Adelaide Small Ad Analysis…

48 thoughts on “Adelaide Small Ad Analysis…”

1. pete on January 25, 2015 at 10:39 am said:

   He knew they were coming for him, it’s an open and shut case.
2. Andrew Plumer on May 26, 2015 at 8:01 am said:

   Noting the Henley Beach address which ay be an error as the others reference College Park. It may be nothing but SM was found to have an unused train ticket for Henley Beach on his person when he was found.

   For an unknown reason on the day before his death he travelled to Glenelg on a bus and did not use his train ticket to henley. Did George Thomson have a residence in Henley Beach?
3. milongal on January 16, 2018 at 11:07 pm said:

   Marlborough St Henley Beach is about a car and has a number linked to another Prosper proeprty….I’d say that ones connected.
   Marlborough St St Peters is the other side of town (which is consistent with a different phone number) – and the car seems a bit more upmarket than what Prosper would have dealt with (again, consistent with that side of town).

   the Sands and McDougall directories show a P. Bethge at 4 Marlborough St from (1946 through 1950 (possibly earlier) and in 1951 still show the same name, but with Nelson C. E. mngr. added there as well.

   NB: It looks like the street numbering in HEnley has changed significantly since then with Marlborough St being numbered in the opposite direction (I’m guessing number 4 is today’s number 150), and starts from todays 341 Esplanade rather than 503 in S&M).
   NB2: That’s sort of my old stomping ground – I went to primary school at Star of the Sea (which these days reaches Marlborough Tce, but from memory in my time some, but not all, of those blocks still had houses on them…).
4. nickpelling on January 17, 2018 at 8:03 am said:

   Milongal: thanks very much for that, the street numbering had me confused before now. 🙂
5. milongal on May 16, 2018 at 10:48 pm said:

   Regarding L8409…..and ads for lost Jewelery:
   11/12/1950 EARRING, plain silver band. Outer Harbor wharf or train. Sat. Ring L8409. after 6.30 p.m.
   13/12/1950 LOST, gold cross and chain. Dec. 9. Ph. L8409, after 6.30 p.m
   (the number is very blurred on this second one, so 8409 might be wrong)

   On it does seem odd that 2 items of jewelry are lost on the same day and advertised for people with apparently identical numbers who can only be contacted after 6:30…
   At the same time I suppose there’s some obvious differences….the first ad doesn’t start ‘LOST’, uses Ring vs Ph and specifies a location…

   I wonder if there’s some sort of racket to go fishing for lost property (some that you may have seen someone find (hence a more specific location) and sometimes just in the hope that a relatively vague description comes up with something (gold watch, anyone?).
6. John sanders on May 17, 2018 at 7:11 am said:

   I once lost my Seiko Sportmatic in a rather interesting location; didn’t dare go back for it or advertise and I’m absolutely certain it’s still lying in the general vicinity of where the band broke. That was near forty years ago and one of these days I’ll go back under cover of darkness with a metal detector to retrieve it.
7. john sanders on July 8, 2018 at 12:05 am said:

   I think we are all agreed that Prosper’s Tudor watch ad from 12/12/48 was a scam to account for his illegal possession, or some sort of coded message to a confidant. The fact that he gave his address in addition to his phone number could indeed be significant and so it’s possible that Tudor was the intended recipient. That name comes to mind as being a fairly common first or surname in Rumania and quite a number of displaced folk of that nationality were being resettled in Adelaide at the relevent time. It is also noted with interest that the next ad down, but one refers to a black & white pup found at Somerton which could be a small coincidence. Then again it might at a stretch, be advising Mr. Tudor that his papers (B &W) are ready for collection at the Moseley St. address; after all is it likely that some good Samaritan is going to fork out half a crown for the sake of a stray mongrel dog.
8. john sanders on July 8, 2018 at 12:56 am said:

   While on the subject; what about Prosper’s ad for the model 63 Winchester 22 rifle. That little gem which came to life in the thirties and made in small quantities only through the mid fifties, is most unlikely to have been common in Australia at any time. I’ve been a gun buff since about that time and I am yet to see one, so where did old Prosper come up with the desire to acquire a 63. I’d say that he got the idea from ‘Shooter’s ‘Bible’ a very popular annual American publication and took the 63 rifle designation for the desired code number which he was then able to transmit discretely to his contact through the Adelaide ads. I’d think that more capable researchers than I, should be able to finds scores more similar messages in old Prospers reperoire.
9. john sanders on July 12, 2018 at 6:25 am said:

