The following is reproduced with kind permission of the Kent Messenger:-

The family-run Scuba diving school provides training from ages eight upward and a full range of diving equipment at unbeatable prices.

The PADI diving school is the brainchild of John Bartlett who retired from professional motor sport at the end of the 1980s. In October 1998, after more than eight years of retirement and having sold his Sussex home, John and his family - wife Mary and sons George, 13, and Jonathan, 11 - piled into the family Jeep and started on a 8,000-mile journey to Madagascar.

The trip took them through Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Israel, Egypt and then deep into the heart of Africa.

John had been a keen scuba diver for more than 30 years and was a PADI certified instructor. His plan was to set up a diving school on the small island of Nosi be and establish a simple life in the tropics.

For more that 18 months the Bartletts traveled the Third World, through rain forests to hidden bays and mysterious coral reefs. Each night they slept in beach-side grass huts or tents and ate freshly caught fish. John said: "It was fantastic but we missed our friends and the boys were desperate for everyday things like a burger or a trip to the cinema."

After establishing the school, the family moved back to England to set up Maidstone's first PADI diving school, based at Mote Park Leisure Centre.

"We're very fortunate," added John. "We now have the best of both worlds. The diving school has really taken off and we have just established a diving club for our students which runs regular social functions as well as trips to Madagascar, the Red Sea and the Maldives."

Heroic divers saved my son