park bombing and the 1983 attack outside Harrods.