   Rosario Barbaro, Tailor of 200 Hindley Street Adelaide bn. 3/1/10 and who arrived from Italy on 10/4/39 , settled initially in Hanwood (Griffith) before moving to Adelaide and getting interned as an enemy alien in 1940. After the war he appears to have headed up the family extortion business, headed up by his legendary relative Antonio Barbaro, the enforcer of Melbourne. It seems that Rosario obtained obtained citizenship in ’47 and after making at least one return trip to the Continent, it seems he may have left Australia permanentl in 1959 to resettle in his birth town Plati, Reggio Calabria. Mr. Barbaro may connect with Teresa Cordera of Oxford St. Paddington NSW whose relatives were sugar cane farmers in North Queensland. Not merely due to them appearing on the same citizenship list, but because she is known to have links with at least one of a pair of Continental stage performers that I’m pursuing, whom I know to have then settled in Adelaide, after travelling with Wirth’s Circus and Tivoli Circuit throughout the war years.
10. milongal on July 12, 2018 at 9:24 pm said:

    Call me slow, are you suggesting Prosper might’ve been bringing in illegals – fudging docs and the like? Sort of might raise some interesting questions in the Tibor direction….
11. john sanders on July 13, 2018 at 7:21 am said:

    It’s more likely that Prosper Rosie Barbaro the tailor had other business as well, but yes this migration racket and paperwork switcharoo would have been a hot line for extortion aimed at ligitimate new naturalised former displaced people who were not applying for Aussie passports any time soon. My research suggests otherwise however, as many former refugees appeared to be going back to their war ravaged places of origin in droves; or at least we have folks with their accepted identities making return trips with valid Australian travel documents in their names. Of course SM had no identifying paperwork and from what we are led to believe, neither did Tibor Kaldor who we know had recently obtained some papers that would have been worth a pretty penny to a prospective migrant from Austria say. Also looks like Jessie seems Keane to be making her come back along with tired old Danny from ‘on the busses’ if I’m not mistaken, so believe it or not, things seem to be turning full circle. NB. Rosario Barbaro had twenty pairs of new mens trousers in his kit, when arrested on 1940; I wonder if perhaps he might just have been doing a contract for Stamina or Elasta-strap.
12. john sanders on July 13, 2018 at 11:40 pm said:

    Only ten pairs of unfinished ‘customers’ trousers and four unfinished ‘made to measure suits along with a Singer sewing machine and a pushbike, plus a single mattress etc collected from Rosario’s Hanwood billet. Many of the Barbaro ‘made men’ clan were known to have visited with their Sicillian cousins ‘Stateside’ to learn their trade craft so to speak, though whether our man did so, or whether he ever learnt the art of feather stitching, we’re not to know. Surpisingly he only spent three months in actual custody during ’40/’41 and whence from there, to the time of his stated residency at 200 Hindley St. Adelaide in ’47 nothing is known. I note that the above address was not the only one in that near vicinity (175 & 196) used for Italian alien citizenship applications during the late forties, so we might therefore speculate as them, perhaps being used as fronts for all sorts of ‘mixed business’ including ‘grand theft auto and fencing’ for instance.
13. John sanders on July 14, 2018 at 6:34 am said:

    Prosper was said to have been under the wing of an older man in his unsuccessful WA auto paper shuffle stunt in WA ’38, a few years before the WW2 Prices Commission got wind of the intrastate trafficing of cars. George Marshall’s fatally flawed efforts to curtail the booming business with similar results it might seem to suggest organized crime syndicate involvement. Prosper may well have been recruited in Melbourne by Tony Barbaro‘s Italian enforcers who were certainly king pins (still are) of the auto re-birthing business, along with kidnapping, extortion and the odd hit as required. The two related families from Adelaide headed by Rosario and Frank with wives Maria (2) were well settled by war’s end living closeby and probably in controll of local linked business, with the tailor shop in Hindley St. as a handy cover. The only family member who appears to have made a blunder (in those days) was Frank‘s boy Sam who apparently did six months for some stunt he got up to with the army around ’45. We might also consider that one of Prosper’s brothers Gaston? was mentioned as being in with major crime figures in Sydney after the war, so the connections are certainly in some abundance if we’re looking for them.
14. John sanders on July 15, 2018 at 2:44 am said:

    A little tenuous something that might be condidered. Paul Bethge of 4 Marlborough Street Henley Beach, was a Tailor, like Mr. Barbaro of 200 Hindley St. A German immigrant of some long standing, his manager C.E. Nelson may have been identical to a man of those initials from Annandale/Fivedock, an inner Sydney suburb. The well known criminal boss Abe Saffron (Mr. Sin to his friends), was born in Fivedock and worked in his Jewish father’s Annandale haberdashery business before the war. Abe was supposed to have had criminal associations with Prosper‘s brother Gaston?, though that information has not been tested as far as I am aware.
15. john sanders on July 15, 2018 at 6:59 am said:

    Come to think of it, George Marshall’s lass Gwen Graham seems to have been to Perth, which is where she met him years before their deaths in Sydney. I don’t recall seeing much ado concerning her work background and we should have considered the possibility of her being an old pal of Prosper who was over that way himself in ’38. Perhaps she and Queenie Thomson had worked as bait layers for the Calabrian mobsters who were well entrenced in W.A society from the twenties. Both having been connected with hair salons, later tieing up with George the G’Man, then two shysters like Hellmut Hendon and Prosper himself, might leave some obvious unanswered questions.
16. milongal on July 15, 2018 at 10:14 pm said:

