Much as I’ve enjoyed looking through old J. C. Williamson programmes and Melbourne bridge columns hunting for Gerald Keane and Carl Webb, I can’t help but wonder if it’s time for a new research angle.
I mean, tracking Dermott Derham ‘Derry’ George (of 13 Wandeen Road, S.E.6, mechanic in 1939 Victoria census) and his wife Rita Mabel (nee Dixon, married 1942 in Victoria, maybe at Hoffman’s Road, Keilor, home duties in 1946 Victoria census, died in Keilor in 1998), and I guess his brother Dermott James George and Olga Burge George (both at 13 Wandeen Road in 1939, and again in 1941) is all very well, but it’s not really much of anything. Oh, and driving in his 746 c.c. M.G.J. in 1935, and his M.G. J4 in 1937 and 1938 and 1938 again for the Light Car Club? Nope, not that gripped, sorry.
So what’s next?
Masonic Registers and Card Indexes, maybe?
This is what I’m thinking might possibly give us a lead on Gerald Keane and/or Carl Webb.
There’s a whole load of Australian Masonic Registers and Card Indexes 1830-1991 now being digitised and prepared for publication on familysearch.org, which is just the kind of thing I like to trawl through just in case. (But it’s not up yet.) Similarly, the Museum of Freemasonry in NSW also has digitised a lot of its Masonic records, though these are not yet available online. Still, you’d have thought the Adelaide Masonic Centre Museum at 254 North Terrace, Adelaide and its Grand Lodge Library (the J. R. Robertson Masonic Memorial Library) might have something like the card indexes each Lodge had, right?
Wrong! Because it turns out that tons (almost literally) of masonic registers and card indexes from South Australia have been lodged (if you’ll excuse the pun) in an Australian archive, including a downloadable finding aid listing all the individual documents – I know because I actually read it a few months back. But… I have since lost my copy of that file and now can’t find it again. Which is unbelievably annoying.
So, can anyone help me find this document again?
Royal Adelaide Hospital
Carl Webb was not a well man. At the time of his death, he had an enlarged spleen (which must surely have been hugely painful), and it appears (from his hair) that he had been exposed to dangerously high (and as yet unexplained) levels of lead some 2-3 weeks before his death. Moreover, it seems likely to me that what killed him was an overdose of heart medication (though whether that was self-inflicted, deliberate, or merely accidental is a quite separate issue).
TL;DR – Carl Webb was not, as the phrase goes, a happy bunny.
Hence, I’ve long wondered whether Webb might have been admitted to (and discharged) from a hospital in the month before his death – and given that he was found on Somerton Beach, I’ve specifically wondered about the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Interestingly, the admissions register for the RAH have been digitised up to 1961, and are accessible up to 31st December 1936. These look like this:
Now, it’s not clear to me when (or to whom) the Admissions Register scans covering November 1948 will/are be accessible. There seems no obvious reason why film # 102936290 isn’t available online, but might it be accessible in person via an LDS Family History Centre? Perhaps someone here will know what the deal is (because I certainly don’t, alas).
Update!
Though Google wasn’t as helpful as normal, I eventually found a copy of the missing document in my mobile phone’s pdf cache. It was SRG 490, “Grand Lodge of Antient, Free & Accepted Masons of Australia”, held at the State Library of South Australia. More to follow when I’ve gone through it properly…
Here’s a Bro Webb at Springvale in 1933 – the Lodge of Unison quartette, h’mm, what’s that all about …. this Brother Webb contributed a song and was applauded, no first name provided though.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201301610?searchTerm=malvern%20lodge%20bro%20webb
That infernal no name Webb again. Doesn’t come close to getting me gripped either bro Pelling?
Sharon Cocksure’s score 1 out of 16 is about the best I can do. Norman gets the nod for sure but as for the rest, sorry is the only word comes to mind. But good try Ms. Cocksure you done your best and that’s a feather in your cap.
….maybe two for all your efforts Sharon. Roy looks the goods though you’ve got him hidden away behind his name and age board. Sorry about that.
Nick, an overdose of heart medicine? From an initial diagnosis of barbiturate poisoning? Seems questionable. Misplacing a document honestly like a first world problem. Perhaps I don’t know all the facts. If you feel someone hacked it out of existence I feel you. I can’t help you with the LDS family center. Do you have reason to think anyone can? Perhaps you should hit Vegas and see if anything turns up.
Nick,
Surprised you didn’t mention Derek Abbott’s cover story in IEEE Spectrum:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/somerton-man
Surprised the South Australian police who did the exhumation still don’t appear to have said yea or nay to the DNA match (“In late 2021, police in South Australia ordered an exhumation of the Somerton Man’s body for a thorough analysis of its DNA. At the time we prepared this article, they had not yet confirmed our result, but they did announce that they were ‘cautiously optimistic’ about it.”)
Note that having IDed Somerton Man he’s now planning to come for the Voynich Mss: “More recently, we’ve been throwing some natural-language processing techniques into an effort to decode the Voynich Manuscript, an early 15th-century document written in an unknown language and an unknown script.”
Karl
(P.S., Also surprised you haven’t posted about the deciphering of the Mary, Queen of Scots letters. _Cryptologia_ very kindly made the paper open-access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01611194.2022.2160677.)
Karl: Derek Abbott’s cover story is a nice enough presentation, but I try to post things here that are genuinely new. Similarly, I don’t really have anything to add to the (generally very good) media coverage of the Mary, Queen of Scots letters. As for applying natural-language processing techniques to the Voynich, I can only really wish Derek and his students good luck with that, while perhaps quietly shaking my head slightly. :-/
Matt: I think I was lucky to find the document the first time, but not so lucky subsequently. I suspect that LDS family centers will have access to all the scans (i.e. not just the ones available on the Internet), but that’s just a hunch. Heart medicine was specifically mentioned at the inquest, and I don’t know of any better alternative there.
There is also military records , surely there must be something somewhere that is recorded on why Carl was exempt…..a mystery
Nick, I am sorry about your document. I think a lot of times we can take arms against a sea of troubles, but things that are meant to be are sometimes meant to be. Give them a call and ask, is all I can say. Dwyer was pretty sure it was a barbituate yes, hence my earlier reference to the Bourne films. I own a book called Poisoner In Chief, about the nefarious activities of Sidney Gottlieb. I think it was around the time barbiturates were being crossed off the list as “truth serum” though some might have not got the memo. I am not being unserious.
Karl, I am interested in the Mary Queen of Scots thing. Was anything that was found big news? Something that might have saved her life for instance?
Matt
Matt: happy ending, I found a copy of the missing document in my phone’s pdf cache (I added an update to the post).
Yes accidental barbituates overdose does seem likely. I am still standing by that SM might have been a long time user of barbiturates possibly even as far back as to his teens. I am convinced that he was on the spectrum and suffered from anxieties and other disorders to that effect.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424120/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sleep_therapy
That’s why medical records failing that the military recruitment records could have been able to prove the above
Sharon’s findings over at Tom’s are obviously correct. The pallor of death notwithstanding, bone structure does not change. The nominated Webb of Mistry’s dreams is a pencil neck and has a thin face. The dead Webb has a broad face and is much more sultry looking. In fact my recently (expensively) refreshed but still God-Givenly modest 36DDD knockers tingled when I saw the photo. A real storm in a D-Cup. God, I’d love to slide an oyster down my throat with him at the Holdfast Bay Hotel. Obviously before he was poisoned with Thallium, which is what actually happened.
As I have explained to Peter, that is the only source of poisoning consistent with the injuries suffered. The outside (fresh, sexy and in the prime of life) does not match the necrotic corrosion within.
As for Captain Cramer, he has resorted to asking a Chat Bot whether Carl Webb is the Somerton Man. According to him the ChatGPT says no, largely due to its harvesting of his own dross! Amazeballs. It’s the circle of life; it’s the wheel of fortune.
@ Em – as an electrical fitter & instrument maker Charlie would have been in a protected occupation, so not encouraged or required to sign up for military service. Australia did not have conscription during either WWI and WWII.
Interestingly Gerald and Freda Keane were involved in the WWI anti conscription campaign (as were many Catholics and the Union movement):
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26580603?searchTerm=Gerald%20Keane
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/politics/conscription
The Keanes and the Camperdown Entertainers (including Roy and Gladys Webb and Amy Tomkinson) were also involved in fundraising concerts for patriotic organisations involved in WWI, eg:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/152330905?searchTerm=Camperdown%20entertainers
(More on Trove under Camperdown Entertainers, including concerts for Belgium).
@ Nick – someone else may have more luck with Freemasons Victoria than I have. Their records seem very out of reach. The former volunteer archivist/librarian Ange (Angelo?) Kenos may be worth contacting. He managed records at the heritage centre in Prahran before it was closed to the public in 2020. It sounds as though most records have been taken to the Grand Lodge. I haven’t received any replies to queries put to the Grand Master, Anthony Bucca. Good luck with this line of enquiry. I still think the code could be related to a Freemasons charge or similar.
Good on ya Nick on finding the missing document, the old pdf cache, it’s pretty good hey.
Nick, glad to hear it.
Em, always a possibility. Quite a nutty family he had. You know though Em, you should not dwell so much on other people “mucking it up” so much. Always another annoying mystery to jump in the place you want out of the way, the next one could be far far worse!
Oops I was thinking of “M” from none of my deranged fantasy novels or something. Not you, obviously. You are Em. Got it.
(Yes, dear I will be with you in a moment)
cheers all!
A brief synopsis, if I may on our SM’s very likely poor state of health in the weeks before his eventual death undoubtedly from the long term effects of heart failure. This taking the form of left ventrical arrythmic fibrilation (tachycardia) brought about by his overdosing on a prescribed medication for the complaint.. Warfarin is a blood thinner developed from a synthesised plant extract (rat bait) in the immediate post war period for prevention of heart attacks and strokes in people diagnosed as being at risk. It was hailed as a wonder drug in 1948 and although superseded by modern drugs, is still commonly prescribed. In cases of Warfarin overdose extensive haemoraging is likely to occur throughout body, particularly in the internal organs including the brain and auxillary blood canals where lesions be present. In the case of SM, I feel it most likely that he was cognizant of his treatable condition and that he may or may not have OD’d intentionally. In Warfarin overdosing, effects can be reversed with a high dose injections of Vitamin K that are fast acting and most effective in stemming the blood flow by coagulation. One interesting aspect that might be worthy of extra consideration to our very own cause celebre with respect to Warfarin contradictions is, that there may be a tendency for skin darkening effects of the limbs including fingers and toes due to regenerated blood flow if the patient had any history of deep veined thrombus (SM’s crotch to toe tan).
Sanders, no worries, it’s J. Webb, found it … sorry to have bored you there, but was just thinking if we found the funeral notice for Dowdall from the Masons it might lead to something re Carl.
PS: Can I ask, what are you talking about in your post about Sharon Cocksure and Norman and the feather in cap and Roy hidden away behind a board? Just curious, thanks. Cheers
@nickpelling The RAH admissions scanned and indexed records have been searchable through the Ancestry dot com au Website. Richard D has been searching other South Australian hospitals’ admission records, too. Ancestry Library Edition is available for free.
