i83 



I posed for photographs and became cine and television stars. 

 I would leave broadcasting engineers fixing a tape machine in my 

 office to face more flash-bulbs or to wave the Coelacanth's fin 

 for a cine. We were told that within three days a television record 

 from our laboratory had been shown all over America, and later 

 we got letters from scientist friends in remote places like Japan, 

 Alaska, and Timor to say they had seen us on the screen. We were, 

 in fact, carried along by a kind of tidal-wave we could scarcely 

 control, a wave that went right round the world many times, to 

 its uttermost corners, and the backwash still keeps on coming 

 back to us even after this long time. In this process an obscure 

 and highly technical scientific term became part of the common 

 speech of mankind. 



When I snatched a moment for a closer look, it was a most 

 unpleasant shock to discover that the first cutting of the fish to 

 save it, as told by Hunt, had been a crude hacking open as the 

 natives do when they wish to salt any big fish. So far from its 

 being a complete animal, the whole brain was missing and much 

 of the viscera had been badly hacked and torn. This was indeed 

 a bitter blow. Once again it was not a complete fish. 



On the morning of the 3rd January 1953 my Secretary appeared, 

 ready for work. Hearing of my predicament only the day before, 

 she had summarily cut short their holiday and swept the whole 

 family back home. It was a fine gesture, for she came at a critical 

 time when we were almost desperate with all that was besetting 

 us. 



No sooner had the movie and television people gone than there 

 came a flood of requests for articles, popular, informative, and 

 scientific, about the Coelacanth, of which only a small part could 

 even be considered. 



During this time we estimated that not less than twenty thou- 

 sand people came to look at old man Coelacanth. Not many hu- 

 mans have achieved that in death. It reminded one of Lenin in 

 his glass coffin, or dead royalty in state. 



A bright spot in that difficult time was the arrival of three young 



coloured men* at the laboratory. They stood for some time 



quietly watching and, when asked if they wanted anything, said, 



rather shyly, that they were graduates of Fort Hare, the non- 



* F. Backman, B.Sc, L. Backman, B.Sc, and N. Dennis, B.Sc. 



