Mark Terrell – Royal Navy Diver and a Man of Many Talents

In 1997 I was front page of my local newspaper, the Bridlington Free Press, talking about the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard off the East Yorkshire coast, asking for anybody who could help to get in touch. Several people did, including a man named Mark Terrell, who invited me round to his flat in Park Avenue for a tea and a chat.

My friend and I greeted him and sat down in his living area while he talked about the seabed off the coast and the compilation of sediment, rocks and sand. It turned out that he was a diver years ago and quite an innovator, but first he would make us tea. “It’s Smokey Tea,” he said to us. “You might have to pick the bits out with your teeth.”

We did not have a clue what he was going on about until we saw what he gave us, no idea what it was to this day but indeed there were bits floating around like small planks of wood. Mark found our faces hilarious as we took a sip and politely put it down, him still laughing of course.

Mark became a friend over time and I went to see him a few times over the years and he told me how easy it was to make my own diving kit and regulator (as a 17/18 year old there was no way I could attempt that!) and then told me how he had written a paper on the brain. This guy was super-intelligent and, it turned out, ex Royal Navy, although he did not tell me just what he did in the Navy during his career.

Born on 15^th August 1925, Mark Terrell started his life in London during the inter-war years, joining the Royal Navy as an officer in 1939, taking up his training at Dartmouth that year and specialising in underwater aspects which included diving and submarines. One of his jobs that made the papers was that of the French trawler Vert Prairial which had grounded on 14th March 1952 off the Cornish coast, a team of Royal Navy divers being sent to the wreck to attempt to recover the missing eight bodies from the crew of 17 who had been all lost. After a thorough search in dangerous conditions, the wreck was empty.

Several years after this Mark and his diving buddies were in the papers again when, in the murky waters of West India Dock in London a live 1600lb Second World War German mine had been discovered. A team of divers was assembled on 26^th January 1957 consisting of Commander Gordon Gutteridge and Lieutenant-Commander Mark Terrell along with a number of others who were now being kitted up to deal with this unexploded ordnance problem. The mission to dispose of the mine went on for eight hours in the cold winter gloom, 26 feet down in the Thames, but at long last it was mission accomplished. For this Mark was awarded the MBE.

That year, at the age of 31, Mark left the Navy after 18 years’ service and started a company named Underseas Ltd with a few others, a career that he carried on with for seven years before he left to be an independent marine consultant where he was able to pursue his true love which was science and writing. During this time he went on to develop a number of devices that were tested and used in the diving industry, penning his book The Principles of Diving in 1965. Staying with the theme of underwater exploration, he appeared on a BBC documentary around the time of the mine incident talking about the Loch Ness Monster in “Legends of the Loch,” diving into the calm waters of the Scottish lake searching for Nessie (although he did not actually believe it existed), looking at whatever was down there although finding nothing of interest.

His work on researching the human brain went in a new direction in 1988 when he became involved in a group of students whereby new models were developed and innovative research opened new avenues of study, this eventually taking over 20 years of work where he wrote a privately published book The Resonant Triad.

His travels with the Royal Navy did not end with his discharge, the 1980s saw him moving to a Greek island where he spent many days in the sun before heading to the East Yorkshire seaside town of Bridlington where he settled down in what became his favourite place. It is here where I spent many hours chatting to Mark and getting to know him, a kind and gentle figure who spoke with a low voice and was always welcoming. I helped him move to another apartment in the summer of 2006 where he accidentally fell over his own things, at first I was worried but he laughed it off as he had a soft landing on a mountain of paperwork. I said goodbye to him and that was the last time I saw him.

Mark later went on to have a bad fall which, combined with a progressive illness, led to him being in the Meadows Care Home in Northamptonshire. While he did continue to keep fit as much as he could and still keep an active mind, he eventually passed away on 18^th January 2011 at the age of 85. His body was donated to London Medical School as per his last wishes.

(Many thanks to his daughter Katherine for helping me with the information on his early life and naval career).