Much of this green toned https derived balderdash called links that we are being overdosed with of late is plainly uneccessary; being unfuriatingly off topic and self serving so as to be wasted on us. The chìef proponents know who they are so no names no pack drills from this commenter. Not that I fear consequences of being labeled in specific gender terms to which I’m well used; it’s simply that I’d rather folks feel free to stroke their own egos or whatever they like to stroke in private.
Jo – full text from Jo to Sharon vide Tbt 18th inst.
@ Sharon
It’s good to have new eyes and voices on the case! It will be great if Stuart Webb responds to you – he may have access to other photographs and family memories for comparisons and (?) genealogists (?) were consulted on the photos prior to the Australian Story episode. I also think that your strychnine theory is very interesting!
Don’t be deterred by anything posted on “another forum” by Slanders [sick].
He gives all SM commenters a hard time, especially women. The Dude usually returns serve with lots of panache & humour. You’re probably used to that kind of thing, I think we’re in a similar line of work!
Jo blow: Thanks for the usual sledging, taken as being a fair assessment of the feelings you hold for me generally, and my lack of elloquence which must get lots of laughs from lots of folks. My two bracketed (?) signs in your text were added on my initiative due to apparent omissions which I’m sure you don’t mind my jumping on with relish. Slanders
Poppins: Sharon is a new poster on Tbt. with her own IDs on those in the family pic which Derek and Stuart Webb were not interested in according to her. No worries the whole shebang will be in your grasp by the time this goes to air. PS not sure on Cocksure and having difficulty getting her introduction back up.
@ Johnno – no hard feelings! A fair few pearls have washed up from time to time amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the unstoppable tide of your comments!
Em: you’ve been misinformed I’m sorry to say. Australia did have conscription during WW2 from 1942 onwards for all 18 to 35 year olds and up to 45 for all single men which included volunteer service in PNG and territories. There was an early version at the start of hostilities requiring men over 21 to do service for three months but as the war intensified this was modified accordingly. Another scheme that was put into effect had non citizens called up to serve in Army construction companies, not to be confused with the unit Jack Robertson worked on constructing army air strips which was strictly a volunteer concern.
Jo: pearls, you say? Hmmm… 😨
Sorry John and Em, unforced error on my part! Here’s a good summary of WWII conscription:
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/second-world-war-conscription#:~:text=The%20Second%20World%20War%20was,would%20be%20bolstered%20by%20conscription.
Another patch of green Johnno! Anyway, I learnt something – that PNG was treated and considered as domestic territory for the purposes of military service.
Anyway, as an electrical fitter and instrument maker, Charlie was in a protected occupation, exempted from military service.
@ Nick – maybe enough pearls for a pair of earrings?
Colonel f…n Sanders are you aware that you are personally responsible for half the comments made here recently ??? and that on another thread here you posted 8 out of the last 13 comments !!!!
Not to mention that the sheer volume of these posts average more than double the size of most other contributors contributions !!!
Given that you have little to say of any genuine interest I have to wonder what else is really going on (or not going on ) in your daily life. This must take up hours of your day.
This issue needs to be looked at Colonel as Im worried sick about you.
How about getting a hobby ?? Ever thought making an airfix model ? they’re hours of fun mate !!
Nick: I know how much you really appreciate those few pearls, albeit not so fair some might say. As for me, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again with all due disrespect. I’ve always truly worshiped the grass that you so deftly slither through!
Sanders .. ‘usual sledging?’ Oh, the {sob} pain of being misunderstood. Never mind Scout, I’m here to help, just reach out, ok?
Jo: one person’s pearls may well be another person’s undigested pea aubergines.
To my cultured critics
Why’s everbody always pick’n on me?. Why? because they like me, that’s why, They can rest assured I intend to live up to their high expectations..love yous all.
thedud: so you can actually count up to 13, surprise, surprise I’ll let it be known. Colonel f…n Sanders of the River.
Or her Pearl Necklace. Didn’t Ian Thorpe used to market those? Her Late Majesty loved them but II doubt Sanders would be receptive… perhaps he prefers to give them for gifts. I love to garland my enhanced bust with a beautiful string.
Poor Colonel. If you’d just spit out the contents of that mealy mouth of yours and stop being a discursive dissembler you wouldn’t garner so much ire from the cipher crowd. It’s okay old mate – nobody wants your reward money. Nobody except Mr Snoswell anywho.
Thanks Sanders, I get it now, now I know what you’re talking about … h’mm, that photo has Leslie as a man with a left hand so that’s a red flag for me.
When you mentioned the RAH and lead a random incoherent thought occurred to me about lead blankets/aprons used as shileds during X-Rays….
But TBH what struck me more is that perhaps Melbourne might be a better place to look – while I’ve never been entirely been into the ‘arrived in Adelaide that morning’ assumption, it seems reasonable to think he was a visitor to Adelaide and might not have been there long enough to have used an Adelaide hospital.
While the current RAH sits almost within the railyards (I think much of the railyards were relocated to Dry Creek when the hospital was built) that is a very new development (last lustrum or so). The original RAH was at the Eastern end of the city near the Botanic Gardens (corner Frome Rd and North Tce). It does vaguely remind me of some discussions many moons ago about the Stagecoach Inn on Dequetteville Tce (I forget the context, but remember some chatter about him wandering across from that side of town, or possibly Hackney Rd).
A visit to the RAH would almost be plausible that morning – I remember having a related discussion on that front too. Before most buses were routed down Grenfell St, a number of them used to use North Tce – in fact even some of the Grenfell St ones would use North Tce to Pultney St. In recent history most of Adelaide’s city-bound buses are ‘through running’ – as they reach the city they change route number to an outbound service (actually I think these days many of them don’t change number, and instead the route is suburb to suburb via the city). We digress. A long time ago I was investigating exactly where the St Leonards/Somerton bus routes started in those days – and while I couldn’t find a conclusive answer, it sounded like they cut in from King William St (or at least the stop SM got on was the first or second stop – I forget if there was a stop where today you’d be out the front of Stamford Plaza). While that doesn’t totally discount the idea of SM walking to the hospital and walking back, it would add a bit of time to the narrative – walk half a mile, see a quack, walk another half a mile back. I think I could make a case both for and against the suitcase in that scenario.
But hypothetically, SM buys a Henley ticket and wants to waste some time before heading out there (we’ve discussed previously about whether the ticket was for the route or for a specific service – and we’ll assume for this scenario it’s for any service on that route on that day). He wanders down to the RAH in the meantime (this requires some local knowledge, or at least someone pointing him in the right direction) and somewhere in between is made aware of a nurse in New Glenelg who might be able to help with whatever ailment he complains about (insert a story about the phone number here if you like – and come up with something in the acrostic to remind him about medical advice or directions to MSTG (Moseley Street Glenelg). That changes his plans, so he’s going to catch a bus and is given directions (with the person distinguishing public buses controlled by MTT (there’s a dyslexic/hurried/confused TTMT in the last line too) being distinct from coachlines into the country or interstate). Of course to get there, he has to go past the Queen Adelaide Club (QC) at 184 North Tce (perhaps it had a prominent sign and was worth mentioning as a landmark)….etc.
But there’s a lot of holes in that sort of idea – if we’re jotting down notes to find our way to a nurse down Glenelg way – why would we write down her phone number but not her name. Why not a specific address? Why mutilate the directions this much, when there’s nothing to stop you using abbreviations rather than acronymns? Why the St Leonards bus when the alternate service would go to Somerton right past 90A moseley?
In any case, even if he’s swung through the RAH to see a quack on a 15min consult, would there be a public record?
The Barbarian motorcycle gang took Somerton. He had ridden into town with the Pole from Broken Hill. Notice that the Barbarians were also from Coober Pedy. I sobbed my heart out when I found out. He wanted to get out.
Perhaps those Ciphermysterians who care might spare a moment and pray for or reflect upon that great entertainer, Barry Humphries AO CBE, who is currently gravely unwell at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.
He has ‘impugned the fundamental decency of the Australian character’ for almost as long as Elizabeth of Australia burnished it lovingly & he is a personal friend of the new King of our two countries.
The following may do something to rehabilitate His Majesty’s image in the eyes of less supportive subjects:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CNPjtkQVjEQ
Thank you,
Janet.
@milongal the might have been records but how to access these records. I thought that with us knowing his name it would easier to find out public hospital records but these could have been destroyed. In any case if he indeed got the medication from J.Thomson , it wouldn’t have been something she was allowed to do.
Fabulous clip Janet, our thoughts are with Barry Humphries and his family. I wonder whether Barry ever crossed paths with Charlie when Barry was at Melbourne Grammar and Charlie across the road at Bromby Street?
Sad to hear Dame Edna is down with some bug in St. Vinnies up the Cross. Hope Australia’s only claim to Royalty apart from Prince Leonard The Hutt is in good cheer. Also pray she in the King Horn Cancer unit with all those overly polite New Australian oncologists out to convince her that with a bit of Chemo & the other shit she might get another birthday in, she wouldn’t take that lieing down. I’d say our great Dame might have a chuckle over the name Kinghorn and no doubt it would also humour the late Sir Les Patterson by way of conotation but, I doubt humble old Sandy Stone, your very average Moony Ponds type, would think it a laughing matter. I wonder if perhaps our good Dame might after all have coverted to Papism like half the Webbs tribe for ni sound reasons, although had she done something so rash, she wouldn’t have the affrontery to pinch Queen Liz’s reserved seat at the opera to sit alongside ‘that other woman’ and soon to be King Chuckles of Windsor. Anyhow let’s hope for the best with our grand lady, she’s been crook a few times in the past and come back up for another crack at making humourless Austflockensheepshaggers see the funny side of life…Don’t like her chances but, ‘up there and at em’ fine lady and give em what they came for, the only chance this side of Hay &Hell and Booligal to put their their inner suburban Mebun gripes behind them.
Jo: Barry Humphries was in his early teens in ’46 when he went to Melbourne Grammar and Carl was already in his forties, so the chances of the lads crossing paths as you might wonder would be within the region of Buckley’s and none. Although I do concede your point about the school’s proximity to Bromby Street (named for the first administrator or similar), the unlikely pair had no common interests and besides I think it might be fait to say both were known to keep pretty much to themselves in those uncertain times. As alway’s I stand to be corrected or made a laughing stock as applicable.
@ JS – I simply meant “saw each other in the street” or something similar. The Webbs’ flat is literally opposite the school…. Barry Humphries already showed comedic potential when he was a school boy – Barry Dickens’ old book Ratbags has some good anecdotes.
A more recent story, from around ten years or so ago (involving neither gent): , when the turf was relaid at the school, the boys initiated it by trampling in a huge crop circle, featuring the ubiquitous dick & balls graphic in the centre. It was best viewed from the air, as the police choppers discovered. The principal called the nearby St Kilda Road Police Headquarters to see if there had been an incident in the area, to which the police simply replied, “I think you should check your oval, sir!”
There – hopefully a laugh, not even at your expense!
