The primary set of documents covering Charles Mikkelsen’s life is in the NAA, with barcode 31817302. This is mainly comprised of single-page memos bouncing between various government departments during 1937 to 1940 as they processed his application for Australian citizenship. The NAA also has a two-page document from 1932 relating to Mikkelsen’s arrival on the Tancred (barcode 5511023).
Note that some online family trees (such as here) give his birthplace as “Vardø”, but I don’t know how to reconcile that with the “Bassjordan” (?) he gave on his passport.
I used the above sources (along with other archival sources where possible) to build up a timeline for what he was doing. Entries in the following that are only a page number refer to the NAA 31817302 (1937-1940) item.
Charles Mikkelsen Timeline
17th July 1902 – Born in “Bassjordan”, Norway. (1932 p.1)
Jan / Feb 1924 – Norwegian steamship Bessa – deserted at Port Adelaide. Went up country to Clare, returned to Adelaide some months later. (p.30) He worked “clearing of land in S. Aus.” (p.34)
“Late 1925” [Mikkelsen probably meant “Late 1924”] – American steamer Eastern Sea – signed on in Sydney.
13th Nov 1924 – American steamer Eastern Sea – Charles Mikkelsen arrived in New York from Sydney. He was 5’8″ tall (Ancestry.com).
12th May 1926 – Discharged from Eastern Sea (1932 p.2, pencil)
July 1930 – Norwegian oil tanker Turicum – signed on at Melbourne (1932 p.1)
12th July 1930 – Turicum – left Melbourne (1932 p.2) and returned to Norway (p.34)
9th January 1932 – Norwegian steamer Tancred – landed in Adelaide. Last address on passport: “Löberg – Villa, Solheim, Bergen” (1932 p.1)
11th January 1932 – Norwegian steamer Tancred – Signed off in Adelaide. Passport stamped by Customs in Port Adelaide. Valid for “Australia via Holland Belgium for emigration”. Valid until 11th December 1932. 170cm tall (i.e. 5’8″).
“March 1935” – employed for about a month as a painter in the renovation of Customs House in Newcastle NSW. (p.30)
10th April 1935 – Norwegian tanker Herborg – Charles Mikkelsen signed on as a seaman in Newcastle. (p.30)
15th March 1937 – steamer Herborg from Singapore – expected in Auckland. (New Zealand Herald).
17th March 1937 – steamer Herborg – Charles Mikkelsen deserted at Auckland. Ran away. Did “farm work in the Waikato” for some months. (New Zealand Herald)
22nd July 1937 – arrested at Frankton. Was to be held no more than six months while awaiting a suitable Norwegian ship to be deported on. (Same New Zealand Herald article as 17th March 1937 entry).
[7th August 1937 – Norwegian tanker SS Svenor – arrived in Auckland from Balikpapan at 12:50pm. (Sydney Morning Herald and Papers Past).]
14th August 1937 – Norwegian tanker SS Svenor – completed discharge of petrol from Balikpapan and departed for that port. (Auckland Star)
24th August 1937 – SS Svenor – Charles Mikkelsen put ashore on Thursday Island with suspected appendicitis, and immediately admitted to Torres Strait Hospital. (p.37)
10th September 1937 – Discharged from hospital. (p.37)
25th September 1937 – SS Taiping – Departed Thursday Island.
3rd October 1937 – SS Taiping – Arrived in Sydney, stayed in Sailor’s Home. (p.34)
(About three weeks later) – took a job at Dalcross Private Hospital in Killara (p.34, p.30)
“February 1938” – the date that Mikkelsen’s still-unnamed fiancée intended to come across from New Zealand to get married to him (p.35)
16th February 1938 – Charles Mikkelsen was granted leave to stay in Australia, contingent on paying a £1 Landing permit. (p.22)
[28th March 1939 – SS Anten – ship arrived in Melbourne from Vancouver. (Burnie Advocate)]
(Earlier in 1939?) – SS Anten – joined vessel in Australia. (p.7)
11th August 1939 – SS Anten – signed off vessel at Newcastle. (Note that the Anten then got caught up in a port dispute over war bonuses allowance: and was then captured by Germans in November 1939). (Adelaide Advertiser and Port Pirie Recorder)
5th December 1939 – Anglo Maersk – signed on to the vessel’s articles in Melbourne. (p.11)
20th March 1940 – Anglo Maersk – absent on departure for Balik Papan (p.10) [on the east coast of Borneo]
30th May 1940 – M/V Tirranna – departed for Mombasa. (p.2)
10th June 1940 – M/V Tirranna – attacked by German raider Atlantis. Charles Mikkelsen (passenger) and four crew-members killed in the attack.
