A rather charming story was reported in a national newspaper recently. The article was about a film called The Last Dive, documenting the extraordinary relationship between a now 83-year-old American sailor and ex-Hell’s Angel, Terry Kennedy, and a Pacific manta ray he names Willy.
For those not familiar with them, manta rays are large sea creatures (in this case six metres wide). They also have the largest brain-to-body ratio of any fish, and apparently can recognise themselves in a mirror.
Kennedy and one particularly distinctive manta ray formed an unlikely friendship lasting decades, with the fish regularly “coming up to Kennedy’s boat and slapping his fin against the hull, [waiting] for Kennedy to climb on his back before taking off for a ride…” They would sometimes travel two miles away, before the fish delivered Kennedy safely back to his boat every time.
Great men?
The “great man theory” of history, often ascribed to the 19th-century philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle, has a lot at …