….brings to mind that Barry and Carl’s upringing, ie, their schooling and later vocations couldn’t be further apart. The former having a privilaged protected home life with education restricted to scholastic endeavours as opposed to a sylibus of R W & A with after class rough and tumble sports to top it off in the case of Carl. On the latter’s formitive years would have been a typical struggle town daily grind starting with stable cleaning chores and duty in the bakery before heading off to the local State School for class, with weekends centering around contact sports like footy or holidays off camping in the Dandies. Then there was later need for a trade in which Carl learnt technical skills in the form of being able to harness sophisticated machine turning equipment and skilled with hand held trade tools. In his later employment he would certainly have been exposed to unprotected workshop floor situations where physical injuries to exposed body parts, or face and limbs were being part and parcel of such work. Brings to mind that during Dr. Dwyers autopsy at West Terrace Mortuary in ’48 and Lawson’s later involvement with it, the pair made particular mention that their subject showed no outward signs of involvment with manual labour. The only injuries noted being three parallel scars on the left wrist, typical (my take) of those caused by early small pox direct serum transfer techniques. End of the day we might now need to re-evaluate on whether Derek’s face saving identification be the only game in town or, should would we give though to something more along the lines of several tauted body substitute solutions, elements of which do seem to be to offer some food for thought.
Milongal: Interesting speculation, he could have got the tram to Moseley Square? I wonder if the reason no address was written down, just the telephone number, possibly he spoke to someone at the RAH, told that someone he was heading to Glenelg, That someone suggested Jessie and gave him her telephone number. He wrote that down, hoping Jessie, if she was at home, would give him her address? Yes, I know, far fetched, it could have been someone else at Glenelg.
Clive J. Turner
Far fetched you say. Not at all, you’re being far too modest as usual. Speculation be closer to the mark, as in milongal’s latest RAH theory which I’m convinced is one of the best anyone has come up with to date.
Sorry if this has been answered, but have the police confirmed finally and officially that the Somerton Man is Carl Webb genetically speaking? I am guessing they have not. It is very hard for this admitted outsider to follow along.
Matt: SA police have stayed superquiet so far, I’ve asked them a couple of times but nothing has so far emerged.
@Clive: Tram to Glenelg has always seemed more sensible – other than it’s 800m further from the station – and it’s always been a bit of a nuisance to me that he caught the bus (other than it was nearer the station). Not sure what 1948 is like, but these days if you’re in the city and say “How do I get to Glenelg?” most people would say “Catch the tram” (even when it involved walking to Vic Square).
But maybe TTMTSAMSG – Tram To Meet the ? At Moseley St Glenelg (or Take Tram , Meet T?; S? After(ward) Moseley Square, Glenelg – I think if you’re jotting down notes you tend to skip “the”, “to”, “at” )
I don’t think the police being quiet is a massive surprise. Much as I’d like to read into it that CW is not SM, I don’t think that’s why they keep mum. Coppers work in absolutes – they’re not going to come out and speculate or stir hype. They might be fairly sure that it is CW, but they’re not going to come out and say so until the person in charge says that they’re comfortable with that information going public – and that might include not confirming something that can’t be absolutely 100% proven.
A step further than that, they risk making work for themselves either way. If they confirm it, they’ll get a lot of further inquiry from us plebian nutters, and if they deny it’s SM they’ll get a lot of other nuts challenging their work. One way or another they want to make sure their conclusion is pretty watertight.
Nick (and Milongal), good …thought I should clarify it basically for one reason. If it small chance that it might be should come back to our side of of the pacific, like it has once, at least I would be like, ok great, let’s hear it. Not that it will. I’ve had some experience in the diplomacy realm there(non official), and the relationship can be somewhat passionate at times. Don’t want to deter theorizing. Just keep in mind, it has.
milongal
Supt. Des ‘eeyaw’ Bray was responsible for the exhumation of for submitting the recovered remains for forensic and genetic evaluation. It must have come as a surprise to him, and not for the first time, that operation West Terrace Uplift actually involved two extra historical sets plus SM in the one grave in a stack, with y’man uppermost only 18 inches from the surface as I recall. So it may not have been such a big deal in the final analysis, even though Des Bray, former understudy to Gerry Feltus, was no stranger to having similar digs go arse up in the recent past. My take on the lack of forensic progress and full responsibiliy resting on his shoulders, is not so much a fear of failure (he’s had his share) but, the of bad publicity it would bring to the Sapol and the cold case office in particularl. Supt. Bray must be nearing the police retirement age and he may reckon, that if he can delay things with a potential bad outcome until then, the blame for failed ID will rest solely with his unfortunate replacement.
Some little time ago I posted a newspaper article that was widely unread and it drew the reader’s attention to the woeful state of the SA forensic situation.
PB: musta missed your article with the constant log jamb here of late and hard to keep up with your sure to be intriguing SA forensic situation sideshow. Put it up again mugger and I’ll get the CM ladies to put aside Nick’s not so pressing ‘under the counter’, ‘Kiwi’ variety show cross checks, plus new work on Norm M’Cance’s column in The Age giving plugs to back stage stalwarts Hickey Taylor and Jerry Keane.
I also managed to get a few more names for the Swinburne photo – which I’ll add to comments – a few that I couldn’t find.
Also, another browse through the Police Gazette – not really anything on gambling – its all “Aliens” on walk about, larceny and men not supporting their children!
It’s a pity Bob Dylan is off air nowadays! Neil Young’s name is all over that Swinburne Technical School results ledger!
The only person who I believe could make progress on medical/criminal records would be Stuart Webb. I believe some group members have contact with him. Even then it would need to be a carefully constructed inquiry.
I was looking at a freedom of information request by a former senior
detective into an old case and it didn’t give him any special privileges.
Pretty out there but I’ve been wondering a bit about the ether recently. The ether that Doff sniffed at chez Webb as cited in the divorce papers.
This started as I am reading a book about occultism in the 1960s (written by one of Blondie’s ex-bassists) and I came across a ref to “the wickedest man in the world”, “the Beast”, “Mr 666” etc, Aleister Crowley. Apparently he once accepted a Kenneth Grant “as a student and set about his magical training: one examination of Grant’s astral vision required his inhaling ether.”
Of course ether was commonly used as a drug from the 19th century onwards.
From Wikipedia for example: “Ether is referred to in Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for its drug effects, pointedly describing it as having the most powerful and depraved of possessions on men who take it.”
Thompson wrote about a drug binge : “The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge”.
Benjamin Ward Richardson wrote about the effects of ether in The Gentleman’s Magazine (July to December 1878), looking at its popularity in 19th century Ireland (according to a piece in New Scientist by Ian Simmons: “Apparently railway carriages and markets used to reek of the substance, such was the ubiquity of its use, and over 17,000 gallons of ether were consumed annually in Ireland during the period. Ether’s effect is similar to alcohol’s but only lasts about 15 minutes..”):
“Ether…rapid in its action, feebly insoluble in the blood, quick in being eliminated, escaping in fact by all the emanations – by the skin, by the lungs, by the kidneys – speedily releases its victim [unlike alcohol]…[some] become at first extremely violent, and after a while quite insensible. They fall dead drunk, lie breathing heavily for half an hour or more, and afterwards wake suddenly quite sober. a few exceed this extreme limit, and indulge in a poisonous measure [and die].”
Also: “The ether-drinker is recurrently an irrational being incapable of perfect trust, and as far as his indulgence is indulged, is demoralised. He also is exposed to personal danger, for the dose that proves fatal is easily reached…”
Taking this one stage further, and speculating wildly, had the death poetry loving Charlie become involved in some occult order and been introduced to ether through this context? And taking it even further, could the “code” in the Rubaiyat relate to some esoteric or magic(k)al formula?
From the Ian Simmons New Scientist article:
“…in the early 20th century noted occultist Aleister Crowley was using it as an ingredient in one of his rather challenging cocktails, alongside alcohol (old brandy, old kirsch, absinthe, a few drops of Tabasco sauce, syrup of ether to taste), and claimed to drink half a pint as “a bracer” each morning…”
Crowley dabbled in many cults. Again from Wikipedia:
“Crowley was initiated into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn on 18 November 1898 by the group’s leader, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. The ceremony took place in the Golden Dawn’s Isis-Urania Temple held at London’s Mark Masons Hall.. He was unpopular in the group; his bisexuality and libertine lifestyle had gained him a bad reputation, and he had developed feuds with some of the members, including W. B. Yeats.”
Cipher Mysteries veterans may remember a thread about Golden Dawn ciphers from way back.
The Moderator himself wrote in “THE GOLDEN DAWN CIPHER MANUSCRIPTS” thread:
“…I find it fascinating that the founding mythology of the 19th century Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was built around claimed cipher manuscripts. These had been owned by masonic scholar Kenneth Mackenzie, then found in a cupboard by Rev. A.F.A. Woodford in 1885, and then deciphered by William Wynn Westcott – the plaintext was in English, but had apparently been encrypted using a 15th century Trithemian-style cipher. Westcott then supposedly wrote to someone called Fraulein Anna Sprengel…who made him and his two collaborators “Exempt Adepts”: and gave them a charter to work the five initiatory grades described in the cipher manuscripts.”
Later in life Crowley “was appointed head of the O.T.O’s [Ordo Templi Orientis] British branch, the Mysteria Mystica Maxima (MMM), and at a ceremony in Berlin Crowley adopted the magical name of Baphomet…Crowley set about advertising the MMM and re-writing many O.T.O. rituals, which were then based largely on Freemasonry; his incorporation of Thelemite elements proved controversial in the group. Fascinated by the O.T.O’s emphasis on sex magic, Crowley devised a magical working based on anal sex and incorporated it into the syllabus for those O.T.O. members who had been initiated into the eleventh degree.” (Wikipedia)
Masons AND anal sex!
Poppins recently found a Thelma (my mother’s first name) in connection with Mr Dibb. Maybe I’ve found as Thelema connection to the SM case.
Could Charlie have been an adept of some secret society? In recent months the attention has turned away from Tamam Shud, but after all the slip in the fob pocket is really at the heart of the SM mystery. Without it no-one would today be aware of Somerton Man. No “code” in the Rubaiyat, no Jestyn, no spy theories, just another John Doe on an Australian beach. Why did Charlie (if indeed he is SM) roll that slip with two words on it up so tightly that it wasn’t found for months? Isn’t there something slightly cultlike about that?
See:
https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/esoteric-australia
https://www.otoaustralia.org.au/
Don’t be tempted kiddies!
PS Bring back Behrooz – he was a big fan of George Gurdjieff, another “esotericist” and mystical BS merchant. (He’d no doubt accuse me of being a “Russophobe”.)
PPS One of Gurdjieff’s best known works is Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. A certain Fred Flintstone (JS) admitted to being Beelzebub a while back!
Excuse all the typos in my posts earlier today. Can’t even spell my own surname! I’m getting used to the keyboard on my new laptop. My old one conked out several days ago.
Another article from New Dawn, with a mention of Clifton Gardens:
https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-mystique-of-the-manor-australias-occult-centre-revealed
Was Alf Boxall one of the Masters of Ancient Wisdom?
Apart from our ether scribe’s dear mother, another Ethel springs to mind whom I don’t think has been discussed in any detail, not like the host of irrelevant, come by chance Webb hangers-on at any rate. This be of course Amy’s fourth child with Russell, Ethel Elizabeth (1926-2008) who married Norman Leslie Holland (RAAF) and who would have been three when her mum passed. Question is who raised her and are there any photos in her brother Norm’s family album and what did she get up to before hooking up with her blue orchid husband. Seems Ethel’s remains are inturred with her mum according her daughter who recently had a headstone errected to Amy’s memory. Juile Holland is a FB commenter.
