One-Claw Typists at an Underwood Portable Typewriter

We’ve had some fishy typewriter stories on this blog over the past 10 years, but this one nips them all. It concerns an Underwood portable typewriter and the catch of some very large marron in the south-west corner of Western Australia, 73 years ago. The longest of the marron measured 21 inches (53.34cm); to emphasis the size, the catch of an 18½in (47cm) marron in Busselton in January 2019 was headline news. They usually grow to a maximum of 15in (38cm).

Now some non-Australian readers may not have heard of marron: they are a tasty crustacean, the largest freshwater crayfish found in Western Australia (and the third largest freshwater crayfish on Earth), endemic to that part of the Indian Ocean coastline between the town of Harvey and the port city of Albany. Fishing for marron has long been a West Australian tradition.

In 1948 a couple of fisherman were so proud of their catch that they took it into the offices of the United Press on Princep Street in Bunbury, to show it off to Henry Roy Golding MBE (1902-90), editor and publisher of the South Western Times as well as the Manjimup-Warren Times, Harvey Murray Times and The Blackwood Times, Bridgetown. Golding (right, right) was hugely impressed by the catch and entered into a deal with the fishermen, by which he was allowed to write about the catch provided he didn’t mention where precisely it was made. Broadly, it had been in the Warren area. Golding then had the problem of illustrating just how big the marron were. He looked around his office, spotted his Underwood portable typewriter, and propped two of the marron up against the keyboard for a photograph. Now, it’s highly unlikely that many of the readers of the Manjimup-Warren Times, Harvey Murray Times and The Blackwood Times in 1948 would have been familiar with the size of an Underwood portable typewriter, given that many of them lived in such isolated inland spots as Jardee, Yanmah, Palgarup and Nyamup (circulation must have been a nightmare). Still, the point was made. These were BIG fish!

The name marron covers two closely related species of crayfish, the critically endangered Cherax tenuimanus and the species that is outcompeting it, Cherax cainii. They belong to the genus Cherax within the Parastacidae family and are decapod crustaceans (10 legs). Marron are considered a luxury food and are the subject of a developing aquaculture industry in Western Australia and other Australian states. Total Australian production of farmed marron was 30 tons in 1996. In Western Australia, recreational fishing for marron is tightly controlled, with a limited season; permits are required, and minimum sizes are enforced. And people who catch large marron still adhere to the tradition of staying silence about where they were caught.

Alan Seaver's burgundy Underwood portable.