My Revised Opinion
It now seems to me that even though Mikkelsen’s account is somewhat convoluted on the surface, it does check out OK. So, alas, I now don’t believe that there were two Charles Mikkelsens both trying to emigrate to Australia at the same time: in the end, my conclusion from the documents taken as a whole is that the historical record is clearly telling us a very linear story about a single Charles Mikkelsen.
Moreover: even though I could easily accept that Charles Mikkelsen was the man Keith Mangnoson had worked with in the second half of 1939, and that Charles Mikkelsen was also probably the man the “unnamed woman living in Cheltenham” had met in 1930, I struggle extremely hard to reconcile the possibility that he was the Somerton Man with his apparent death in 1940 at the hands of the raider Atlantis.
I can easily see how Byron Deveson considers him an excellent candidate: but all the same, dying twice is something I can’t believe of Mikkelsen. Even so, perhaps some other evidence will surface – and I admit that I’ll still be very interested if the identity of Mikkelsen’s fiancée in New Zealand turns up – and prove me wrong. We shall see…
Tin foil hats out…how sure are we that he travelled on the Tirranna when she sunk. The government memo (dated the day after she was sunk) – or more to the point that he was still on her at that point. The memo states he left 14th May from Sydney “via ports”. I don’t overly trust that as definitive proof he was on board when she was sunk (but happy to be proven otherwise). Customs’ (and immigration) systems around shipping have some pretty major flaws even today – especially at minor ports, and I can imagine zealous public servants finding that a pax might have been missed and fudging the paperwork rather than trying to check it all out – especially back then when the physical paperwork must have been a nightmare (compared to today where the computer systems are slightly less of a nightmare), and especially if it meant they could drop some other work (like intel on the guy). I think you only need look at the case of John Friedrich – whose real identity noone definitively knows, and who (according to the official story – that is, if we believe he was who the govt claim he was) somehow got off a plane without immigration working it out – to realise that slipping through the cracks has historically not been all that difficult.
I can see a resemblance between the passport and the bust (although not so much the “official” photo). The bit that strikes me the most is the eyes – or at least the left eye. In the passport photo it looks slightly squinted, and similarly on the bust it looks “more closed” than the right. I don’t particularly buy the idea of “touching up” passport photos (at least not for aesthetic purposes, perhaps for nefarious ones) – a physical feature covered up would make identification more difficult and would increase attention at each border crossing – so you’d have to be more stupid than vain to mess with a passport photo IMHO.
Recently Customs (Adelaide – or more accurately Port Adelaide) tidied up a lot of historical artifacts. I doubt there would have been much of interest there regarding any of his arrivals into Adelaide other than what’s on the National Archive but it might be interesting to find out where all their paperwork went (I suspect a lot of it was offered to the immigration museum & maritime museum and the like and then probably diced when nobody wanted it….), but might still see whether I can find out where they went…
Possibly “Bassjordan” is “Balsfjorden,” which is in far northern Norway, not too far from Vardo.
barcode 31817302 page 23 says “There is a small angioma over the left eyelid which is of no consequence.” in the description of Charles Mikkelsen. No sign of one on the Somerton Man, but the autopsy photo is rather grainy.
Page 44 says he was operated on for appendicitis. I don’t think the Somerton man had an appendectomy scar.
Page 49 gives his birthplace as Bådsfjord (sic), which could have been misread as Bassjordan. Båtsfjord is in the vicinity of Vardø. There is also a passport photo which doesn’t resemble the Somerton Man.
I don’t think he’s our man.
Alas still waiting for Mr. Friedrich to re-appear in a case that might well have eclipsed our own for intrigue. At one stage I started to think that his dad the chrysoprase miner at Pipalyatjara might fit the bill for SM. I’d like to think that his personal claims were true and that he was born at Mt. Davies S.A. Well at least he got to cross the Tasman without valid entry papers and made himself famous. I wonder what became of his ‘nurse’s and his OA Medal.
@Donald
Any angioma would be as visible on the SM as on the passport photo – and it’s not really visible on either so I don’t think the absence of that on the post mortem pics alone discounts the idea (and I still think both the bust and the passport have a squint in 1 eye that is sort of similar).