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/ether-frolics-nine-tales-from-the-etheric-explorers-club/
Hello Steve
I think there might be something in the ether! As you’ll know, it was observation of nineteenth century “ether frolics” that led to ether being considered as anaesthetic (because those who took it didn’t seem to feel pain when they tumbled into each other or the furniture!). I guess ether was the “nangs” of the nineteenth century… I do wonder whether Jessica T may have been a supplier to people in theatre circles… I guess that would be hard to ever pursue and prove and she has a contemporary family who’ve probably had more than enough of this case. I also wonder whether Charlie had been left at the beach to sober up after an Under the Counter after event, obviously not expecting that he might die.
I still think that the code is a theatre mnemonic and a stage placement note. I also think it may have come to Charlie via Hickey via a Kiwi Revue member, such as popular female impersonator Phil Jay, or perhaps via Gerald Keane. Charlie seemed to be where Hickey was (WA, Adelaide). I think some checking of old show books is in order, when I ever get time! (If there are an CM commenters based in Canberra I can let you know what I. think may be worth pursuing in the NLA’s J C Williamson archive).
In the context of Doff’s deposition ether and death poetry societies aren’t as wild as they might seem. I just don’t know how you’d take them past the speculation stage.
I liked Behrooz – I think it was you who chased him off! Incidentally, I’ve just been referred to as an “unlovely lady” by the writer and moderator of another blog, which also sounds like being chased off to me! I quite liked some of the commenters but he’s probably done me a favour, I need fewer distractions.
“A man’s detractors work for him tirelessly and for free.”
Marshall McLuhan
“Some people think that little girls should be seen and not heard. Well I say, ” Oh bondage up yours!” Poly Styrene
@ Steve- I think you have tapped into something interesting here! The Theosophical Society is still quite big in Australia. There are resonances here with the Physical Culture movement too. Your New Dawn article quotes Manning Clarke, who has been mentioned before in relation to Jessica Thomson ( I think she was friends with his daughter when growing up?). There was definitely a new age vibe to parts of Australian society between the wars. The New Education movement gained traction with funding from the Carnegie Foundation. There was a lot of eugenics influence, especially in Melbourne – including at the University of Melbourne. DH Lawrence’s novel, Kangaroo, picks up on some of the between the between the wars cultural influences – ideas that there would be a new and free race of people in the South, weird secret societies of men… There is also mention in the New Dawn article of another of my favourite subjects – the Australian socialist utopian colony founded by William Lane in Paraguay – Cosme. Poet Mary Gilmore who is now on the Australian ten dollar note lived there for a while, which is kind of ironic!
@Jo
I have repeatedly warned you about Bowes! He’s now calling you a defrocked ballerina. I also questioned Dude about his commitment to the Sad Hodad a while back.
You may recall I recently called Bowes, Sanders and Cramer an “Unholy Trinity” – in Paradise Lost that’s Satan, Death and Sin – and I’d add milongal (Hell’s bus driver – route Number 666?) to the old has-beens list. Ignore the bastards is my advice (which I don’t always take as far as Stalker Sanders is concerned cos he’s so damn persistent). One of the reasons they (Bowes and Sanders) hate The Moderator and myself so much is because we are poms. You’re a pom by birth too. Bloomin’ ‘eck Lass!
I did have my differences with Behrooz – have you read his weird theories about SM? – and he called me a racist (Eurocentric) because I didn’t reckon Carl would have been very familiar with Persian and Arabic poetry. I didn’t like the old charlatan at all, but I have never made a personal attack on anyone for the sake of it nor joined a pile-on against another commenter. Calypso was another one who wouldn’t or couldn’t engage in a robust debate. But The Moderator thinks most contributors think I’m the biggest prick out there as if I cared.
I started off a bit tongue in cheek (surprise, surprise) about the ether thing and the occult aspects but I did on reflection think maybe Charlie did become addicted to ether in one form or another and maybe it did lead to his demise. And I’ll be following up a little about esotericism in Oz so watch this space.
No doubt Sharon C thinks I’m just another time waster coming up with “smoke and mirrors”. Sometimes you wonder why people think they’ve got a right to impose THEIR obsessions on everyone else. Mind you I love the fact that Sanders is so desperately trying to suck up to her (Shabby this, Shabby that) and she’s not having any of it. No need for sunnies in dreary old Bristol though!
‘Oh Bondage Up Yours’ was a big favourite with my mate Nigel and I back in ’77. He’s the guy who got me into the Pistols and later on I tried to swap my rare orange vinyl copy of ‘The Day The World Turned Dayglo’ for his copy of ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on EMI. I had to settle for ‘White Riot’ and 30p. You could buy a pint in the Students’ Union bar for 30p back then.
I did have another mate, a Scouser, who had a signed copy of Joy Division’s ‘Ideal for Living’ 7″ ep. One of those sold for £15,000 in 2021. He was a mega-fan and can be seen standing right in front of Ian Curtis (who died on this day in 1980) on the band’s one and only UK wide TV appearance on the Manchester edition of Something Else. When I first moved up north in 1980, to Stockport – where many of their recordings were made – funnily enough I lived on Curtis Road. Anyway we’re COMPLETELY off-topic now.
Even though our occult speculations didn’t exactly blow the roof off the sucker, we persist as a lone voice in the wilderness.
Actually I think “Poppins” may know more than she is letting on. Mary P was of course created by Australian writer Pamela Lyndon Travers, born Helen Lyndon Goff. Relying on our old friend Wikipedia:
“After visiting Fontainebleau in France, Travers met George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, an occultist, of whom she became a “disciple”. Around the same time she was taught by Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland. In 1931, she moved…to a thatched cottage in Sussex. There, in the winter of 1933, she began to write Mary Poppins.”
Another article from Melbourne based New Dawn magazine:
https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-secret-world-of-pamela-travers
Why do we keep coming back to Gurdjieff?
Yesterday I posted a link to an article about The Manor in Clifton Gardens, Sydney. Sounds a bit like a “hippie colony” before the hippies actually existed. According to Michael Powell on ABC Radio (Encounter: Krishnamurti):
“…The Manor as a centre, if you like, was one that encompassed a membership of something over 2,000 people in Sydney at that time, which was a fairly significant membership. So it was not a small membership. It was not a small movement, it was very strong…I mean I remember one old lady telling me about the times in her youth when she was at The Manor, when the young women would wear long, flowing cotton dresses of the Indian cloth manufacture, and wear sandals, and they would go across on the ferry to Sydney in order to take services at St Alban’s which was the Liberal Catholic Church, which was one of the other manifestations of the Theosophical Society, and how shocked the good burghers of Sydney were to see these young people in what were then terribly shocking clothing. So it’s a little bit like looking at the 1960s previsited, when you go and look at The Manor at that time.”
Hippie communes make you think of anyone? And who knew Radio Station 2GB was named after Giordano Bruno, another Hermetic occultist – and astronomer – not to be confused with Giordano Cramer.
The Mosman area was also home to the Star Amphitheatre which “was an open air temple constructed by the Order of the Star in the East, which at the time was an organisation founded to promote the works of, and involve followers of Jiddu Krishnamurti. The Order of the Star in the East has been continually associated with being a branch of the Theosophical Society…[it] was constructed in 1923–1924 at Balmoral Beach in Sydney, Australia.” (Wikipedia)
The Manor itself was/is situated on Iluka Road in Clifton Gardens, in close proximity to the former Clifton Gardens Hotel where Alf Boxall met Jestyn (according to DA’s Univ of Adelaide site Mosman “is between St. Leonard’s where Jestyn lived and Clifton Gardens”), and also VERY close to the spot at Ashton Park on Taylors Bay where George Marshall killed himself with a copy of the Rubaiyat found open on his chest.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Iluka+Rd,+Mosman+NSW+2088,+Australia/@-33.8413346,151.2474331,16z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x6b12ac3c72200355:0x747fbcd5ee4ad056!8m2!3d-33.8422257!4d151.2490639!16s%2Fg%2F1tt1svg0
Then there was the mysterious death of Gweneth Dorothy Graham (in King’s X), who gave evidence at Marshall’s inquest. For those who don’t remember:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169361751?searchTerm=%22gweneth%20dorothy%20graham%22
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/76014919?searchTerm=%22gweneth%20dorothy%20graham%22
From Smith’s Weekly, 27 March 1948:
“Just prior to his suicide, according to the evidence, Marshall had advised Miss Graham to have nothing further to do with this man [Helmut Hendon], whom he declared to be evil….Then, as though the seed of thought planted in her mind by Marshall had grown and flowered and fruited, or as though the voice of the dead man was still whispering “evil” as a sinister and hypnotic incantation, Miss Graham acted as though an evil influence, indeed, did govern her…The coroner returned a verdict that Gweneth Dorothy Graham had committed suicide by drowning. So this question remains: What was the power of that suggestion of
evil. Was it really the influence of the dead man which was evil? Was
she, as it were, murdered by a dead man?”
Not that I’m suggesting that Mosman or South Yarra or Moseley Street, Glenelg were home to satanic orgies or anything of the kind. Nor that Somerton Man’s strange W/Ms are attempts at sigils or something like that. But still…
Instead of a secret society why not a friendly society:
https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00614b.htm
Fellowship was promoted by social events: games evenings, picnics, sporting competitions, dances and concerts where families of members were welcomed
Perhaps Hickey, Keane, Scott and Webb families were all in the same lodge.
@ SH I always had that angle, that of there was a ‘secret society of sorts in Adelaide of which Jo Thompson was actively involved. I also did say that I believed that CarlWebb might have been an addict and through his involvement with either the underworld or theatre scene got addicted. In essence he was a drug addict…and that was after the family photo was taken. It explains the mood swings.
I think that with the help of the Martins he was place in a mental institution. What experiments he did on him maybe could explain his terrible condition. The Martins helped clean him up , gave him clothes and through a connection got him work in Adelaid.e. As I said accidental death by overdose and disposal of the body.
@ Steve – well the defrocked ballerina with the door swinging into her bare backside on the way out did give me a Louise Brooks giving the senior surfer a brown eye kind of vibe. It’s a pity my wanna be Louise days are over and I now look more like Nana Mouskouri, so wouldn’t quite carry this one off! These blogs can get quite sledgey! I just don’t like Bowes’ assumptions that he can lay into & scrutinise the contemporary Webbs, pester them with inane questions and then sound aggrieved when they don’t want to engage. Yes, there is a jingoistic tone to some blogs too, “written in Australia by Australians” etc. Meanwhile, I think old Nick may have moved on in his magnificent flying machines, leaving us to chirpily comment on endless threads. I’m running a sweep on “Dating the Webbs’ family photo” with Johnno currently in pole position for the 500th comment! Extra points & Gould Society badges galore if it’s Sheoaks that Sigh When the Wind is Still or another apt offering from his Lawson anthology!
