Linking up with neighbouring clubs, quarry tours and smart fundraising are all part of the game for the can-do divers of Leicester. Interview by Kristina Pedder.
Leicester Underwater Exploration Club, known as LUEC, is based in central Leicester and says it is as far away from the sea as it could possibly be – in any direction. Despite this, there’s a lot of diving and training going on, taking advantage of friendly links with local clubs DelMar in Wigston and Dudley Dolphins. Members often share day trips and dive days together.
Next steps for LUEC include building up the club’s membership base. Although matching the heady heights of some 200 members in the early years may not be within reach today, in-house Advanced Diver and seamanship training is expanding the club’s diving horizons. Oh, and you may have seen them out and about making new friends on their grand tour of inland sites this year.
When was the club formed?
In 1958, at the birth of scuba diving here in the UK, a small group of enthusiastic divers got together in Leicester. Nearly a decade later, they joined BSAC to become club number 321. So, we are sixty-seven years young. One of our founding members, Bob Atkinson, was Diving Officer for 30 years. Another, on emigrating to Australia in 1972, left us with the Tony Pitt Award (pictured, right.). Once a year, at our club Christmas meal, we award that ship’s bell on a plaque to the diver who has contributed the most that year. Our longest serving active member (joining us in 1975) is our Snorkel Officer, John Richardson, who has looked after all of the club’s snorkelling training and activities since 1982. We have six active members who have been with us more than 30 years.
[L] A riverside outing for mannequin 'Doug the Diver'; [R] pool training in March 2024 with Roberto, Helen and Louis
So, there have been plenty of anniversaries to celebrate?
We held a treasure hunt in Stoney Cove for our golden anniversary in 2008, when we still had a surviving original member. We celebrated our diamond jubilee in 2018 just before COVID, which then changed things a bit. You see, Leicester was in lockdown for a lot longer than other parts of the country.
What happened?
The club lost active instructors during the COVID pause to UK diving. Since then, our Training Officer Doug Ward has been managing the long-term upskilling of members, including a lot of Ocean Diver training. Now we have a small batch of Sports Divers working towards Dive Leader. Three are assistant instructors waiting to complete their diver training to be able to qualify and support open-water training in future.
How many members are there today?
Since our membership numbers peaked in the 1980s, we had an ageing diving population. But in the bounce back since COVID, we have attracted younger members and members with skills and qualifications from other agencies. We now have 50 members: 39 full members, three juniors, four students and four snorkel members. Our seven honorary members no longer dive or snorkel but contribute their knowledge of our history to support the club. The divers are seven trainees; 13 Ocean Divers and an Advanced Ocean Diver; 14 Sports Divers; six Dive Leaders; three Advanced Divers; and six other agency divers.
What other resources does the club have today?
There’s a stock of scuba sets in a range of sizes, looked after by Equipment Officer Nigel Newton; and John stores our masks and fins. We hire Aylestone Leisure Centre pool every Thursday evening for training (which accounts for the biggest part of our membership fees). We meet in a room upstairs. Since the bar shut, we bring our own drinks to chat and plan; and we project lecture slides onto the white walls there. Until 2001, we met at the old local pool with a four-metre-deep end, but now we have to manage with just 2m to train in, like a lot of clubs.
[L] The club visited Jordan in 1999; [R] RIB Vixen on the river
Do you run a boat?
We have an 11-year-old 6.8 m RIB called Vixen. She is maintained by members of the club and stored on a local farm. We were restricted by who could tow, but now that towing regs have changed again, newer members are doing boat handling and VHF courses, and continue to practice with our skipper, Simon Brookes. Some have had towbars fitted in preparation for more trips.
[L] Diving Officer Sarah; [R] A visit to Capernwray in August 2024
Where do you dive?
As we have no local sea diving, we are frequently found at Stoney Cove, which can get busy and silty, but can also be crystal clear, especially in winter. Our divers are very fond of the Cove and can be found there most weekends. In the past few summers, we have been very busy with our trainees. Also, quite a few members work shifts, so they fly the LUEC flag at Stoney midweek. We dive throughout the winter and there are always some hardy souls on a Christmas or New Year dive or enjoying the serenity of a winter’s night dive at the Cove.
