i8i 



duty from noon, and would I make contact and send it to the 

 Post Office? 



Typists ! They are normally scarce in Grahamstown, and this 

 was New Year's Day. At the aerodrome Mayor Patrick McGahey 

 had said that if he could assist us, privately or officially, would we 

 ask. I had that in mind and telephoned him now, 5.30 a.m., and 

 he answered, clearly without ill-feeling, from his bed. Two 

 typists at 9 a.m., please? Without hesitation, yes! he would see 

 to it, he believed two of their staff were still in town. More 

 Nescafe, and to the laboratory at 6 a.m. First a quick look at the 

 Coelacanth; yes, it was still there, a good solid fish, there was 

 nothing imaginary about that. It was real. 



At 8 a.m. Mayor McGahey telephoned to say that he had man- 

 aged to find two expert typists,* and that they were prepared to 

 forgo the holiday to help us, and would accept no payment for 

 their services. They arrived at 8.45, and worked all the time 

 until 11.30, when it was complete, the final clean copies. At noon 

 it was at the Post Office, and next day I got a cable from London 

 thanking me for the article and saying that it had been published 

 that morning, the 2nd January 1953. Only four days later a copy 

 of that paper was in my hands. Such are modern times ! (This 

 article is reproduced in Appendix Z), p. 243.) 



During this same morning, 2nd January 1953, there was a trunk 

 call from the press. Had I heard that the night before Dr. White 

 of the British Museum had broadcast over the B.B.C. to say that 

 it was nonsense to speak of the Coelacanth as a 'missing link', 

 and it certainly was not the ancestor of man, and did I agree with 

 him? It was the same Dr. White who in 1939 had relegated the 

 Coelacanth to the abyss and reproved me for naming that first 

 one after Miss Latimer. That 'Missing Link' caption was a great 

 trial, especially as some overseas reports had virtually tacked it 

 on to me (see p. 87). I knew that White would already have been 

 answered by my article which had appeared in the London Times 

 that morning, but told the press now that while it was doubtful 

 if the Coelacanth would ever be proved a direct ancestor of man, 

 it must be pretty close to the main evolutionary stem. It is interest- 

 ing to note that a day or two later, Julian Huxley, the famous 

 British biologist, took up the whole matter in a broadcast over 



• Miss R. M. Koen and Miss M. Goetsch — of Grahamstown. 



