Diver survivor Phil still beating the odds

He reached down to pick up a knife to sharpen his chinagraph pencil.

As he leant over towards the bottom of the tank, his diving helmet immediately filled with water and the countdown began until he joined the list of people who have lost their lives in world record attempts.

"The biggest danger, which has killed a lot of divers, is inversion if you bend down. I nearly drowned in this damn thing," said Phil, of Telford.

With Phil being bent over, the air which was going into his helmet went instead up his back, creating a potentially deadly situation.

A vastly experienced diver, his survival instincts immediately kicked in.

"I had to jerk myself upright, and then hold my breath and keep my composure while the air pump cleared the water back down from the helmet."

And so Phil survived, and seals benefited, because the entire stunt was to raise money for the welfare of seals and marine animals.

The aim had been to set a new world record for underwater endurance in Victorian diving gear and while Phil did not reach the 24 hour mark he had been aiming for, he says his 22 hours and 40 minutes did set a new world record.

It had all started with an environmental crisis in which seals were coming ashore in The Wash dying from a version of canine distemper and a friend was inspired to do something practical, leading to the creation of British Divers Marine Life Rescue.

Phil, living at the time in Birchwood Road, Penn, Wolverhampton, offered to do something to help, and his pal suggested having a crack at the record to raise cash.

The equipment came from various sources. The Royal Navy loaned its last pair of unissued lead-soled diving boots, the British Sub Aqua Club loaned the helmet, the india rubber diving suit came from a museum collection, and the pump supplying the air was driven by an 1868 steam engine, called Little Dragon, and came from a pal.

The venue was at Dudley Show at Himley Hall in August 1991, attended by thousands of people, with Phil in a huge 2,000 gallon tank with perspex sides. Fellow members of Wulfruna Sub Aqua Club provided his support crew.

Almost immediately there were problems.

"Within 40 minutes of getting in the suit flooded - it cracked across the shoulders - so I ended up with the water just under my chin. I had to stay upright all the time," said Phil - it was only the air being forced into the helmet by the pump which stopped the suit completely filling with water.

An underwater telephone dating from 1910 which had been provided for communication packed up after about 20 minutes, leaving him to communicate using a plastic board and chinagraph pencil.

To pass the time some diving mates came in and played him on a magnetic chess set, but after around the 20th game he could take no more of it.

And at around 3am Phil says he "went off his trolley."

"I think it was boredom."

Somehow he stuck at it and emerged from the tank exhausted to the sounding of the whistles of the traction engines all around the ground.

His leaky suit meant he had been immersed in the water and all its chemicals for so long that when it was taken off he was warned he faced losing two or three layers of skin.

"The fire brigade were there and smothered me with this cream and put burn bags on going to the top of my arms. I never lost an ounce of skin."

Phil, who lives in Ironbridge, does not remember now how much the stunt raised.

He had been inspired to take up diving both by Jacques Cousteau and also the actor Lloyd Bridges starring in a television show called Sea Hunt.

"I joined Wulfruna Sub Aqua Club in Wolverhampton, one of the oldest diving clubs in the country."

In his time he has dived commercially, and on shipwrecks, and has also been a diving instructor.

However diving is just one of many strings to his bow.

"I've had a hell of a life. I've been an engineer, a horseman, a diver, and a pilot."

He might also add that he has been a survivor.

In 2010 he was given six to 12 months to live through heart problems.

"I've had two strokes and bowel cancer since. I've had more comebacks than Lazarus and Frank Sinatra."

Phil, who is 62, was born at the back of the Stafford Road engine sheds in Wolverhampton and began as an engineer, working for motorbike firm Norton. Later he was with the SAS for 13 years - he likes to put it that way before explaining this was Stein Atkinson Stordy Ltd, a firm of thermal and mechanical engineers in Wombourne.

Incidentally, although everybody knows him as Phil, his real first name is very unusual - Myrry.

His other great love has been shire horses - at one point he had nine of them - and he had an enterprise called the Heavy Horse Experience.

But back to some of his diving experiences, and he would take part in the so-called Frostbite Swim, a charity event down the River Severn on New Year's Day from Ironbridge Rowing Club to the Woodbridge pub at Coalport.

"I must have been one of the few people who has swum up to the bench at the Woodbridge pub when the river has been in flood and ordered a curry and chips from the water."