A true story, honestly...
The Saga of Bill's Horns
As I have mentioned before, I have done a lot of Sub-Aqua diving, much of that with the University of London Sub-Aqua Club (ULSAC)
For many of my dives, I have worn horns on my wetsuit hood; this is the story of how that came to be, as best I remember it. Alas we took no photos of the Gala event and no contemporary account was written.
Prelude
One upon a time, long long ago, when subaqua diving was little known (1960s), it came to pass that the City University were about to have a swimming gala and they asked ULSAC if we could 'do a demonstration' during the interval between races. "Fine" we said, but then we thought "how can we make it interesting?". There were no readily available underwater video cameras in those days and the City University pool had no underwater windows.
Long we thought and then came up with a master plan; we would enact a play in the water, with most of the action at the surface, yet which could not be done without aqualungs.
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Synopsis.
A princess is sunning herself in a small boat, when suddenly she is attacked by a sea monster and is taken underwater to an unknown fate.
Various superheroes attempt one by one to rescue her, but are defeated by the monster.
Batman attacks, is defeated and vanishes underwater. James Bond attacks, is defeated but manages to crawl ashore. Superman attacks, is defeated and vanishes underwater.
Meanwhile a harmless rod-and-line fisherman has been fishing quietly and ignoring all the fuss. Suddenly he has a bite and draws in his line to find that he has caught the bikini that the princess was wearing. Outraged as he realises what has happened, without further thought he leaps into the water to tackle the monster. Being untrained in fighting arts, his methods are unusual and confuse the monster, so the fisherman defeats the monster with his bare hands and drags it ashore.
James Bond goes back into the water and releases the Princess, Batman and Superman, from the lair of the monster.
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Preparation.
ULSAC had an old circular R.A.F escape dinghy, which had been used for a few fun trips at Swanage, but was old, leaky and totally impractical for diving, so it was decided that we would sacrifice it to the show. It was given a good scrub down to avoid contaminating the pool water with sand and seaweed.
The cast was chosen: Bill Williams was chosen as the monster as he had the weirdest looking diving gear. Maggie Vanstone volunteered as the Princess. Pete Waterhouse became Batman, Pete Hines chose to be James Bond and ??? was Superman. The fishing man was Ian Henderson.
For James Bond the outfit was an old communal dry suit. As it was in dire need of new wrist and ankle seals the existing ones were removed, but new ones were not fitted. Batman chose to use part of his wetsuit, to which he added Bat ears and a cloak. Superman aquired a suitable outfit, source forgotten.
Bill had a just bought his second wetsuit, so his old one was painted all over with silver scales and two horns (made of neoprene and painted yellow) were added to the hood. A strange goggle-eyed facemask was added to complement his strange Swiss AGA aqualung and as a weapon he carried his trusty (rusty) Siebe brass handled diving knife.
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The Performance
As the first half of the swimming races of the Gala drew to a close, members of ULSAC slipped into the water at the deep end and deposited three aqualung sets and weightbelts at the bottom of the deep end. Then with great fuss and commotion as a distraction, the dinghy was launched at the deep end and Maggie got aboard in her bikini. Meanwhile, hopefully unnoticed by the audience, Bill the Monster slipped into the water at the shallow end and stayed underwater. The fishing man took up his postion on the springboard and dangled his line in the water.
Maggie paddled her way sedately to the centre of the pool, (somewhat difficult to do with a circular dinghy), and then lay back 'sunning' herself. Suddenly the Monster erupted half out of the water alongside the dinghy and savagely slashed into the rubber with its knife. The dinghy deflated rapidly with a whoosh and the Monster dragged the Princess into the water. Once under water, Maggie & Bill shared Bill's aqualung swimming down to the deep end, where Maggie was parked on the aqualung under the springboard.
The Monster swam back to the central area, making a display of his horns and twin tanks. Pete W, as Batman, appeared on the top diving board and with a suitable yell to catch the audience, leaped feet-first from the board, changing his black mask to a diving mask on the way down. Hamming it up with a struggle for a while, eventally Pete was dragged underwater and parked on the second aqualung; the Monster returned to the surface.
James Bond 007 appeared at the pool edge sleek in his dry suit and dived into the water. A second struggle ensued, and 007 was defeated, but he managed to swim to the poolside and climb out. He stripped off the dry suit to reveal a totally bedraggled morning suit underneath, soaked through.
Superman then appeared on the high Diving Board and dived head first into the water to tackle the Monster. The third struggle went on longer, but ended with the defeat of Superman, who also disappeared beneath the waves, to be parked on the third aqualung.
So far all had gone exactly according to the script, but then a minor snag spoiled one of the best planned effects. Maggie had tied her bikini to the fishing line and gave a small tug to signal to the fishing man that he was to reel in the line and display the bikini. Unfortunately he wasn't quite in position and when the tug came, he fell off the springboard, so the audience never saw the bikini.
Oh well, the show went on and the fishing man was attacked by the Monster, but resisted mightily and managed to defeat the Monster. The goggle-eyed facemask was ripped from its head and the weird aqualung stripped from it's body. Bill was dragged from the water and lay 'dead' on the side of the pool.
James Bond then went back into the water to fetch out the others and the 'actors' bowed to the applause of the audience.
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After the Gala
As far as it had gone, this was a great one-off never to be repeated event and there would have been no long term after effects, except for one thing: Pete Waterhouse had attached his Batman Ears to his current wet suit, so when the next Dive occurred they were still there, looking great.
I thought this was a great idea, so by the next Dive (at Lulworth), I had transferred the horns from my old 'monster' wetsuit to my new wetsuit, to the astonishment of the other members of ULSAC.
I continued to dive with horns of one type or another on my suit thereafter, except for a short break on the Mary Rose excavations, during which the horns were banned by the Archealogist in charge, for fear they might damage the Mary Rose. 
Bill
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To indicate that I really did continue to wear horns until I ceased diving in 1993, here is a note I wrote to the Coral Cay Conservation Newsletter in 1992.
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To The Editor:
CCC SAC Newsletter.
2nd Nov 92Sir,
A scurilous remark in the last Newsletter seemed to indicate that I would be less horny next year, merely because they fell off in the Scillies this year. As any fule knows HORNS are shed each year and grow back bigger & stronger for the next year. I can assure you that my grockle amusing appurtenances will be back for the next diving season.
Yours faithfully.