@ Steve – This is highly speculative: what if Jessica Thomson supplied ether to theatre circles and was a police informant on communist and left leaning theatre activities. The New Theatre was a major part of left wing and communist politics in twentieth century Australia:
https://nibs.org.au/onlinebooks/new-theatre-the-people-plays-and-politics-behind-australias-radical-theatre
I’ve always wondered about the level of police protection afforded to Jessica T and her daughter Kate’s assertions that she was a spy of some kind. We know that Prosper T had dealings with Ron Richards, later head of ASIO, in Perth…
Under the Counter was considered as a reactionary play (see earlier comments from Nick) – it would be easy to hear actors slagging off its politics!
@ Steve
The Melbourne Little Theatre Company – now St Martin’s Youth Theatre, was just over ten minutes away from Bromby Street.
https://theatreheritage.org.au/on-stage-magazine/general-articles/item/219-melbourne-little-theatre
(a great Helmut Newton photo here)
Betty Rowland – a key figure in the New Theatre movement was also involved in the Little Theatre (she later became disillusioned with communism)
https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A30466
I’m familiar with some of this history – I think what I’m getting at here is the interconnections between different parts of the theatre world at the time… commercial theatre (JCW), left wing theatre (New Theatre Movement) and middle brow theatre (Little Theatre).
(Can’t you tell I’m supposed to be doing housework!!)
Nick Pelling: ever considered that Ricky McCormack’s home made jingo verbiage might well be the key to our Somerton Man Code conundrum. In it the letters themselves may form either full or part words, and gaps need not indicate word starts or ends, enabling the lines to be read without a break just like Ricky. Being accustomed to using bombastic phrasiology in every day communications, I can relate that similarly structured verbiage the norm during the early gold rush days, comprising cockney slang and bog Irish, along with native place names and such that whilst light on grammar fitted into the mix due to letter sound combatability and especially vowels. Useage was still known to the under educated classes of society in western Murray River regions of Victoria and South Australia up intil at least 1950s and in military camps until much later. PS: from memory ‘Mitiamo’ means “You’re being followed” in a certain Vic. Loddon River dialect.
The story of Kenneth Vine Wiese is an interesting parallel with Carl Webb.
Presumably, he was born around 1905/6 like Carl.
As a teenager, he was highly religious and attended Box Hill Church where he was a top student in his bible studies.
Up to 1923 he was at Swinburne alongside Carl Webb studying electricity and magnetism
In 1929 he was married at Box Hill Church.
In 1936 he was an electricity meter tester. Unfortunately, he had a serious accident (electrocuted) and was burnt on his hands and chest.
At some time between 1936 and 1953 he /?his dad? had a shoe shop in Kangaroo Flat – perhaps working with his wife.
It is likely he/his dad/relative Wiese was interned during the war suggesting he was of German origin like Carl but allowed to work. [I got tired of searching the records to find which one]
In 1953 Kenneth Vine Wiese was charged with car theft. He had modified the car in some way for his own use. He said he was living in the Salisbury hotel. Presumably, he was separated from his wife.
in 1960 his bankruptcy was delayed. Named previously as an instrument maker, shoe shop owner still living in the Salisbury hotel.
1967 Kenneth ?Leslie? Wiese carrying out national service. His son?
tomsbytwo is essential reading at the moment. I haven’t laughed so hard since I gave up my subscription to The Beano.
If a certain person is reading this, here’s a tune for you:
https://youtu.be/66pQkzdzrqE
Have a seaweed cola Mr B.
I pre-empted Sharon’s gripe there about CM by a few months. On 13 January I wrote (undercover as Boney Moroni. the Mormon Angel):
“My sleuthing “skills” are all smoke and mirrors I’m afraid. A high-falutin’ word here, a well-turned phrase there, and hey presto! I think anything of note I might have discovered was achieved by the end of August last year, and with the exception of one or two findings, especially about Doff, in my opinion no one has really moved on since then.”
@Jo
Some joker has posted on the Sad Hodad’s blog using the handle “I’ll be your mirror” @ Nico. Smoking? Just don’t!” No idea who that might have been but they must have been subliminally remembering my comment here on CM a while ago when I regaled an astonished readership that when I saw Nico at The Band On The Wall in Manchester in 1985 I was calling for her to perform that very same classic. Many will recall that I reminisced that after the show I was moaning that she hadn’t done so when I looked round and she was sitting just a few feet away, nursing a pint of Boddies!
Bob Dylan mentioned the incident on December 28 last year although he thought I was Bob Nowak:
“I’ve just been on the old blower to Sir Lord Robert Nowak…He tells me that he was shouting for Nico to play ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror” but the old bag took no notice.”
@Dude
Nice to know there is another single malt fan contributing here. Sadly, when I first started taking a serious interest in them circa 1990 I could afford some of the better tipples. I could even afford an 18 year old Macallan which now retails on Amazon for £339.95 ($Aus 635.91). The Moderator is apparently considering offering a bottle for the best comment each month. UK residents only! I have been forced to diversify into Bourbons, Ryes, Irish and Canadian whiskies amongst others these days but you can still get some good malt bargains here in Blighty. Next time you get hammered go for a blend though. Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition (50% vol/100 US proof) is quite cheap and is one of my favourites. If you get a hangover you can borrow a pair of Sharon’s vintage sunnies to hide your weary eyes.
As the great Wynonie Harris used to sing:
“Don’t roll those bloodshot eyes at me
I can tell you’ve been out on a spree
It’s plain that you’re lyin’
When you say that you’ve been cryin’
Don’t roll those bloodshot eyes at me”
David Morgan,
You can scrub the Keane family from your lodge fraternity but the Dibb would be a sure fire replacement and confirmed Mason.
Ether drinking was rare but did exist in early 20th century Australia. From ‘TOWN TATTLE’, National Advocate (Bathurst, NSW) Sat 6 Sep 1924:
“A new fashion springing up in Sydney is that of ether drinking, which has been introduced from European cities, where it has been in existence for many years. It has not many devotees in Sydney and for many reasons it is not likely to obtain any great hold, like morphia and other drugs. It is drunk after being strongly diluted in water, and its effects are said to resemble closely those of
alcohol, to which, it is chemically very much the same in composition.”
An article can be seen here about an ether drinker from Melbourne – “CHEATED BY FATE Digger dies a drug addict”:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/103346455?searchTerm=%22ether%20drinking%22
Another article from 1930 refers to ether as a “kill-me-quick” drink:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/246195080?searchTerm=%22ether%20drinking%22
Also see ‘Nip With A Bite’, Daily Pictorial (Sydney, NSW) Wed 12 Nov 1930:
“Man who likes a nightcap of ether. THERE are many strange “tipples”, from methylated spirit to petrol with a dash of pepper to give it a nip, but the man with a taste for ether surely stands alone. A young man has been, going the rounds of the Sydney doctors and borrowing a little of the drug, which he states he uses in etching. A writer in the “Medical Journal” warns doctors that he Is probably a rare type of inebriate with a fondness for ether-drinking or ether-Inhaling”.
Mmmm. Petrol with a dash of pepper.
Ether addiction is mentioned in a 1931 article from Sydney, ‘COCAINISM’:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115407171?searchTerm=%22ether%20addict%22
Let me remind readers what Dorothy said in her affidavit:
“…about the end of March 1946, I returned to get some clothes and found Respondent [Carl] in the flat…I found him lying in a wet bed, gazing into space. He could hardly speak and was rambling. I got him out of bed and found he was unable to walk…The smell of ether was so strong that the other tenants complained. I found empty bottles and after a struggle got him to tell me what else he had taken, namely forty Phenobarbital tablets.”
In other words, if this is a truthful account, he had used ether AND Phenobarbital. Premeditated suicide attempt or drug binge?
@Jo
Melbourne’s Little Theatre features in the film that I watched last year and which I tipped the wink to Bob Dylan about a few months ago:
https://youtu.be/QONAuO8oBhM?t=1732
I too get the impression that The Moderator has lost interest in the Somerton Man case. So did I but I seem to have fallen back into it. My favourite mystery case however is California’s Yuba County Five riddle and there are no ciphers involved in that – thank God. Just what in tarnation happened to those men?
@ Steve – glad you enjoyed the action “over on another site”. Many of the comments, especially those directed towards yours truely by the moderator have now been removed, as have my apologies for using two unpopular adjectives and the moderator’s replies. Some recent posts have also been removed. Apparently I am responsible for people being banned as contributors to other forums. That’s giving me way too much credit and influence! We parted ways in French and I’m afraid the “defrocked ballerina missing her cue” needing to be wary of the doors slamming against her bare bottom on the way out has all been assigned to trash. Of course I was Nico! Who else do you go to for smokes and mirrors? You may have actually seen her but can you impersonate her as well as ich can?
Steven Borewood has the gaul to declare that milongal be this site’s most boring contributor. Maybe so, I dunno; probably a few SM punters might say “Hello hello, not so, how’s about Blow & Jo, ya know, every bit as tedious as squirming through an hour or so of the original ‘On the Buses’ show.”. The pair contemptable lower middle class pommy gits auta just “pack up and shoot through” back to bleeding Manchuster where boredom be a way of life.
Liber OZ
https://lib.oto-usa.org/libri/liber0077.html
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”
Don’t think daft old Aleister was thinking of Australia when he wrote the “Liber OZ” (or “Book 77”) – “a single page by ..Crowley purporting to declare mankind’s basic and intrinsic rights according to [his] philosophy of Thelema. Written in 1941…the work consists of five succinct and concise paragraphs, being one of the last and shortest of Crowley’s many “libri”, or books. Crowley wrote the piece…in order to convey as simply as possible the “O.T.O. plan in words of one syllable” broken down into “five sections: moral, bodily, mental, sexual, and the safeguard tyrannicide…” (Wikipedia)
But sex magic did have some adherents in Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/09/sex-magic-occult-art-and-acid-the-story-of-the-infamous-witch-of-kings-cross
The Witch of Kings Cross! The Great God Pan! Sir Eugene Goossens!
From the Australian Dictionary of Biography:
“At a more private level, a lifelong interest in pantheism and the occult led Goossens into friendship (from 1952) with the notorious Sydney ‘witch’ and artist Rosaleen Norton and her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees. He frequently visited their flat at Kings Cross. This rather indiscreet association came to the notice of the police in October 1955 and an undercover vice-squad investigation secured a bundle of letters from Goossens to Norton which the police considered sufficiently incriminating to support a charge of ‘Scandalous Conduct’. When Goossens returned to Sydney on 9 March 1956 from an extended European tour, his baggage was searched at the airport by customs officers and found to contain more than one thousand indecent photographs, as well as books, masks, incense and a quantity of strip film. He was taken to police headquarters where he made a signed statement.”
Strange break in for R Webb , Springvale in this news article from 1936.
Stole clothes, keys and 16 pound but returned the clothes and keys a few days later? Family member off the rails with drugs or mental health maybe?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/214739856
…”gaul” from gallia Lat., so same as ‘gall’ right, who needs spell cheque?.
Fantastic!
Blow & Jo have really got Bowes and John “Blakey” Sanders rattled.
I thought milongal was IN ‘On the Buses’. Get your kicks on Route 666. Straight from the depot to the Cemetery Gates for a day back in the vaults before sunset arrives and the Nosferatu can come out and spew up a few more dyspeptic and illiterate broadsides.
