Oscar Gugen

[4] Born Norbert Oscar Gugenbichler in Paris with dual Austrian and French nationality, he was naturalised British as "Manager and Secretary (Toy Manufacturers)" on 29 August 1951.

Gugen used his knowledge of languages and business acumen to expand by importing swimming goggles and swimfins from France, as the Dunlop Rubber company, who had made wartime frogmen's fins, had decided that there would be no market for them in peace time.

This guide provided basic safety advice and listed the company's full range of underwater swimming products, both imported lines and its own-brand "Typhoon" articles of British design and manufacture.

Both editions contained product descriptions of diving masks (the Typhoon Super Star and Blue Star diving masks pictured right appeared in both issues), breathing tubes, swimfins (the Typhoon Clubmaster swimming fins pictured right appeared in both issues, while the Typhoon Speedmaster swimming fins pictured alongside them only appeared in the 1956 edition), dry suits, wetsuits and harpoon guns.

Typhoon is a manufacturer of dry suits for diving and other water sport, rescue, commercial and military applications, and lifejackets and buoyancy aids.

He found the journalist he wanted in Peter Small who had already expressed enormous enthusiasm for science and the sea in articles published in Picture Post, the Daily Herald, New Scientist, the Sunday Times and the News Chronicle.

Jack Atkinson, an ex-RAF flight sergeant, joined them as Training Officer; he soon after took Trevor Hampton's diving course.