HOW FRANK PAXMAN GOT TO LOVE SPEARFISHING, AND FREE DIVING

By Jackie Paxman

In 1955 Frank was found to have melanoma, He was in hospital for a month having it removed, included having the glands under one arm removed as well.   10 months later Frank had to return to hospital, to have the glands under the other side removed as well.   It seemed that he was cured, but he was warned by his Doctor he may have only six

months to live.  While he was recuperating, from the second operation, we went with a

Crowd of friends to Leighton Beach, and had a swim, one of our friends had a snorkel and mask, and he asked Frank if he would like to have a go.  Of course he said yes!

That one swim and he was hooked.   We had a friend Al Bacon, who knew a   lad by the name of Trevor Wilhelm, who belonged to the W.A. Undersea Club.  Al and Frank used to take us to Mullaloo Beach, which in those days was not like it is today.  Frank & Al

 used to go looking for crays, and then we would cook them on the beach, and have a feed.

 

Trevor asked us if we would like to join his club, and Frank was thrilled with the idea..

he and Al joined the Club, and started going out in a boat with the members, leaving me to take the kids to the beach.    I would watch for them coming back in on North Mole and then go around to the place they landed.   Frank was very interested in this diving,

he started to get the idea, of what was needed to equip himself to succeed in this sport.

I don’t know if anybody knows how Frank seemed to be able to grasped what he  should make for a speargun, and so the gun came into being.  I joined the W.A.U.C, and took

the job as Secretary of it.    I always liked to join in with anything that Frank loved to do

 

Frank got to know Boyd Bellion, who was a member of the Club, and got invited to go

out in his boat called Shark Bait.    Boyd was a very good Diver, he was in a special group of people during the war, who worked with Jack Sue, and learned how to Dive properly.   Frank got more experience in his diving, and decided to make a hand spear

to use as well as having a speargun,  these hand spears where about 11 foot long made from hollow steel, with a dog clip one end, and the other end had a solid rod, with

Floppers attached, Boyd tried them, and decided that they were very handy to use.

Boyd actually speared a big Blue Groper with it.  Frank came to be very accurate

using his one. 

 Except he drop it one day in 50 foot of water, when he was still learning

to get used to diving that deep, so he decided to do something about this, and came home to make a sling to have around his wrist.   He worked in the work shop for a while, and then came out into the back yard, saw there was a bag hanging on the Clothes Horse, and decided to aim for it.  Great idea, but sadly it didn’t work, he missed the bag, and the spear came back, and hit him in the inside corner of his eye.   I heard  Frank go into the bathroom, and wondered what he was doing, I just said Frank, he turned around, and his eye was on his cheek.  I said we’d better get you to the Doctor, and as I didn’t have a

License to drive Frank drove himself to our Doctor, only to find, that she wasn’t there.

So I remembered a Doctor was situated just down the road, and he drove there.

 

the Doctor asked what he had done, and he told him He had tripped over and landed face first on a piece of pipe, sticking out of the ground.   The Doctor put the eye back in and

arranged for Frank, to go to St John of Gods Hospital at Subiaco.    We went home to get a pair of Pajamas, by this time Frank was feeling real shaky.   I knew he couldn’t drive any further.   I went next door and asked if someone could spare the time to take

us to the hospital, they were friends of ours and took us without worrying.

They took a book so I could stay with Frank a while, and then they took me home.

Frank was in hospital for a week,, but even when the doctor told him he should not go diving for a month, he went the next Saturday!

 

After that he became even more interested in making guns,  he refined the gun a little,

and also built me a small gun to used on fish, as I had a job loading his big gun.  By

this time I was really interested in the sport also. 

 

Boyd Bellion took us out to get some crays one day, for use for the Black Octopuses Ball.

We decided to get some crays from Parkers Point, we were in about 20ft of water, and I

was swimming near the boat when I heard Barry call out,  he had found Boyd on the bottom, obviously unconscious.   I swam over to him, and Barry dived down and undid Boyd’s lead belt, and brought him to the surface, we together got Boyd to the Boat,

but it was hard to get him in it.  Lucky one of the other divers, Frank Carruthers came

to see what was going on, so he helped us to get Boyd onboard, then he started CPR,

while Barry and I went to pick up Frank.   When he was in the boat we headed for

Thompson Bay.    I raced up to the Hotel and asked for help.  Luckily there was a

Doctor staying there.   He came straight down and took over CPR.   But unfortunately

it was not successful.   Boyd was pronounced dead.  

 

After Boyd’s funeral  Frank said he thought he might build a boat. Like it was just

Something he had just thought of.    I said well do you think you can do it, he said there’s

no harm in trying.   So he built one, it was a Hartley Flare Line.  It was called Kracka Jac, but people got to know it by two other names, One The Bloody Bitch, the other The Red Terror!   We had years of good holidays at Wedge with that Boat, then Frank decided to get a different Hull A  Penguin Phantom, and make it just to be used for spearing.     He did a really good job, and we had that one for the rest of our spearing days

 

 

 Now to how Frank learned to actually spear fish, it wasn’t so much that anyone taught him, it seemed to come naturally to him, it was like so many things that he did,  if he set his mind to it, he was successful.    I’m not boasting about him, but he really enjoyed

making things and he was mostly successful. 

 

When he retired from work, he decided to get making guns for a hobby, a lot of our friends asked him for one, and he never refused to make them. Alby Kalazich designed a very reliable line release for the Paxman Gun. It consisted of a 3 pointed star that sat next to the trigger mechanism and rested against the spear shaft. Once the shaft was fired it released loops of line, simple but clever. Franks retirement was a very

busy time for him, but he had never liked to be with nothing to do.