Am I the “guru” mentioned in a comment posted to Gordon’s Grimoire? If so I didn’t miss Travers’ Australian roots at all. It’s mentioned in the link I provided. From an Australian Magazine! Everyone knows she was a bleedin’ Aussie!
And what is this comment about (the last to date) on Bowes’ Bible of Bullshit?:
“John Sanders #
Thanks Peteb much appreciated.” (May 19, 2023)
Don’t tell me there ain’t no cabal!
FYI This is a pommy blog! If you don’t like pommies posting here I can only suggest “shooting through” to the entropic mess that is Tom Thumb Two.
‘Boredom’ is indeed Manchester’s “punk” anthem, by local lads Buzzcocks:
https://youtu.be/QoYiQ8Qsozk
Not sure about what #Jo that gets you all fired up Colonel.
Is it the useful research along with providing the relevant links? The fact thats she’s willing to do the hard work ? I know that kind of thing isn’t your style.
Some final thoughts on Esotericism in Australia, concentrating on Theosophy. If you ain’t interested DON’T READ IT!
Anyone who is intrigued by intellectual history might enjoy this programme about Theosophy in Australia from the ABC. Something to do while you’re ironing perhaps:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soul-search/may-24-2020–beyond-belief-theosophy-in-australia/12272772
Dig the Alice Coltrane sounds at the start – ‘Journey in Satchidananda’ I believe. They missed a trick though as they should have gone for the trippier bit of the Gong number ‘Fohat Digs Holes In Space’ co-written by Melburnian native and Gong main man Daevid Allen. Theosophists contend that Fohat’s* efforts were the means by which matter was created out of the koilon, or aether of space (not to be confused with the ether that Charlie indulged in).
*Fohat, according to Mme Blavatsky is “one of the most, if not the most important characters in esoteric Cosmogony. Maybe because of this, it can be found in many forms…In her Theosophical Glossary, [she] defined it as follows: Fohat (Tib.) A term used to represent the active (male) potency of the Sakti (female reproductive power) in nature. The essence of cosmic electricity.” (Theosophy Wiki)
Far out!
Theosophy and Freemasonry were bedfellows (and maybe oddfellows):
From Theosophy World Resource Centre: “Helena P. Blavatsky is often misreported as having been initiated into Freemasonry. She herself explicitly denies that…[She] was, however, well familiar with Masonic practices and secrets, which she alludes to plainly in her writings and demonstrated to her male Masonic friends…Blavatsky’s attitude toward Freemasonry was ambivalent. She had great respect for what she called “ancient” or “Eastern” Freemasonry, but scorn for “modern, Western” practices. In that respect her attitude toward Freemasonry was much like her attitude toward religion, science, and culture generally. In the early years of the Theosophical Society, serious consideration was given to making it a Masonic-like organization with initiation ceremonies, passwords, and secret grips. That plan was abandoned only after the Founders moved to India and established the Society’s activities along different lines. Nevertheless, Theosophy and Freemasonry share a large number of ideals, practices, symbols, terms, and attitudes. When HPB established the Esoteric Section, its rules forbade members to belong to any other group devoted to “mystic study or occult training, except Masonry and the Odd Fellows.” That exception in an indication of the special status HPB accorded the Craft, even in its modern Western incarnation.”
Co-Freemasonry, which admits women and started in France, was later influenced by Theosophy through Annie Besant, and in Australia and elsewhere developed along mystical lines which led to it being known as “Occult Freemasonry”.
Similarly, the Liberal Catholic Church has been a force in Australia. According to Wikipedia, “Liberal Catholic denominations are usually open to esoteric beliefs in Theosophy, Christian theosophy, and co-Freemasonry, though some also reject esoteric Christianity.”
Of course some of the wackier ideas in Theosophy don’t bear much scrutiny, particularly the idea of root races. From Theosophy World Resource Centre: “A root race refers to a specific stage of human development where certain faculties or qualities are being developed. There are seven root races of humanity, with subraces under each one. They begin with the Ethereal and end with the spiritual on the double line of physical and moral evolution. At present, humanity has reached the fifth root race, simultaneously with populations that belong to the third and fourth root races. The fifth root race has reached its 5th subrace.”
Furthermore: “The fifth race developed the sense of smell. The Secret Doctrine states that the fifth root race has been in existence for about one million years. Often referred to as the Aryan race, it has its subraces. The Europeans are its fifth subrace, while the present Americans are the germs of the sixth subrace of the fifth root race. The seventh subrace will start its preparations in 25,000 years, after which there will be cataclysms that will destroy Europe and the whole fifth root race. The race will however overlap with the 6th root race for many hundreds of thousands of years more.
“6th Root Race. As the sixth root race is on the ascending arc, it will “be rapidly growing out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh” This seems to suggest that the bodies or vehicles of the future races will return to becoming more ethereal and androgynous. The Secret Doctrine further states that “there will be no more Americans when the Sixth Race commences; no more, in fact, than Europeans; for they will have now become a new race, and many new nations. Yet the Fifth will not die, but survive for a while: overlapping the new Race for many hundred thousands of years to come, it will become transformed with it . . .””
No surprise that Americans are seen as more “advanced” given that Theosophy was established in America in the late 19th century. But Australian Theosophists saw themselves as similar to Americans in that they were a new people in a “new” land. However: “The Secret Doctrine states, “The present yellow races are the descendants . . . of the early branches of the Fourth Race. Of the third, the only pure and direct descendants are . . . a portion of the fallen and degenerated Australians, whose far-distant ancestors belonged to a division of the seventh Sub-race of the Third.”
Poppycock!
You got me all wrong brother, I love her like I love no other, can’t say more, she’s a mother…… just like you dud, a real mother ……!
Far out , the Colonels a poet and I didn’t know it !!
Im here all week folks !
@Em
Is there any evidence that the Martins placed Charlie in a mental institution?
One has to ask what turned Webb from being a seemingly happy, jovial youngster as seen in the photos to a morose individual who was abusive and violent to his wife (according to the affidavit which I believe to be essentially true) and who went to bed at 7 every evening (early work shifts aside). Then he ends up apparently so estranged from his siblings etc that no-one knows where he is living or makes any serious effort to find him.
Possible reasons for the estrangement are: 1) he turned to criminality; 2) he was a homosexual or a sexual deviant of some type; 3) he joined some sort of cult or religious group; 4) he became mentally unwell or unstable; 5) he was an alcoholic or a drug addict; 6) he was a political extremist of some sort or even a spy for the communists or the Nazis; 7) he just had a falling out with everyone and became a drifter. Of course a combination of two or more of the above are possible, as is something I haven’t thought of.
Any hypothesis about SM’s death has to take into account the mystery of the Tamam Shud slip, even if one is sceptical about the Rubaiyat that was later found and therefore the “code” and the link to the Thomsons. Byron Deveson however has argued in the past that the slip was “planted” by Mr. R. J. Cowan, the Deputy Government Analyst. I have previously considered, slightly light-heartedly, that Cowan was part of the Moseley Street “Mafia” – he lived there before the war, in close proximity to some rather powerful – and some rather shady – characters.
Jestyn’s Mentone childhood friend Margaret “Bum Bum” Langley (Cohen) – seen here: https://youtu.be/QopvxKA8r1c – and her family and circle were part of the Rationalist Society movement, and therefore highly unlikely to have been involved in some cultlike or occult goings-on, either in Melbourne or Adelaide, where Langley was principal at Marbury. Margaret’s mother Vera was a member of the Communist Party. Jestyn herself was tutored by the famous Australian historian Manning Clark, on whom she supposedly had a “crush”.
See: https://dai.ly/x8c9v9y – for lots of info on and pics of Jo/Jess/Jestyn and Langley (from 21 mins 10 secs on).
@SH there is no proof of anything otherwise this case would be solved already. All there is is conjectures and logical deductions. From what has been said drug addiction causing mental instability, possible criminal activity and perhaps homosexuality….may I also add, I believe he might also have been neurodivergent possibly on the autistic spectrum.
@ the Dude
The man’s no poet! He just likes to spout a bit of old Lawson now and again. I lost my bet – it was for Sanders to come in with the 500th comment on “Dating the Webb’s family photo”, with “Sheoaks that sigh when the wind is still” or some other piece from his Lawson anthology.
“Why is resentment forever gnawing
Against a world that may mean no ill?”
If someone could provide a PO Box # in Vietnam I’ll send him a copy of “Mother I’m rooted!” an anthology of Australian women poets.
The 500th comment on the family photo thread was from Poppins, with a sensible suggestion.
Oh so that was what it was all about #Jo I just figured he’d scored some Thai Buddha from PB .
@thedud
Sorry no PO boxes, letter boxes or postmen where I’m camped. Only ammo boxes, pill boxes and maybe an AFPO 4 box in Sgn. but, if you’re fair dinkum about the “Mother I’m Rooted” anthology, give it to me mate Albo who’s due over here for a ‘swing-by’ visit coupla months time so he sez.
@ thé Dude – I suspect PB may have choofed it himself, or overindulged at the Nimbin MardiGrass! The point I was trying to make on his site, perhaps choosing pointed language, was that historical research & speculation is one thing, putting the contemporary family under unnecessary scrutiny, expecting them to engage with our every question of the moment, is another. I imagine they are also still caught up with police and forensic inquiries too. The deleted exchange was quite heated, he has made it clear that I’m unwelcome as a commenter on his blog. (He has also deleted some recent comments and posts, perhaps sensibly).
Perhaps I should have known better as there is a history of PB getting terse and nasty with commenters, eg here on CM, from “Nina” on 22 March 2016 (cut and pasted from the original Tamam Shud cipher” thread):
I made a nice comment and get this:
“I’m busy is why, setting traps for the wild dogs that come up from the gully behind my property. This is just a hobby while I sharpen the knives I’ll use tomorrow to skin them, providing they aren’t ripped up too much … then I’ll throw some salt on the inside of their hides, leave them on the fence for a couple of days before cutting the hides into waistcoats for the twin hillbillys next door who look after the barbed wire fences that surround us. Ok with you, Nina?”
Anyway, I’m out!
JS – maybe I’ll find & send you a copy of the anthology via poste restante!
Sometimes a man can get a bit depressed thinking no-one ever reads his posts. So a couple of recent threads on Bowes’ and Cramer’s sites warmed the cockles of my heart exceedingly.
I reminded Em a couple of days ago (see above) that “Byron Deveson however has argued in the past that the [Tamam Shud] slip was “planted” by Mr. R. J. Cowan, the Deputy Government Analyst.” Now today I read on Mr Bowes’ site in connection with Cowan that “nobody knows who put the Tamam Shud slip into the dead man’s fob pocket.” That was the man himself, and not only that but a certain JS who is always accusing me of scavenging his efforts without acknowledgment replied “The authorities may as well give the game away as well and go after the gangs before they’re outnumbered and run out of Dodge.”
He’s obviously far more enamoured and in awe of the style and verve of my comments than I had realised, as on 19 May on the ‘Dating the Webbs family photo’ thread I wrote, thinking of Matt Dillon and the other characters in ‘Gunsmoke’, and the similarity between the name of one of them and the author of The Unknown Man, “I can just picture Festus squaring up to Abbott and spitting out “Get out of Dodge, you no good limey ballyhooin’, honey-fugglin’ saddle bum…” I rest my case.
