Under Water to get out of the Rain: concluding :Why oh why oh why did I not become a marine biologist?

It is such a cool thing to be. You get to scuba dive in varied locations collecting data; it involves looking at beautiful things in a beautiful environment, you design great experiments for changing ecosystems to see what works and what doesn't work, and you meet other people who love the same things as you!

It is all the fault of Miss Johns, who taught us Biology. She was a large, toothy woman who was quite diffident. She must have hated her ungrateful, giggling pupils, and she never showed us anything from the real world of nature. We copied the text book and diagrams on the board. I remember that ferns (or mosses) do something quite interesting in their life cycle and I hoped she would bring in an example of the thing that they became, but nope! I am still trying to become less ignorant. I collected my O Level.  But was that education? I believe children are taught better now, that there is some connection between the student and the life form studied.

History was taught and tested in the same way. You learned a story and you wrote it out in grammatically correct sentences. No wonder I preferred English Lit. You actually dealt with the book which contained its own world. It was not a step away from the actual subject under investigation.

My father was a keen gardener and I liked being in the garden with him. I was very fond of worms and used to collect them while he was digging. He told me how important the worms were for the soil. He was also keen on making compost heaps and enjoyed seeing them break down into compost as much as he enjoyed seeing the plants grow. (I am a bit like that now) One day I inspected the roses and I pointed out to him that some were covered with blackfly. I asked him if there was some kind of poison for the blackfly to get rid of them. "Yes," he said. "They tried that. They got some DDT and sprayed it and killed all the pests." "So that's a good idea then?" "Well. Then the birds started to die..." He didn't need to say any more. He had just explained ecology in 2 sentences.

But back to marine biology:" Under Water to get out of the Rain" includes so many interesting stories about things like, why did the Californian giant kelp forests start to diminish? they are vital to the food industry. Who was put on the case and what experiments did he do to solve the puzzle?

What happened to Cannery Row? Who was "Doc" the marine biologist that John Steinbeck wrote about? Now I know the answers I have to read "Cannery Row" again.(What an unlikely place for literature - a row of smelly factories for fish processing.)

I picked up this book by serendipity - my friend Amanda asked us round for a Christmas quiz and gave me this book to rest my answer paper on. I flicked through and I was intrigued. It's a terrific read, and unlike our  bad role-model Professor Steve Jones, Professor Trevor Norton lists at the end all the books he has consulted : A long, long list, and credits everyone, especially those who died at sea.