The passport appears to have been issued in 1930 so you sort of have to imagine 18 years of aging in making any comparison – and with that sort of a difference I think the likeness is plausible (but a long way from convincing). There’s (at least) 2 sets of post-mortem pictures floating around (and it’s hard to even convince yourself that they are both of the same person – although to my mind the less common ones resemble the bust more than the usual one. I suspect one set of pictures is from the police record and one set of cleaner shots was used for media release – the police ones make little attempt to hide any disfiguration).
An appendectomy scar is certainly harder to dismiss, although (drawing a long bow) there’s nothing to say that he actually had the operation – just that the Norwegian Consulate General (and presumably Customs) believe he came ashore to have an operation, not that it actually happened. I struggle with old-school cursive, but some of the scribbles there look interesting….and I’m sure the words I’m picking out from them are slightly imagined….
I’m not convinced, but I’m leaning toward plausible.
There’s a reference to a WM Smith 259 Riley St, Surry Hills (NSW – appears to be in a pasta shop now). It’s a bit odd to jot things down in a passport, no? Presumably this is by the pp owner…For the most part the script doesn’t really look similar to MLIABO (Cursive will do that), but the ‘W’ is mildly interesting.
There’s also some scribbles that I can’t decipher on another page (#53) that has something like “Cotive Cabyic(?) Church of England Mission O. Rejby”. The ‘M’ is similar to the ‘W’ (Deja vu).
Finally there appears to be a reference to something that I decipher as Dural(d) Road Rose Hill. There’s a Rose Hill in Western Sydney and another in QLD, however the closest I could get to the street name was Durham St (which is nothing the same).
Most of it can probably be easily dismissed, but I think some of the scribblings might at least give some directions to chase….
milongal: I suspected the last name on the left might be “O’Reilly” and the first name on the right might be “Sam alwood”, but the rest I’m not sure about at all, sorry. 🙁
Rosehill drive dural is still alive and well. For your information Nick, in the days that we’re talking about it was a prime fruit growing district, mainly clingstone peaches. I worked there with my grandmothers family during school hols. Work was hard and the stingy old bastards never paid me. Uncle Ken retired in bowral a millionaire and left everything to his nursing home flusey. He was however a ww1 hero so we’ll forgive him shall we.
If it helps at all general Gordon Benett was also a fruit grower in the area after ww2. They called him runaway Bennett because he allegedly left his troops to suffer the wrath of the japs when Singapore fell in 42 and became that bastard Blamey’s scapegoat. A lovely old fellow and always nice to us kids is what I recall. Read about him on line if you wish. Lest we forget.
john sanders: “Dural” / “Ro[u]sehill” it is, thanks very much! Might the top word be “Sandalwood”? Was there any sandalwood around Dural / Rousehill circa 1930-1935 that needed
gulliblefit young men to clear or cultivate?john sanders: according to http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/126814417 (1929), Queensland was exporting about 200 tons of sandalwood to China. But it sounds like horribly hard work for very little money.
I really doubt whether sandalwood was growing in any abundance in the Dural area which is fairly close to the Sydney suburbs. Because it was a valuable commodity in the early days of settlement any prolification would have been exploited fully well before the time we are talking about. I suspect that most sandalwood was probably coming from the islands like New Caledonia in those days but I must admit that I’m more or less only guessing. Blast I should know being an old timber man. There just also happens to be another suburb of Sydney called Rousehill which is in the general vicinity of both Rosehill and Dural which I’ll leave you to deal sưith unless something jogs my memory.
John Sanders: as the article I linked to mentioned, sandalwood is a parasitic tree that taps into neighbouring trees’ roots and syphons off most (but not all) their water. Hence sandalwood was both a cash crop or a blight, depending on your point of view – but rarely both at the same time.
From what I’ve just been checking it seems that our friend Mr. Sandalwood unlike its relative the mistletoe is not all that invasive toward its host and its more or less an harmonious sort of relationship. It taps off water and nutrients that are surplus to the host’s needs which proves mutually beneficial and also does its own photosynthesising unlike the strangler fig for example. So not such a nasty chap afterall. There is an old restored house at Wentworth Falls not to distant from Rouse Hill (perhaps 10 miles or so) called ‘sandalwood cottage’ that was probably an orchard area long ago.