    200 Hindley looks a small shop (S&M lists it as 198a-200) – but seems to have had a lot going on (based on the ads above and Barbaro (although Barbaro’s presence there explains one of the ads NP linked above for a suit))…but I’m wondering whether we’ve assumed a bit much originally.
    Not sure how much the University has changed the geography there, but assuming roughly today’s numbering (which is a reasonable supposition since the Pub is there, which S&M lists as 204,206,208) that was a very crowded block, fitting in 192-202 from Register Place to the pub (although there was an ‘Auto Wrecking Co on the other side of Register Pl, which is of mild interest), but that block has a certain Italian flavour, in 1946:
    192 Bailetti, G., cycle repairer
    194 Castellini, T., btmkr
    198 Basso, Crestiano
    198a-200 Serradura, B., store
    202 Conti, —
    204 206. 208 Royal Oak Hotel McCoy, M., prop

    and in 1948:
    192-194 Bailetti, G., cycle repr
    198 Basso. Crestiano
    198a-200 Caon, Mrs. L.
    202 Conti, A.. bt rpr
    204 206, 208 Royal Oak Hotel McCoy, M., prop

    (I suspect Bailetti – who was already expanding then, by the look of it is (or is related to) the Adelaide brand ‘Bailetti Sports Store’ – which has its roots in Hindley St)

    a few years later, 202 disappears, and a ‘Conti R – Kntd wear’ lists at 200 (along with ‘Caon D plstr’) – but at the very least it suggests some numbering confusion).

    All of this links 200 Hindley and 4 Marlborough (and Bethge being a tailor all the more so), but the only ad that definitely links Prosper to it is at 200 Hindley – I think we may have leapt a bit far because Marlborough St was a car ad, but it’s possible that it’s not Prosper at all….

    2c
17. milongal on July 15, 2018 at 10:16 pm said:

    (oh, and by 1950 Barbaro is listed in Melbourne St, North Adelaide – this seems to be where he was in 52/53 as bankruptcy issues took hold)
18. milongal on July 16, 2018 at 12:08 am said:

    Looking through some Trove adverts, there’s a Thomson who advertises cars from 7 Main St Henely Beach (the wording sounds very Prosper). 7 Main St appears to be occupied by a Miss L Ward.
    There’s also ads (for a Fridges, rather than cars) to 32 Wright St Croydon. These don’t particularly sounds Prosepr-y, however this address is occupied by an A.G Thomson. Next door to this address (at no 30) there’s an R.J.S Ward. how’s that for a coinkiy dink?
19. john sanders on July 16, 2018 at 8:22 am said:

    Only thing that stands out in the Hindley Street set-up is that Demetrio Caon was employed as a stone mason for the Gambino family’s terrazzo ornamental stone business, then he left Adelaide in May, 48 to work in Mt. Gambier plant. Wonder whether this Gambino family had an employee retirement plan like their relatives in The Apple. NB: A lieutenant Demetrio Caon of the Italian army was captured in Libya and was interned as a full blown POW. The property 192-194 was purchased outright by Mario Bailetti for his parents and it seems that the family were quite up front about their bicycle venture. They bought the place which comprised two shops and eight rooms for sixteen hundred quid from a government surveyor of Italian background, with intent to lease the rooms to migrant families; so that might explain some things. The old street front extended buildings to 200 at the corner with Register Place still stands staunch, appearing dark & sinister like the old Rue Morgue, sans Orangutang.
20. John sanders on July 16, 2018 at 12:33 pm said:

    Misca
21. John sanders on July 16, 2018 at 12:48 pm said:

    Misca: Hicup, sorry about that. I recall sometime back, you asked me specifically about Boga Lake, of which I was familar but knew nothing of your interest at the time. Although you gave no information, I did my best to come up with something and I’ve only recently hit on the name Ivan Rusak who left Barmera to settle there in the mid forties I guess. Anyhow welcome back and If you chance to wander over this way, it would be a welcome relief from the tedium, I sincerely hope.
22. John sanders on July 16, 2018 at 1:31 pm said:

    Milongal: It seems that neither Tibor or his possible slab mate Wolff Cohen ever collected their gold cards (Citizenship Certs) going by the Aust. Archival records, whereas my two other players of simiar origin who were nationalised the previous year did so and there’s record of their return to Australia years later whatsmore. My suspicion is that both were possibly deceased by that time. There is proof on file of their own Citizenship Certificates, having been collected by a person, not of their ethnic background and furthermore, quite possibly having been connected with the Italian mob. In saying all that, I’ll concede that both Tibor and Wolff were both dead (1/12 & 14/12/48) within weeks of their approval dates and the Immigration Department may have withdrawn the grant along proceedural lines accordingly. This is still a working case scenario and I expect to have some confirmation quite soon.
23. John sanders on July 16, 2018 at 2:25 pm said:

    Prosper had an older brother Adrian Ernest; perhaps S & M got it wrong with the A. G. Come to think of it, he was the only one in the family that never surfaced after his army stint in WW2.
24. milongal on July 16, 2018 at 11:03 pm said:

    @JS (if you care) I think bailettisports dot com dot au is somehow descended from the Bike shop (although the only Bailetti I could pull up in that regard was Mario – who sounded like he would have been a generation or two later).