On Gordon’s Grimoire meanwhile, some anonymous commenter recently referred to me as a “guru”, not something I have ever wanted to be as I prefer people thinking for themselves. Then today in a comment one “Michelle” gives a potted history of ballet in Australia in the early to mid 20th century. Although somebody who can’t spell their own nom de guerre consistently – Francis etc – got there first back on 6 August last year, in connection with Gerald Keane (see ‘On Carl Webb truth and beauty’ thread), in October I gave a much more complete account of the ballet in Oz which Nick later cribbed (without any credit) for a new thread on 11 March this year.
If you are reading this Gordon, see my post on the ‘Somerton Man: the Webb vs Webb divorce files’ thread (Steve H on October 13, 2022 at 7:45 pm). If you click on the link I provided you will find the names of many dancers and other personnel plus tour dates for the Ballets Russes In Australia 1936-40 from the National Library of Australia and I am sure there are similar details for other periods.
https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/ballets-russes-finding-aid-2013_0.pdf#:~:text=In%201913%2C%20Adeline%20Genee%20toured%20to%20Australia%20with,headed%20by%20the%20famous%20Russian%20ballerina%20Olga%20Spessivtzeva
I can’t post on your site dear chap as you have either deleted or reconstructed my previous comments to make me look like a complete pillock!
I had to put this here… A Real Sanders
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131495454?searchTerm=%22brittz%22
Coincidence or not?
In the Pyjama girl case the police officer describes her as having attached lobes – he thought it was unusual (alien?) because of the notches cut out of each ear which he thought was like frostbite. I guess frostbite in Australia would be unusual.
An army dentist was then asked ‘by the police’ to extract certain teeth and then make a cast – not make a cast then extract teeth.
It is strange that Carl Webb’ ears match the description of the Pyjama Girl and that the cast of his teeth show teeth missing when we see he had good teeth as a younger man.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11zvxT-hSwBWPn9w1Hx6zocG-2y2mClss/view?usp=sharing
So in the Pyjama Girl case and Somerton Man case we have 2 mystery victims with
-attached lobes
– notch in the centre of the ear
– unusually big hands.
Linda Agostini’s friend said she was a told as a child a monkey had bit her ears. But she hid her ears with her hair.
People who knew them didn’t recognise them from their newspaper pictures. The one nurse in the Agostini case said she saw Tony Agostini soon after and he asked her whether she had seen Linda. Many had also looked at the body and still didn’t recognise her.
It’s been taken for granted that Somerton Man arrived in Adelaide the day of his death by train from another state and/ or his suitcase confirmed he was homeless and had cleaned himself up at the baths near the station.
I disagree:
In the suitcase were a pair of trousers with sand in the cuff and money in the pocket indicating that he had worn the trousers some time before while at a beach and they had not yet been laundered.
As war time rations were still in place wearing second hand clothing was not an indication of being poor or homeless but was simply that clothing was difficult to acquire at that time.
The suitcase contained four pairs of underpants plus the average items when staying away from home for a few days, dressing gown, slippers etc, these are not items that a rough sleeper changes into before spending a night on a park bench.
Opposite Adelaide railway station was Strathmore Hotel. Receptionist Ina Harvey claimed a man had stayed in room 21 or 23 for a few days and had checked out the morning of November 30, 1948. The man was English speaking and carried a small black bag similar to what a doctor or musician may carry but of interest is when an employee had looked in the bag he found an object that looked like a needle.
In the weeks both before and after November 30 1948 the horse racing industry was experiencing a huge shake up. News of doping scandals and enquiries were appearing daily in all newspapers.
Huge efforts were being put in place to test horses for drugs consistently not just the occasional random testing that was currently happening.
If Carl was involved in ” ringing” it may explain some of the odd items in his suitcase, stencil brushes, glass bowl and spoon etc.
He would also be aware that his line of work was about to get a whole lot harder so had he decided to swap teams and report to the stewards what he knew and name those involved?
Is it possible that he travelled to Adelaide and spent time at the beach where jockeys, trainers and owners would run their horses. Was he hoping to talk with jockeys or owners that had lost races under odd circumstances.
The Melbourne Cup only weeks before caused one of the greatest upsets in years when Rimfire at 80/1 beat Dark Marne riden by leading jockey Jack Thompson.
After the autopsy , Cleland said, ” I would be prepared to find that he died from a poison, probably a glucose and that it was not accidentally administered “.
Professor Hicks testified that two drugs easily procurable by the ordinary individual from a pharmacy were extremely toxic and investing said they ” would be extremely difficult if not impossible to identify even if it had been suspected in the first instance”.
Taking into account that Carls father had done time in prison and his older brother was a ” bit of a lad” getting his girlfriend pregnant and refusing to support her or the baby and years later getting another girlfriend pregnant before marrying her when the baby was 6 months old it’s no huge leap to suggest that Carl may have stepped over the line into horse doping, ringing or was a sp bookie.
The code is a bit of a red herring as what we see is what the police traced over after noticing letters faintly in the book.
Sticking with the horse racing theme I wonder if the book was the perfect size to rest a betting slip on while writing then easily carried in a jacket pocket.
Resting a newspaper on top of the book would transfer the ink from the newspaper to the book underneath when written on.
Were the envelopes in the suitcase used to pass over larger sums of money discretely?
Was Carl poisoned after asking too many questions , did he try to double cross the wrong person? Was he planning to come into big money and had plans to own his own horse?
Reading about the racing industry I’ve noticed the exotic names that were fashionable in 1948 and ” Tamam Shud” running alongside Ninnid, Quiloch, Prince Aly, Turkish Pride, Abram, Balaklava, Hiraji, Khalifa, Skakmuir or Oratan doesn’t sound out of place. Factoring in that Tamam Shud means finished its not a bad name for a race horse.
I guess we will never know for sure but I don’t believe for one moment that he committed suicide that’s for sure.
David Morgan
Neat little piece @ SMH 21/3/68 near the front. David Morgan and John Sanders together in the Nam wounded in action. Just what the mofo baby killers deserved.
Good afternoon .. all.
I’ve just posted up two pics on tbt [link] that prove (to me) Carl ‘Charlie’ Webb is not the Somerton Man.
Words were not necessary.
Doubtless some may disagree and I will be very interested in what their reasons for doing so may be.
PeteB – I’ll go and tell the Profs in forensics, your photo shop skills may just solve our budgetary crisis! PeteB, please expect a call from our premier PeteM.
@peteb sounding like a stuck record there. I am just wondering by what authority have you to disprove a family member, a geneticist-who by the way solved a few cold cases that had been unsolved for decades and a academic who has far more access to information than you. …. You basing your assumptions paraded as facts comparing the face of a dead man photographed while laying down 20 years older than photo of him in his youth and saying he is not the same man. I wish I looked the same as I did when I was 20, I don’t and you shouldn’t expect anyone else to look the same either. DNA doesn’t lie. Besides you are still to make a compelli g case on who the SM man might be. Seriously I’m done.
Mr Pete B
The University of Adelaide is seeking a casual Digital Forensics lecturer. I hope you will consider submitting an application, although the position will entail using words from time to time. For more details please see:
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/course-outlines/108328/2/sem-1/
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/jobs/
Em, to be clear, Dr. Fitzpatrick identified the Somerton Man’s DNA as belonging to the Webb family, disparate as they were, though she at no time had anything to do with identifying Carl Charles Webb as the Somerton Man. I know this because I asked her.
And I would be surprised to know if the linear relationship between your ears and eyes changed over a lifetime, though no doubt you are able to provide some evidence that it is the case..
Bit difficult to stand by and let these cerified egg heads from SA Uni. swing by uninvited and sling shit at an educated man with a decade and more of SM knowledge to his credit. I should have warned “Pete B” on what was likely to happen. All we need now is for some clown like Steve Plywood to lecture us on Pythagoras’ square on the hypotenusal angle of SM’s dead head on the slab inclination.
It amazes me that most people on CM haven’t edited a single transcript of an article on Trove. Even Abbott foolishly claimed the image of Carl wasn’t available in Melbourne to explain why his family didn’t come forward. But he had edited Trove transcripts of the text for the picture in Melbourne. His explanation was he forgot.
But you lot, you spent your whole life on Trove and you couldn’t correct ips to its? Even Prof Abbott put in more effort and his email responses to his students are typically something like Yep and Nope (based on his response to me) possibly thinking I was one of his students.
The people who follow behind us will think if only they had edited the transcripts AI would have solved the SM mystery it for them in 30 seconds.
David Morgan: I spend quite a deal of time editing your own misleading facts but, you never own up to them when caught out. Instead you merely move on to your next unlikely off thread adventure complete with annoying LINKS in support with gay abandon. End of the day, the big difference between you and your nominated absent minded professor is that is that Derek Abbott’s mistakes seem to be based essentially on blind ignorance, whereas yours on the other hand be by design, as no educated person could be so foolish.
I think Bowes, Sanders and Pythagorus may be on to something here – who needs the aid of scientists when you have a first rate sinetist at hand!
@ David Morgan – editing Trove transcripts would indeed be an excellent and much needed public service! The more hands the better!
I know ones dead and one wasn’t but do ears and noses change?
https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/8Iw5TotM7EPP
“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks (Summer 1886 – Fall 1887)
“What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior”.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
I had a quick look at Toms by Two after PeterB’s comment and others, above, to see what all the talk was a about. Here is a quick synopsis of where things seem to be at amongst a couple of the long term bloggers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PgAKzmWmuk
As Jo – not that one but Jo the crossing sweeper in Bleak House – said “I don’t know nothink”. At least when it comes to the Pythagorean theorem or Euclidean geometry. But I do know enough to understand that comparing a straight line drawn between the eyes and ears of someone standing up and someone lying down is a pure piece of sophistry that is barely worth five seconds of one’s time.
I completely agree with Em’s reply to Peteb above. “I am just wondering by what authority have you to disprove a family member, a geneticist-who by the way solved a few cold cases that had been unsolved for decades and a academic who has far more access to information than you. ….”
From the little I know about Stuart Webb he seems like an intelligent and likeable guy, and certainly no puppet as is claimed by the usual conspiracy theorists. I’m not sure he likes me though given his response of 22 April (on the ‘DATING THE WEBBS’ FAMILY PHOTO… ‘thread) to my comment earlier that day: “I have to say I’m a bit nonplussed about Stuart Webb’s recent identifications of the people on the group photo on Facebook. Who is Normie M? – I didn’t know Daniel Martin had a brother Norman.” It was me, not Sanders, not Bowes, not Cramer, not even Shabby who went on to prove that Daniel Martin had no brother Norman and I have asserted since last year that the girl in the photo was Norma (as has Poppins).
Therefore I would be equally nonplussed to discover that I was seen as being one of Derek Abbott’s “FB followers”. David Morgan and Sharon Cochrane are the main contributors there. I’m not even a member and my last attempt to post there stayed in limbo so long that I deleted it.