Riley street Surry hills was an infamous red light district that proliferated prior to its its more celubrious neighbour Darlinghurst Rd. You might be assured that anyone being in the vicinity especially towards the Oxford street end in the 1930’s was up to mischief. I worked in Brisbane Street right there in the early 70’s and seem to recall one of the better Riley Street establishments called ‘touch of class’ Its probably still there handing out free ‘minties’ whilst one awaits his (or her or its turn). If its O’Reilly you mean than I think A.B. (call me Bernie) is your man and you can check him out on the net, more famous than his namesake Monty and didn’t have to go to war to be a hero. A bushman naturalist author and a very brave fellow who may or may not be connected to Sandalwood cottage although he certainly grew up in the near vicinity and knew his wood. (See Stinson air crash 1937).
From memory a close relative of either Prosper or Jessie lived fairly close to Dural.
Prosper’s dad lived out at Prospect or closeby which is geographically not all that far distant from the hilly fringes of modern-day western suburban Sydney. In the twenties & thirties it would have been a desolate scrubland in need of clearing for outwards development and there’s no reason to exclude father’s involvement in that sort of caper. He once described himself as an entrepeneur which could mean anything including land developer and so he could have being in the need of fit young Scandinavian ‘scrubbers’. Your Chuck might have been just the man for the job and with this experience behind him he could then have moved to Renmark but I have my doubts.
Prosper McTaggart Thomson, salesman, age 23 married Queenie Elizabeth Constance Willder, hairdresser aged 20 at Mentone (Victoria) Church of St. Augustine (C of E) 11th July 1936. Details for Prosper: Bachelor. Birth place Charters Towers, Queensland. Occupation salesman. Age 23. Present address: 7 Williams Street Mentone. Usual address: Blacktown, NSW. Father: Ernest Thomson, investor (inventor?). Mother: Alice Fortune Hawkes.
I note that the present Blacktown shire northern boundary is within 7 Km (4.2 miles) of Rouse Hill. So, Prosper could have met Charles Mikkelsen in Blacktown or Rouse Hill, particularly as Prosper’s father owned a nine acre farmlet in Blacktown Shire (see NSW State Records).
I should add that Prosper’s father was Ernest Chalmers Thomson who owned a 9 acre farmlet in Blacktown Shire in the 1920s and 30s. Ernest later ran a shop and, from memory he sold fruit. So, the farmletwas possibly used as an orchard.
Thanks for that BD and for all you spy enthusiasts (I’m with you). You’ve jogged my limited memory of a fellow named Len Beadell who started work as a surveyors assistant at Prospect Resevoir, Blacktown about the time we are interested in. He was a military man and after his service in New Guinea/New Britain in ww2 he was assigned a special project to survey and build roads in the desert country of NT and South Australia. These roads were to connect such places as Woomera rocket range Maralinga nuclear testing grounds and much later the facility at Pine Gap ( where I used to spend my time a serving of her Majesty the Queen). Both an humble and much loved fellow though sadly forgotten and whom his workers referred to as Dr. Pullem for his expertise at tooth extraction. Now if there happened to
Be any spooks around between say 1946 and 1955 he had probably sniffed them out before anyone. I wonder did he help an old Polish fossicker when he had problems with his back chompers around 1947/48 or thereabouts. Not likely but not beyond the realms wot. Check him out he’s on the web.
Don’t get your dusters in a knot fellas twas only three weeks or so and my assigned duties were to patrol the security fences and to stop Bob Brown and his barbarians from breaking through the fortifications. Mr. Kipling would respect my license I’m sure.
The 1930 electoral roll for Parramatta/Riversone lists Ernest Chalmers Thomson as living at Sorrento, Parklea. I note that there is a Sorrento Drive in present day Glenside, not far from Blacktown.
The Brisbane Courier (Queensland) 9th August 1920 page 6.
THOMSON. July 29, 1920, to Mr. and Mrs E C Thomson, at “Sorrento” Blacktown, N.S.W.
a son.
The Sydney Morning Herald 25th November 1933 page 26.
Parklea Via Blacktown
Sorrento Old Windsor Road and Burns Road about 4 miles from Blacktown
Farms Property area 80 acres subdivided into 5 paddocks with ample water supply, Underground Tanks House Tanks, 4 Dams 2 Creeks. City Water laid within 1 mile of Property. Title mostly Torrens part freehold. Improvements comprise two story brick residence having verandahs and balcony 7 Rooms Kitchen etc Septic Sewerage, Garage Weatherboard Employees Cottage 4 Rooms
Dairy Laundry Tool Shed Good Secure Stockyards with necessary shelters
Richardson and Wrench Ltd In conjunction with Messrs Simpson and Francis of Blacktown will offer the whole to Public Auction in the rooms 2 Pitt Street on Friday 1st December at 1 am. On account of the owner who is leaving the state.
