I was terrified by claustrophobia and the fear of drowning. This was frontiersville where the boundaries of health and safety were nonexistent.
Piper Alpha is still the world’s worst offshore disaster in human history with 167 souls being lost(6th.July 1988)
Through ‘Films of Scotland’ Occidental Oil, the owners of Piper Alpa had heard of my success filming ‘engineeringprogress report’ type films. I’d certainly become an expert in filming concrete ‘The Building of the Tay Road Bridge’ withCampbell Harper Films and the making of bricks in Murray Grigor’s, GR Stein film. Now I was being asked to develop a special way to look at steel superstructures.
I was actually filming on the exploration deck when theydiscovered the huge Piper Alpha field(1973). Great excitement, ‘…buy Occidental shares’ went the cry from the roughknecks, before their price rocketed the next day.Unfortunately, my bank manager went home early and failed to make the requested purchase.
After the sub-sea structure was completed at Ardesier It was towed out to the oilfield on a huge barge. I struggle to describe the amazing scene I filmed from the helicopter.
Sometimes I couldn’t see the barge and it seemed as if this massive structure was floating through the sea unaided.Everything was moving in slow motion as if in a dream. This gargantuan chunk of red metal lying on its side, gliding abovethe soft white fluffy clouds, as if they were escorting the mother ship to its destination.
Even worse than filming on the Oil platform was filming onpipelaying barges. It was like hell on earth, really cramped,dark, sweaty, noisy places as they prepared to deliver oil to their terminal in Flotta. The pipe came out the sea at one end of the barge, the next section was welded on and it returned to sea at the other.
The only way to access the oil platform, before the helicopter deck was installed, was from the heaving deck of a supply boat.
A crane high above the sea on the superstructure would lower a horizontal tyre, slung in rope netting. The operator then had to time his actions so that the tyre landed flat on the heaving deck when the sea was at its lowest. Then between myself and the crane operator precise timing was essential. First thecamera equipment had to be placed quickly inside the tyre,through a hole in the net, then I would leap onto the outside of the tyre and clinging on for dear life would be sweptoverboard and out to sea as the crane operator hauled me off the deck with the next rising wave – terrifying – but it was producing a healthy income for Pelicula Films.
#PiperAlpha #Ardersier #earlynorthseaexploration#DoctorHammer #Occidentaloil #PhenominalDanger#Northseahelicopters.
“PIPER ALPHA: In the Beginning” is in my book ‘Shaping the Shadows: A Picture Maker’s Story’ along with many others.
For sale from the National Library of Scotland for £10.
See also: marklittlewood.org.uk
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