    On another irrelevant fact, Hindley St is most often associated with our mate Con – and at one stage almost every building at the city (King William St) end bore his blue and white signs. Of course, that’s more likely to have been post ’70s so it means little for us here.
25. john sanders on July 17, 2018 at 7:05 am said:

    My infrequent ventures into Hindley St. in the mid sixties were, I’m ashamed to say, not primarily for the picture postcard scenery. It had a bit of a cosmopolitan, though somewhat sinister feeling about it, with it’s fish’n chip cafe’s, stale oil smells and the old fashioned ‘chow’ restaurants with their ancient lop sided ‘Chinese & Australian cuisine’ signs hang down here and there along the way. I can’t recall seeing too many foot patrolls down there and can just imagine what lurks and perks the local denizens might have been up to down further, say around Fenn Place of an evening, in 1948.
26. john sanders on August 11, 2018 at 7:18 am said:

    If Len Brown had been given his marching orders following the inquest as is claimed, it may have been due to his becoming a little too familiar with a certain piece of primary evidence, namely the book and it’s connection to a certain witness, as yet uninterviewed. For reasons undisclosed, the rubayyat may have been in police hands since January and been kept from the press hounds as part of an overall strategy. The newly carded detective, had perhaps well meaningly recorded the contact details of the informant Sister J. Thomson on the back cover, albeit in a very small penciled hand which had stubbornly resisted attempts to erase it with the Keane suitcase rubber. So of course Len Brown would then cheerfully have opted for a spell on matters of a less discreet nature as opposed to a uniformed reassignment. As a follow up to this scenario, a reliable team in the form of Dets.Canney and Sleane might thus be tasked to visit with Jess Thompson (sic) right off the cuff, there being no longer need to confirm X3236 subscriber details with the PMG exchange people, thanks to Browny.
27. john sanders on August 11, 2018 at 8:46 am said:

    X3632 and Rubaiyat incorrectly spelt, are the sort of deliberate errors that arise from old habits; usually about two to three per foolscap page of typing was the norm and always helpfully initialled by the perp.
28. John sanders on August 12, 2018 at 7:13 am said:

    Stan Sleane had been a motorcycle patrolman prior to his induction into the plainclothes division and the big time. Years later he worked the Beaumont case and headed up the Adelaide Oval abductions before apparently going rogue. Canney was with Motor Dealers Squad as a junior working ‘D’ and if he had known Jessie when he confronted her as is suggested, well certain dealings with her man Prosper may have helped get her acquainted. Of course Errol made his name with the Homicide Squad and such celebrated cases as the Del Poza murder, offsiding the immortal Ray Kelly, one of Sydney’s finest (according to Byron). He ended up his interesting career as the first appointed OIC U.N. Multi Nation Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus; his distinction being that he had served at varying times in four separate Police agencies.
29. John sanders on August 12, 2018 at 9:26 am said:

    In answer to a point of order, re Union St. Tempe and the assertion made that a now apparently defunct Tom Keane signatory was born within its parent council division of Marrickville, my contrary contention stands in need of any retraction. I’m sure that I must have explained the boundary line east which was made at the onset of county divisions, by taking the original Tempe area east of the Illawarra main railway including the childishly ( I’ll own) disputed Union Street and making it possibly part of Sydenham or Petersham Council’s responsibility. In any case Marrickville as a district in its own right didn’t come about as early as has been claimed. It wasn’t gazetted until around 1863, so the alleged research team tasked to investigate said disputed claims by our friends on the Tamam Shud B.S. team, might be invited to look more closely at their local survey charts. Just one last little piece of information perhaps overlooked, which indeed could be a face saver of sorts; there certainly is an another Union Street that once would almost certainly have come under Marrickville Shire’s jurisdiction, that being of course the one in Dulwhich Hill just off Old Canterbury Road; albeit that the Keane in question did use Tempe as his birth town and not mucking Whatsitville. Anyhow I’ll not press the point, because it is becoming rather tedious and likely a mute point. The thread, if I recall correctly, had to do with your Keane and the Pioneer Flxible bus connection to Adelaide which only had it’s maiden test run in March of 1949, four long months after SM’s sad demise.. PS. Any new leads on the SM’s promised unravelling new developments re Liz Stainforth’s spy link through her Tibor to the two metre tall Russian with the titanium chompers Pavel Fedupsimov (sic). NB: The ‘downright misleading’ accusation escapes me for the moment, though it possibly refers not to a person but the BS site generally; my insincere apologies nevertheless, to any such unidentified individual.
30. john sanders on August 12, 2018 at 9:38 am said:

