The Baynhams

A local radio station in Newcastle KO.FM 102.9 ran an amazing Easter weekend competition. They released a large tagged fish called "Frank" into Lake Macquarie at 7am on Thursday morning and offered a reward of $40,000 to anyone who could catch him before 4pm today. The radio stations 4x4s have been driving around advertising the competition and on Thursday morning they were at our local park taking promotional photos next to the lake and handing out free boxes of Smarties. Our kids ran over and had their photo taken with the radio station staff and were delighted with their free sweets. Little did we know that Frank would be such an exciting part of our Easter weekend....!

This morning Derek and Byron wanted to go fishing for an hour at the local jetty. They walked down and I drove ahead with the little ones in the car.

As we drove (listening to KO.FM of course!) the presenters were whipping the listeners into a frenzy of excitement saying that there were only 5 hours left for Frank to be caught... Myles and Gareth were so excited and utterly convinced that they would catch Frank on their kiddy fishing rods. Gareth chatted to the other fishermen on the jetty telling them that Mum was going to catch the special fish and win $44 dollars! Wow! The men were laughing and wishing us luck. Myles was fascinated by the tiny fish swimming close to the surface of the water and saw Frank many times over.

After a while I took Gareth and Myles home again leaving Byron, Derek, Rhiannon and Alex to fish on for another half an hour. Imagine my disbelief when Byron rang me on my mobile telling me he had Frank!!!

I was utterly convinced that I was being wound up but Byron was so serious that I went along with him. He had actually managed to hook a large fish with a green plastic tag on its tail with KO.FM and a phone number written on it. He asked me to ring the number for him. Still convinced I was being wound up I rang the number and nearly fell off my chair when a man answered saying "Hello KO.FM..."

After a conversation that involved lots of questions I was told that they would contact the KO.FM boss and ring me back. Cathy and myself started to talk at a million miles an hour. What would we buy? Was it a hoax? Could we be bothered finishing making lunch or would we just ring for a slap-up take away Pizza?

The phone rang and I answered nervously. It was the boss asking lots of questions..... When? Where? What size fish? What colour tag? With great disappointment they told me that my info didn't match theirs and that my fish must be a hoax. They were really nice and so genuinely empathetic. They knew that the kids really thought that they had Frank and said that they will try to post out something from the radio station to them as a consolation gift.

It looks like Frank will live to swim another day......