Mr. Thomson snr. sure did us future researches a favour with the names of his offspring. Young Gaston Chalmers could have been named after his tractor and has now sadly left us. Do we put him in the rs folder or let him rest in peace.
Hi all!
Charles Mikkelsen was my paternal grandfather’s stepson. I thought I’d chime in on the language difficulties regarding Charles’ birthplace:
He was born in what is today Båtsfjord, in the municipality of the same name:
http://www.norgeskart.no/#11/1039504/7901473
In the passport (thanks Byron!) it says he was born: “Bådsfjord” (old spelling). Residence: “Laksevåg”. Laksevåg is a part of the city of Bergen, Norway (southern west coast), where my grandfather and his wife (Charles’ mother), Charles, and their two daughters (Charles’ stepsisters) eventually moved to.
The reference to birthplace “Vardø”, is simply that residents of Båtsfjord (at the time) were christened in the parish of Vardø, or more specifically the “rural parish” (“Landsoknet i Vardø”) (as opposed to the parish covering the city of Vardø).
Charles’ christening record (top part, boys, line #9): https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/4338/28
Regards,
Jan-Thore Solem
Stavanger, Norway
Jan-Thore: thank you very much for dropping by and clearing that up, much appreciated! And thanks for the link to his christening record too. 🙂
I hope you don’t mind my asking, but the question I’d like to know the answer to is whether Charles Mikkelsen ever mentioned the name of his fiancée in New Zealand in his letters back to his family?
Nick, to answer your question first: No, no records or letters exist, as far as anyone I have talked to know about.
I forgot to explain the “paternal grandfather” part, as that doesn’t exactly fit with the familiy description I gave earlier. Charles’ stepfather was also a seaman, and had an illegitimate son in the port of Tromsø, i.e. my father. My father and I never knew who the father was, until I found him after decades of searching. I have had many and long talks with “my newfound family”, especially the only living grandchild of Charles’ parents, a very interested lady still living in Bergen. All records she have ever seen about Charles, and adult photo from the passport, is what I have supplied to her. However, she has told me that her dear grandmother, Charles’ mother, received a small compensation from Nortraship after the war, after Charles was killed on the way home on their ship (she did not know the ship’s name). She also said that it was her grandmother whoa had urged Charles to come home, and that she was devastated when she soon after got word on his death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortraship
No doubt you all have examined Mikkelsen’s passport photo extremely closely, after all, your eyes are well-attuned to faint variations in script that hold a deeper meaning. That being the case, and without any indication from me of something in the image that is out of the ordinary, do you see anything out of the ordinary?
I’m sure his nibs will condescend to throw up the pic, otherwise we will all be in the dark.
Pete: as I recall, Byron had the picture, not me.
Mikkelsen’s passport image from his NAA file is all you need …
is it microwriting?
Back on TM/SM, in response to an out of the blue query from Akhenaton 1611, who was possibly an accidental visitor, I mentioned a very small window of opportunity for CM’s surviving the Tirranna shelling, but at the time no one made anything of it. Because of wartime restrictions of ITC radio traffic at sea and also ship captains having to comply with sealed sailing orders to be opened enroute, we cannot be certain that the Tirranna was on a nonstop outward course to Mombassa. The Cocos/Keeling group was a British protectorate in the mid Indian Ocean, garrisoned by them and under the most able command of a George Thompson. Building up to expected hostilities with Japan, there must have been a flurry of requests for increased supplies of all types of wartime materiel to be delivered. This is where a vessel such as MV Tirranna could have been secretly diverted for an unsheduled flash stop over to fill the garrison’s needs, then proceed to it’s date with destiny. Who is to say that a multi-lingual agent of the Australian government with the name Mikkelsen wasn’t dropped off to take up a clandestine posting, his death at sea being later reported to cover his non presence. It would be a most unlikely way for our man to have survived the war of course and obviously this CM is going to look a lot more like SM than the one depicted in BD’s passport photo. As an afterword it is most likely that the CM passport was pulled from the file in accordance with ‘decent interval’ statutary provisions and subsequently returned to the issuing authority, namely Norway’s Dept. of FA along normal procedural lines. The ‘Mi’ listing on some of the file papers obviously relates to the man’s moniker as opposed to an abreviation for Military Intelligence.