    Pete: As might readily be deduced, I’m merely marking time; and whatsmore old news is decidedly in advance of no news at all.
31. johns sanders on August 13, 2018 at 10:49 am said:

    And why should a fellow go all the way to Leichhardt Library to source info on a distant locality. Perhaps they have another Gary over Marrickville way, better still Tempe, where Walter Thomas Keane was born; surely they’d have a library of some description and a Gary too, wouldn’t you say Flash? Nah, I’m not into giving an old dog a bad name; I’ll just have to accept the win, albeit for what it’s worth, with humility and good grace as is my wont.
32. john sanders on September 4, 2018 at 3:44 am said:

    I recall telling folks back aways, about the ads being suggestive of how the petty criminal’s mind might work to account for their possession of stolen property ie. a gold Tudor watch and a Winchester 63 auto rifle etc., should they be called upon to do so. We can also take this one much more serious step further, with regard to the maisonette for rent ad at 90A Moseley after 2nd December ?. It seems to me in this case, that the cover related to the sudden departure of a tenant just a day or two earlier, having given no notice so as to allow for earlier reletting. In this case the ad was never intended to be more than a cover for SM’s absence should it be noted in the neighbourhood. The leasee in chief, Sister J. Thomson, it seems, also vacated about that time, moving up town a bit to Partridge Street; not feeling comfortable hanging around the scene of a recent in house asphyxiation apparently. So Flash I’ll say it once then it’s done, ain’t no spies old; least ways not with regards the innocent deceptive Prosper adds..Think you may find that your real estate agent chap was Stephen Barnabas Jeffrey bn. 1909 who worked for PMG in Overseas Telecommunications during the war.
33. milongal on September 4, 2018 at 9:19 pm said:

    John R S Jeffrey is the best I could come up with. And it weren’t the first watch he lost….lost one in 1947 too somewhere between Goodwood and Glenelg, from memory….
34. john sanders on September 5, 2018 at 12:20 am said:

    Flash: I’d agree with the structured approach, had we been looking for a wayward orange. The ad for a presumed lost/stolen watch on the other hand, ticks all the boxes necessary to satisfy any doubts re post date possession therof ie. A brief description, including type along with its nearly new state, a surname, residential address and phone number. Additionally it mentions the offer of a cash reward and very prudently does not specify precisely where the gold Tudor was lost or its model….I would predict confidently that the information provided was more likely to have been a means of establishing legal title to said watch as opposed to being secret instructions for an errant clockwork orange. NB: We may assume that the ad was inserted by Prosper and not Jess.
35. john sanders on September 10, 2018 at 4:48 am said:

    Flash: Forgive me, I thought I might have covered Tibor‘s referee K.J.Widmer in an earlier post, seems not. Yes he was posted missing in ’42 in Dutch Indonesia, subsequently confirmed as being captured by the japs. There appears to have been some mix up with his relative who was serving in the same theatre and escaped capture. His Nok Annie Gallagher (interesting file) was in touch with the AIF during Ken’s ensuing four year captive period until his release in ‘46. Should you be needing further on this or other aspects of the case, I’m now free to assist and happy to do so.
36. john sanders on July 20, 2020 at 1:18 pm said:

    Over quite a number of years, way before and since Nick’s Adelaide Small Ad Analysis header for Prosper’s well documented probable involvement with shady car deals coming to light, enraptured so-called ‘Grand Theft Auto devotees had been all over the shop endeavouring to hook him up to various high rollers in the syndicated organised crime picture without much to show for their combined efforts. It had been assumed from his first fall from grace in Perth as far back as 1938, when he was prosecuted for falsifying Victorian vehicle registration papers that he’d been under the wing of someone high up in the game.

    Some time back on another SM dedicated site, I was finally able to reveal who that identity was in no uncertain terms, he being an international criminal, working for many years with his band of rogue brothers in an Australasia wide flim flam scam venture. This mainly involved door to door sales and related intimidatory debt collection rorts for which he was eventually named and shamed by a long Federal Commission of Inquiry in the United States ending in 1947. Only a single case was ever prosecuted in Adelaide in 1938 in which, whilst the ruling was rather scathing, resulted only in a mere slap on the wrist for the cuprits, this type of institionalised crime not thought to be of any wide spread prevailance in the local domain at the time.

    When I personally notified the potential importance of key players Harley Burch with his brothers Elma and Leland, operating under the false flag of Empire Art and it’s like subsidiary Universal Debt Collections, I was keen to point out the the link to good old Prosper, that being of Harley’s presence as best man and witness at his 1936 marriage to Queenie Willder. At that particular time old hands like ‘the dud 74’ and the Tomsby blog thief himself, were really playing up all the various tricky angles connected with vehicle break-ins, utilisation of specialised tools for the purpose to be found only in the Keane suitcase and of course resultant theft of desired vehicles for on selling.