It is just on our doorstep, which makes sheltered water training easy. But for a bit of variety last year, members completed the Quarry Tour 2024, trying to attend a different dive site each month to get experience of organising dives at unknown sites. We visited Dosthill (Tamworth), Waters Edge (Shropshire), Spring Lakes (Nottinghamshire), Cromhall (Gloucestershire), Capernwray (Lancashire), Waterswallows (Derbyshire), and Dudley Dolphins’ reservoir in Netherton to name a few. Our divers have really enjoyed the Tour, and have been joined by friends from DelMar, Dudley Dolphins and other BSAC clubs at various times. We have firm plans to remain on tour into 2025.And for sea diving?We try to get to the coast as often as we can: planning regular trips about four times a year to South Coast favourites and north to the Farne Islands in Northumbria and St Abbs in Scotland. We use our RIB or charter boats dependent on our skipper availability.
There is also an annual trip abroad (this year it was Malta, last year Majorca) and a boat handling jolly (usually from Whitby) to help our budding boat handlers practice their skills. We hope to join the Menai boat run next year.
Do you do much diving with a purpose?
Some members have Nautical Archaeology Society or Seasearch training, but our unashamed aim is to train divers and dive for fun. We once re-moored a waterbird island habitat that had come loose in a lake, and we have cleared out golf balls at the water trap on a golf course. One notable expedition was to an isolated rock in the Minch off the north-east corner of the Isle of Skye; for which the team was awarded the 2007 Duke of Edinburgh Jubilee Trust Award, receiving certificates from Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace. LUEC also won the Heinke trophy in 2005, recognising the significant contribution our club and members have made to the growth and development of scuba diving.
What type of training is popular?
Recently we have attracted a fair few PADI divers to the club through an active social media campaign and they want to do crossover training. This is usually refresher and rescue training, alongside drysuit use. We have run training for every level in the Diver Training Programme in the past year, including Advanced Diver training for three members.
It’s great to see members wanting to study for Advanced Diver. Tell us about your instructor team.
Our team of five Open Water Instructors, led by our Training Officer Doug, includes Katherine Burns, Tony Farrant, Roberto Serrano, and Sarah Kirkpatrick. We also have three Assistant Diving Instructors: Dave Devlin, Pete Harris and Kirsty Majithia. And, of course, our Snorkel Instructor, John. We really want to continue to encourage instructor training and increase our instructor base to spread the load.
[L] Dive Leaders in training - Kirsty and Pete; [R] At Swithland Wood quarry, Leicestershire, 2012
What has the club achieved in the past year?
The new skills coming into the club mean that we will have more people able to tow and drive the RIB, which will lead to more dive trips. Our Boat Officer, Diving Officer and main Cox’n have supported this with training and practice sessions. We have also managed to get more Ocean Divers qualified than we were doing before COVID and we are getting members moving on up the skills ladder, including into instructor training.
Members took an active part in the Leicester 25th Riverside Festival in June 2024, which we hope might become an annual event after a break since 2009. We put our club RIB, Vixen, on the river for two days and have a marquee to promote the club and raise funds for charity (RNLI & Air Ambulance). The team really pulled together to run the games (hook a duck and tombola), hand out leaflets about our great club, and help on the boat rides up and down the river. The boat rides raised £600 for club funds, the games proceeds (£254) were for charity.
Ocean Diver training in October 2024
How else does the club fund its activities?
Top tip: to supplement our membership fees with little effort, we signed up to Easyfundraising. The site gives cashback to the club when members shop online. Our Christmas raffle is usually for charity. A lot of instructors give their time and services for free, and we are close to Stoney Cove, which cuts costs for trainees.
Receiving the Jubilee Trust Award from the Duke of Edinburgh, 2007
And for the next few years?
We want to increase the number of trips planned and vary the places that we visit. This is one great aspect of having Advanced Diver trainees. For their training, they need to run trips at new (to them) dive sites. We all benefit from that. We are also excited to be looking into some more unusual dives abroad: possibly Cuba, Mexico or Turkey. Anyone have any suggestions?
Article ‘Club Focus – Leicester Underwater Exploration Club by Kristina Pedder first published in SCUBA magazine, Issue 153 March 2025.
How do I find scuba diving near me?
If you want to learn to dive in Leicester with Leicester Underwater Exploration Club, please contact Kirsty Majithia.
