Taught Australians
p. 87 · Read in the full issue
How To Crawl
According to “Skindiving in Australia” (reviewed below) Australians of 60 years ago were able to see a remarkable swimmer and diver in action.
He was Alick Wickham, “a native lad from the Solomons”.
In Sydney he raced against white swimmers and beat them all; and in Melbourne he was asked to give a demonstration dive into the Yarra from a 100 ft tower.
When he arrived, he found the tower had been built on a 105 ft cliff —but he dived all the same, for the benefit of the 60,000 spectators, lost three layers of swim suits as he hit the water, and created a 205 ft 9 in. record for high diving that lasted 37 years.
It is believed to have been Wickham who introduced the crawl to Australian swimming and with it he beat all comers.
But on one occasion he adopted even more unorthodox means— he submerged and ran along the bottom. “Scientifically, it makes no sense”, says the author, “but Pacific natives are believed to be able to do it just the same”.
What we’d like to know is what happened to Alick. Pre sumably he went back to the BSIP, where Wickham is still a name connected with the early days there.