    The net outcome of my sharing of information; not rejection which might have been anticipated from such types, not even a wall of embarrased silence in that they hadn’t managed to pull off such a coupe themselves, no none if that which would also have been understandable, perhaps due to characteristic ineptness, but instead a jointly orchestrated tirade of abuse and persistent attack on my personal deficiencies etc. False claims were followed on social networks, that I whilst on active service, I was a soldier who deserted his post, presumably in the field of combat. Unfortunately this was later passed on to my military pension source and resulted in a relatively short delay in payments, pending inquiry into the validity of claims made against me. In a final twist my entitlement to a recent government incentive exgratia payment was rejected on grounds that only came to light upon closer departmental scrutiny of my ellgabilty. I more than likely deserved what I was served and I did manage a few proportionately low blows of my own, but only in retaliation of course.
37. milongal on July 7, 2021 at 11:33 pm said:

    Going back over the ads, I’m wondering whether we’ve mis-categorized him as a car salesman, when he was actually something more like a driver (private limo service type).

    Picking about 50 ads (if you look thoroughly there are HEAPS – sometimes he seems to post almost daily, and that’s only the ones I went through before I got sick of it – I’m sure with OCR errors and other variation there is a shedload more there. Overwhelmingly, the are advertisements for some variation of:
    New Sedan (brand) available hire with reliable AIF driver. The Cars wanted or for sale seem to be more sporadic, and I think feed into theis taxi/car hire service (I’m not certain he exclusively offers a taxi service, some of the ads might suggest he’s hiring cars as well).
    There’s a trip to Melbourne in early Jan 1949 – which is mildly interesting.

    He first advertises looking for a new house in June 1948, then twice in November and again in January (there may be others I haven’t seen) – but we could speculate that something happened in 1948 that made him want to move, and whatever that occurrence was he was still looking to move in January (I just noticed I’ve also got one for June 1949, but I’m wondering if this is actually a seconf one in 1948 that I’ve written down wrong). In each case he offers the possibility of tenancy in Glenelg as a swap….

    Of the ones I’ve found in my most recent searches (as I say, I’m sure there’s loads I’ve been missing), late 1948-early 1949 goes like this:
    6/11 Hire Car available
    12/11 Hire Car Available
    13/11 Hire Car Available
    13/11 House wanted – Eastern Suburbs
    27/11 Bungalow wanted
    18/12 Tudor Gold Watch
    1/01 Bungalow wanted
    5/01 Hire Car available
    7/01 Hire Car to Melbourne depart 9/01
    8/01 Hire Car to Melbourne depart 9/01

    One thing that DID occur to me (and when I have time I might do some more scratching) that there’s some obvious keywords that he ALWAYS has in his car ads. Maybe looking for similar ads in Sydney/Melbourne papers before 1947 might make some interesting links.

    Another mildly interesting thing is in March 1949 he’s trying to sell cars (A Buick and a Dodge) to Port Lincoln (advertised in the Port Lincoln times with an offer to deliver them). I haven’t noticed similar ads elsewhere, so it sort of begs the question whether he has a connection to Port Lincoln, whether he’s trying to get rid of cars with questionable background, or whether he’s trying to offload them in LOADS of places and just haven’t found any of those ads (or some combination of more than one of those).

    The other thing that caught my eye is that on 3 occasions there’s a slightly strange ad immediately below Prosper’s. I suspect it’s just some sort of competition results (or something) but they were sufficiently strange to warrant a mention. Unlike the ads before, these ones aren’t summaries, it’s the entire ad
    10/04/1948:
    MSC 1A, 23 1st; C4 2nd; S35 3rd
    14/08/1948:
    PACPF 628, 357, 462
    21/08/1948:
    PSC A1854, C1446, A814, F1803, F784, B1059, B183, B1775b D1762, C854, E1468, C662, C721, B1226, A1315, D131, B702, D466, E1999, D1507

    So I’m assuming the first series of letters identifies a competition, and the remainder of the entry is winning ticket numbers (but happy for conspiracy theorists to make what they will of it).
    What bothers me a little bit about these ads, is that I don’t really get how they get categorised into the same category as his car hire…..but I *suppose* (didn’t think to check) that the ads might be in a “miscellaneous” category
38. john sanders on July 8, 2021 at 10:01 am said:

    Only thing I could ever come up with regarding Prosper’s shortish spell in Port Lincoln, is it’s connection with the name George Thomson that he was known by since a child (Kate cm ’14) but without explanation. As noted earlier his namesake from the area died suddenly (suicide?) In ’41 and newly widowed Jessie Muir with Thomson nee McFarlane, still in her mid twenties with a babe in arms Janet, up and moved to Glenelg. She never re married or worked as far as is known, though dad Walter was a well heeled auctioneer and farm equipment dealer in Port Lincoln, so he was likely to have helped out. I wonder if he ever bumped into the new cove peddling cars around town, the one with the same monicker as his sadly deceased son-in-law. All Coincidence probably, but worth bringing to notice every so often.
39. milongal on July 9, 2021 at 1:09 am said:

    The 2 ads in the Lincoln Times I found are from 1949 and link back to Moseley St (or its telephone number) – it also suggests he would deliver cars to there – so I was sort of interested why he would advertise specifically there (e.g. is he trying to get hot cars out of Adelaide)…..but maybe a family connection explains it…..