A/Inspector Brosswois described CM in late Dec. 37 as a good style of young man with something strange about his eyes, partucularly the left one, yet only a few days later the senior govt. medical examiner Dr. A J. Metcalfe, whilst rubber stamping the ‘good style of young man’, gives him a perfect bill of physical health with no mention of the dodgy peepers. It seems likely that the good doctor may not have seen our man at all and if not, was it perhaps not deemed necessary for some particular reason. It could also be just a small matter but in 1937, both alleged examiner and axamined were of about the same age at 36 years which would hardly qualify for ‘young man’ status in that era.
“…a good type of young man” seems to have been a fairly common expression as a way of saying “a good guy” and was much used during the period in question by investigators and police. It doesn’t seem to relate to the age of the person being described. Just that he was a good egg. Brossois first uses the expression in his memo 24/8/37. And then it is A J Metcalfe who made mention of the angioma who then repeats the expression of the “good type of young man”.
A J Metcalfe is Dr. Arthur John. He goes on to bigger things.
From memory (I’ve moved on from CM a little) CM’s passport (available on the naa) appears to have a slight wink/swelling to one eye. And (with the normal caveat about dead people having all sorts of quirks) I think SM also has one eye closed more than the other.
I sort of like CM’s character (skipping around and going missing), but anemptyglass has another candidate that appears and disappears and changes names everywhere….
Something I can’t quite reconcile with is how CM Mk1 managed an all expences 1st class, captain’s table passage aboard the luxury cruise liner Taiping from Thursday Is. to Sydney, then full board & lodging plus a job at an upmarket Kirribilli rest home. Why didn’t the authorities abide by his NZ court ordered expulsion and stick our sorry son in steerage class on the next ‘tramp’ heading for Singapore, thence physically escorted to a Norse flagged ship as an involuntary crew member. Perhaps the authorities were acting in accordance with International Seamans Union rules regarding shipboard illness and subsequent recuperation entitlements of the day.
Misca: My use of the term ‘dodgy’ is also an old expression, typically Strine and refers generally to some body or something being notably defective to some extent. The future Surgeon General Metcalfe said that the left eye angioma was not of any concern, thereby giving me cause to say perhaps errenously, ‘with no mention of dodgy peepers’, as was most specifically noted by Det. Brossoirs. As you’ll no doubt be aware, the good doctor was also a strong advocate of general innoculations for all and might have been impressed had his examinee been sporting a likely smallpox scratch scar on his upper left extremety, such a lesion being uncertainly described by a certain Dr. Dwyer eleven years later, with regard to his own not so healthy customer.
“dodgy peepers”… really? Does anyone actually speak that way today? Sounds like something from a Sherlock Holmes’ era novel or (at a stretch) from the poems of CJ Dennison.
Never heard such phrase in my life… though to be honest I’ve never encountered a real person who said they’d put a “prawn on the barbeque” either. Sausages, steak, hamburgers and onions certainly, but prawns were traditionally bought already boiled.
‘Dodgy peepers’… my word, what a hoot.
D: C.J. Dennis; NP remembers his Triantwontigongalope..You beaut lucky bloody country and wakothdidillo…Jeepers creepers where’d ya get those peepers…C.J. was the original mallee boy, not old man emu Williamson.
Misca: Whats with Lake Boga?, and what about CM’s involvement with same?. A more parched, desolate and forboding part of the world does not exist this side of Hell and in fact it’s not so far from where a young Keith Magnussen (sic) allegedly got himself hopelessly lost. You’ll recall that trackers had to be brought over to Maggea on the SA/Vic. border from nearby Swan Hill for the search. This Mallee country has a bleak, parched and uninviting aura about it which may be actually transformed into something less inhospitable with the addition of an inch or two of rain. Brother Cyril Mangnoson aka Wilson, had attempted cropping in the area near Pinnaroo and I think Grace McAlpine’s people hailed from some place along the Calder/Ouyen ‘Highway’ near the ww2 air base at Nhill which is not too far off. There is also a Swan Reach where Les Wytkins ended up, so for all I know there could well be a Swann Hill with an additional N that caused Gordon to comment in somewhat more favourable terms about that part of the world….Yes there also used to be the postal district of Hell situated between the townships of Hay (No 7 internment camp) and Boorigal, up river from Wentworth in NSW and “a pleasant part of the country” it most certainly is not.
‘Hay and Hell and Booligal’ is a ninteenth century bush poem by A.B. Patterson… The trackers looking for our Keith near Maggea were from the Victorian side of the Murray River opposite Swan Reach, a bit further downstream than Swan Hill which I incorrectly nominated in my last post.