    Does anyone understand how telephone numbering worked? There seems to be an M3239 and a C3239 that occasionally crop up (haven’t confirmed if they exist at the same time as X3239). I had assume the letter referred to the exchange handling that number, and while it might have been possible to have the same number through a different exchange it wasn’t usual to do that (although that would limit subscribers to 10,000 – which seems low even for Adelaide in the 40s). Any info would be nice…..
    e.g. Feb 1948: Ex-Service couple, one child 3 yrs want furn.unfurn. flat. rms…..M3239
    The style isn’t consistent with Prosper’s, but…..

    Also in my list above I missed an ad for a hire car on 1/1/1948. It is a little interesting than other than the Gold Watch he goes silent during Dec 1948 (I will dig around to see whether he’s genuinely silent, or I just didn’t find anything). Maybe the holiday season is fully booked so he doesn’t need to advertise, or maybe he’s lying low for some reason…..I find it a little odd that there are 0 ads on the car, because school holidays wouldn’t start until mid-December so I would have expected some advertising early…..but maybe he’s happy with the number of bookings he normally gets in in Dec (he does have an ad in Dec 1947 but that’s a specific trip (to Melbourne) rather than a “car available” one).
    For completeness I should mention that between 21 August and 6 November ’48 he doesn’t advertise his business either, other than a specific trip (Broken Hill, September 15) and an attempt to swap cars for something newer (if it wasn’t for this ad, I would have considered he might have been trying to give up the business). Compare that to March 1948 which has at least 12 advertisements and it certainly looks like late ’48 he’s eased off a little (which sort of lines up with the time frame he’s looking for a new house – is this life changes with the onset of a child, or is he looking to get away from Glenelg for some other reason?).
    There’s also some (that might not be him) like:
    EXCHANGE, Glenelg. Tenancy self-contained furnished flat 4 rooms and bathroom, close beach and tram, only 2 flarts in building.. owner occupies other, for purchase of house furnished or otherwise. L739 Advertiser

    In any case, I find it a little interesting he advertises at least 5 times for a house over a 12month interval. If you were looking for a house, wouldn’t you be proactively looking rather than waiting for someone to answer your ad?

    Sidenote: At one stage (I think 1949) he specifically advertises that he’d prefer a house in the Eastern Suburbs. These days, the Eastern Suburbs (I think normally referred to as the area roughly from Magill Road through to the South Eastern Freeway – although the Easternmost suburbs further North through to about Rostrevor have some status too) are seen as slightly elite. While they’re perhaps not as prestigious as parts of Unley Park (it has always boggled my mind that there’s a bus route along Victoria Ave) and perhaps Medindie (around Robe Tce) it certainly is a desirable area for people who put a lot of weight on status (I think even more recently there’s school zoning that attracts people to Burnside), I don’t know what the area was like in the 1940s, but assuming by Eastern Suburb he is looking at Dulwich, or Burnside or Leabrook (sorry, had to give a nod to Coopers) it suggests they have a bit of coin behind them (and I wouldn’t imagine a one-person Uber service was all that profitable).

    Short version: Prosper was the founder of Uber.
40. john sanders on December 3, 2021 at 7:14 am said:

    In 1955 J. Thompson took up residence at 90a Moseley and stayed until 1960 which I mentioned recently to no acclaim as usual. Guess it may have been our own Jessica who, back in ’47 only ever had a phone listing there which didn’t prove that she had ever actually lived there. If not then why the phone, why the listed vocation as Sister and why in the name Thomson could it be that it was infact her place of business and she was setting up shop again. If our Jo had worked at up-market RNSH in Sydney and got involved in obstetrics it would not be a far reach with her aquired skills to move right into the thriving post war backyard abortion business. With Prosper as her pimp and using the flurry of buy, sell, rent, lost ads for the address being used a foil for a rather tidy little earner, the pair could come or go depending on appointment schedules. Anyhow just before J. Thompson mk. 2 arrived on the scene a fellow Victorian ex army reject moved into 90b and his credentials suggest he was of similar shady past as Prosper. He gave his occupation as driver though court records from early post war desertion and divorce proceedings list him as an unemployed cabinet maker. Gerald Tench O’Harra left in 1961 from memory and like most Adelaide denizens ended up at Centenial Park…Something to discuss for all those who consider the Thomsons as still being persons of interest in this case.
41. john sanders on December 4, 2021 at 7:53 am said:

    The so called evidence that claims to connect the nurse with the beach body, namely a Slip of paper found thereupon and it’s alleged host copy of a Rubaiyat handed to cops with her phone number on it’s back cover is evidence of no evidence. This could only be fabricated in the warped mind of some frustrated failed novelist with hopes that it alone might be taken as unimpeachable proof of murder most foul and the nurse’s direct involvement based solely thereupon.
42. milongal on December 5, 2021 at 8:19 pm said:

    The slip of paper connecting the Thomsons is strange. If it wasn’t for the Boxall direction that ends up following, it would easily disappear.

    But that seems to be the problem in so much of this saga – if the story is deliberate why would you turn things in a direction that only serves to attract more attention? It’s one of my problems with most conspiracy theories – we’re to believe that everything is carefully orchestrated, yet there’s too much unnecessary deviation that only seems to serve to add rather than dismiss interest. Of course, that’s countered with “but some of the players didn’t realise the conspiracy” (or equivalent), but it seems a stretch to me that you (allegedly) have puppeteers that can control so much of the narrative, yet conveniently can’t seem to control the bits that you’d imagine them having most control over (the local fuzz and the media).
    But I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
43. john sanders on December 6, 2021 at 1:01 am said:

    Det Canney interviewed the nurse, at her home by appointment on 26th July ’49 it being a consequence of her having phoned police in response to Det. Leane’s Rubaiyat press plea. Why should we choose to believe this logic based version of events rather than a time honoured most unlikely police account, is based on the simple facts. It was Canney the outsider and not any of the Leane team that interviewed the ex Sydney RNSH nurse, not because he knew her as G. Feltus fantises but, because the ‘team’ had lately lost its steam, a fact born with former member Len Brown’s belated admission to Littlemore in 1978. Reason for the sudden change was IMO most likely due some foul up apropos Freeman’s delivery of the ROK days earlier. One of two possibilities comes to mind neither of which police hierarchy would have condoned is, either Det. Leane’s having flagrently given anonymity to a valuable witness without prior approval, and/or his enabling a piece of potentially critical evidence (ROK) to be used for recording the nurse informant’s contact details…Elementary stuff from a dumb arse former suit with recall on how, when shit goes down there be ways and means to cover it up, not always prudent albeit
44. john sanders on December 6, 2021 at 3:41 am said:

    …..with a view to avoiding nonsense negative comments regarding my above thoughts and as not to risk sullying a dead man’s legacy, let it be known that, I don’t necessarily dispute Paul Lawson’s old age version of ‘Mrs. Thompson’s alleged bust viewing on 26th July ’49 with oversight by Det. Leane.
45. john sanders on December 6, 2021 at 7:32 am said:

    Trawling/trolling through the dozen or so press releases for 26/30-7-49 re a nurse coming forward with her Boxall ROK connection; First to air was ‘The News’ with their woman who nursed at ‘North Shore Hospital’. Next day the headline grabbers ‘The Argus’ and Advertiser’ thought ‘Royal North Shore’ had more appeal, whereas a staid Tassie regional rag kept the tone down to ‘A North Shore Hospital’. From then on most referred only to the ‘three to three and a half years’ since ‘she’ nursed an Army lieutenant in hospital or merely a Sydney nurse. So where did all the shit come from that says Sister Thomson was most assuredly at Royal North Shore?. Came from the likes of Feltus of hearsay fame undoubtedly, no wonder that no Jessica (not Jessie) Harkness could be found in RNSH books. For those interested, Mater Misc. Hospital next door at Wollstonecroft was just as well known in those days and surely went by the name of ‘North Shore Hospital’ to Sydney siders but nobody bothered to check, nor with Royal Newcastle a tad further north for all that. What a joke this has turned out to be.
46. Jamie S. on October 4, 2022 at 3:23 am said:

    The lost watch ad, which does potentially look like an attempt at cultivating the image of legitimate ownership…

    The fact that any valuables that TSM might have possessed had been removed from his person…

    Some sources saying that TSM had what appeared to be fresh abrasions on the back of his right hand, including between the knuckles, perhaps due to another such (quite unceremonious) removal…

    And with possibly his last seen movement having been the raising and dropping of that same arm…

    I wonder, as he’d faded out, whether our man’s final cohesive thought on this earthly plane wasn’t:

    “…Ah, they took me f-ing watch.”
47. Jo on October 4, 2022 at 9:51 am said:

    @ Jamie

    You’ve even mastered the ‘Stine accent!

    Jeez, this thread goes back to 2015!

    The watch and gun ad are so specific that they do suggest Prosper T already had these and wanted to cover his tracks!
48. John Sanders on October 4, 2022 at 5:59 pm said:

    Jamie S: I’m sure you’re on the mark about Prosper using the lost add to cover for his possessiion of the gold Tudor watch which has been alluded to in several past comments to no great applause. As for the scratch marks, from memory, yes there were two in the webb between the middle right hand knuckles, also Doc. Dwyer mentioned three scars on the left wrist which could well be vaccination scars of the direct transfer type used in rural Victoria pre WW1.

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