The trouble with narrow-minded, mean-spirited conspiracy nuts, who have an innate herd instinct, is that they assume that everyone else acts and thinks like they do and are perpetually plotting their downfall. I put it mainly down to a lack of education. Some of us ARE capable of doing our own critical thinking without resorting to ad hominem arguments, misinformation, non sequiturs, fraud and deception.
it’s all a bit sad really. Not three witches but three old men who are raging against the dying of the light.
“Sorry Peteb, impo fwiw, you would have been better to have rested on past laurals than to regurgitate Gordon’s well displayed but not very covincing line of sight comparisons.”
John Sanders, tomsbytwo
“The latest claim from the other blogger is well behind the times although I am sure he means well.”
Gordon Cramer, tamamshud blogspot
“I was disappointed to read Gordon Cramer’s comments today, some at my expense…”
Peter Bowes, tomsbytwo
If we wait long enough they’ll all eat themselves with any luck!
Oops! Just the first 1m30s for anyone who bothers to follow the link in my last comment.
@ Steve – a bottle of whatever for you, you клоун!
Stephen Dagwood
Right gotcha. spot on, old Kraut’s blood’s worth bottling. Amor Fati you betcha. The Somerton Man, where to next?.. that is the question now being asked of us, though, I strongly doubt that there’s any out there who give a mouse’s bottom.
….gotta have a grave to have a tombstone in boot hill. Get this one Jo, I have yet anohery still in the old western category which might take a bit of time to dig up on line.
“crook as Rookwood”
Fred said “There are no facts, only interpretations” .. Well Fred’s dead wrong on that scòre and I’m prepared to tell yous all the sordid messy truth behind what a fact entails..but only if yous ask politely.. As for my Danny Martin (far left top), I’m positive that I made no comment for or agin the chap having a brother Norm, as for your other accused Bowes, Cramer and Shabby I have no idea. I can recall him having a nephew of that name though, and whatsmore young Norman Webb, aged fourteen just happens to be in the 1936 birthday photo at Werribee sprawled out on the grass in front. Aint that a co-incidence
https://imgur.com/a/4KB0GUH
I was doing a few errands on Chapel Street, Prahran and found myself parked outside what was Charlie’s workplace – the Red Point Tool Company. I took a few photos of both Red Point (now Grill’d burgers) and St Matt’s Church, which is where Charlie and Dorothy married, literally around the corner for anyone who is interested… Red Point may have been larger than the current building – the laneway to the back is called “Mechanics Lane” and there is now a 1960s era workshop belonging to Melbourne Polytechnic.
@ Jo,
Will you write a book on the SM? Thanks for sharing!
@ Pat – that’s funny! I’ve had the bones of a novel rumbling around in my head for a while, even before Charlie turned up at Bromby Street; same neighbourhood and period as Charlie & Doff, spanning between the 1920s and now! The Webbs’ story is theirs but I think it’ will shape whatever I write, whenever! (Working title “Whatever, eventually!”). Work & family & other projects for now, but yes, it’s hard to disentangle from this one! I wonder what happened to long term commenter Misca?
Pat,
You’re a mind reader and thats pretty intuitive for an adivinho from Brazil Indeed, indeed. Wonder if you could predict if there’ll be any references to my good self or others like Cramer and Bowes in Jo blow’s very first novel ‘Bromby Street Beat-up’. Can’t stand the suspense.
@Jo/PAT
The book idea would be the History of the Webb family (I presume) showing their locations (photos) and how it ended with the SM on the beach. They seem like a social family apart from Carl and a musical family apart from Carl. Carl was the odd one out a bit like Brenda. A misfit that felt like they didn’t belong. Carl like Brenda may have had suspicions about their origins and were told their father was Richard/Roy but something told them it was not right.
I wondered whether the DNA is not being released because it shows his ‘other half’ whereas the mtDNA plots the mother and then only genealogy plots the father.
It may be the real father the police are keeping concealed.
It is a bit surprising….well actually quite telling that they didnt seek to include Brenda in any of the families probates, etc. Brenda was born round just before Carl dissapeared so a family scandal perhaps ?
@Em,
The big question is why did the police give a bag of hair to Prof Abbott (repeated by Colleen Fitzpatrick on podcasts). Why did the police want a solution by mtDNA not DNA and by an amateur using genetic genealogy?
Is it legal in Australia?
Something is not right.
Jo
re your post of June 12, 2023 at 3:41 am
Photo from the Burger bar – I found the mural a little off-putting; it seems to be a stupid caricature of the Australian people (as distinct from the various imports from wherever). As a local resident, what did you think when you saw it?
@ Diane
To me it spoke of the passing of time! I didn’t think it was a very good mural to be honest! I thought it was a little surreal to think that the (healthy) burger bar was once a fruit shop and that the Red Point Tool Company operated from the back of the premises, accessed through the large door shown in my photos. So much was probably as it was in the 1940s and so much has changed.
It was quite funny, I parked outside Grill’d/Red Point as I was purchasing a spray for my teenage daughters’ septum piercings, which I didn’t approve of, just as my mother wasn’t a fan of my 1980s nose stud! I love Chapel Street, its very vibrant and contemporary but the past is never too far beyond the paint and paintings, of various quality, of the present. I think that’s why I became a bit hooked on this whole case, I’m aware that I walk many of the same routes as Charlie and Doff and the Gaveys almost every day. My son lives in a share house around the corner from the Gaveys’ old place, which was also used by Squizzy Taylor (he lived there when his daughter was born). When I told this to my science graduate son he said, “Mum, I’ve never heard of the dude!”. Should I be thankful or horrified?
My daughters once said to me a few years ago that they couldn’t understand my fascination with history as “it seems to be mainly about bad attitudes and poor decision making”! I think they are coming around!
The whole Somerton man case is interesting; it has attracted world wide attention and many of the Ciphermysteries commenters who have accessed the National Library of Australia’s Trove search function and collection and found interesting news clips and insights are based beyond Australia (Brazil, England, Nova Scotia Vietnam…). At the same time it is a case that has intensely local qualities. I think these threads speak of life in digital and globalised times!
Now back to the mural – I saw an exhibition of Australian painter Clarice Beckett’s 1920s and 30s paintings yesterday. Many are of the bayside area of Melbourne of that time and some are of St Kilda Road. They are exquisite and very Australian. I prefer them immeasurably over the mural!
Incidentally:
Wet Night, Brighton (1930) features one of our much discussed lamp posts!!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clarice_Beckett_Wet_Night_Brighton.jpg
And Evening, St Kilda Road (1930) depicts the area to the north of Bromby Street!
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/197.2013/
Jo,
You wanna see fancy street lamps then do check out some of Italian streetscape artist Girolamo Nerli’s sensational Melbourne, Sydney, Christchurch rainy evening scenes featuring ornate street lighting of the late 1800s. There’s a particularly beautiful lamp post and gas light setting in downtown Paris of the 1880’s that he did before coming to the antipodes that may give you goose bumps.
In relation to Pete Bowes’ recent post on Tomsbytwo (“Derek had some hair from the police”) in the spirit of peace, brotherhood and reconciliation I should like to remind him of a comment from last year here on Cipher Mysteries:
“John Sanders
on August 1, 2022 at 7:48 am said:
We’re all by now aware that at some point DA was gifted fifty hairs by Sapol to play with not including some depleted ones that he managed to squeeze enough RNA from to enable identification of Robin Thomson’s Virginian forbears. Surely police would have plucked a like number (splitting hairs) for their own DNA type testing when the technology allowed. To confuse the issue it has been suggested that tye death mask creator Paul Lawson, not to be outdone, plucked a number of the choicest live rooted hairs for himself somewhere along the murkey trail of deceit for his personal use. It Seems from a novice perspective there was more SM hair plucked then ever was on his sparsely haired body, as was duly noted by Dr. Dwyer in his post mortem inquest testimony. I guess it’s not unreasonable to consider possibility of contamination at some point, probably earlier than later which could of it’self have led to an unsafe, even false identification whether by accident or contrived as a means to an end. Anyone dare to take a punt on the odds of likely, unlikely, or more likely than not.”
The man himself seems to have lost his tongue recently!
Guzz Rating, in a comment on tbt in answer to Mr Bowes’ post, wrote concerning the hair:
“It could have dropped off the bollocks of a blue-bottle fly.”
I think he might have had one too many Kingfisher lagers with his Chicken Dopiaza on Manchester’s Curry Mile or maybe a sugar rush from a visit to the Sanam Sweethouse there (in the very early ’80s I lived just round the corner and the syrupy delicacies on display in the window were a constant temptation).
My interest in it was the chain of custody and also to some extent the lack of honesty. The original podcasts by Abbott and Colleen was all about how the hair was plucked and they pulled hair from the centre of the bundle then the mtDNA was used. It was a lengthy description. But then the bag of hair from the police turns up when Colleen talks about it on podcasts.
In a similar way he said people in Melbourne couldn’t see Carl’s picture in a newspaper. Two major deceits.
Do we have any evidence to say Carl was a gambler other than playing Bridge and that he didn’t like losing?
It is the dishonesty of a scientist that troubles me. Perhaps that’s why the university let him investigate SM when he was supposed to be making computer chips. How is that explained? Was there a chip in SM?
@David Morgan
Are you Guzz? Surely not!
You’re the dog’s bollocks when it comes to a discussion about the h**r anyway me lad. “Captain” Morgan indeed.
No evidence that Carl was a gambler. Plenty of evidence (if we believe Doff) that he had a chip on his shoulder. Boom boom!
I also couldn’t get an honest answer from sketchcop about how he created his sketch of Carl as it scores so highly with facial ID and he never uses facial ID and doesn’t like it.
I was only able to locate it via pimeyes search and in vanity fair (I think) when Abbott would only respond ‘Twitter, Yep, Nope’ type responses via email about the sketch. I’d hate to be his student.
I can’t understand why sketchcop couldn’t say I traced the picture and then used some software to manipulate it. Normally people don’t score so highly against police sketches with facial ID – even when they have the body photos to trace.
Then the police either have the DNA or they don’t. Why not come out and say we have had to rely on mtDNA which we gave to Abbott as he had the expert on genetic genealogy Colleen Fitzpatrick.
The truth sounds a lot better.
Why don’t Australians all admit they kept leaving Rubaiyats in Glenelg on buses, in cars… with nurses. There were so many of them you couldn’t give them away.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36677396?searchTerm=%22rubaiyat%22%2C%20somerton
Did Carl leave his Rubaiyat on the bus weeks earlier and the bus driver posted it through the window of the chemist’s car rather than take it back to the depot?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36677719?searchTerm=%22rubaiyat%22%2C%20somerton
The future of AI and the Somerton Man?
https://www.canva.com/design/DAFmjXau3E8/F9qIBrq69o1-TpsLFR7bnA/edit?utm_content=DAFmjXau3E8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
If you compare the last quatrain in different versions of the RoK and look at capitalised stress points you get:
ASGGWIG versus ATFAGSGAESWIG
which gives a similar feel to “WTBIMPANETP”
So perhaps he could be remembering or copying his version of the RoK (from memory) v the one in front of him. It may be a question of finding the quatrain and the version.
@SHurwood,
If you look at the plaster cast of Carl – it may be that they would have recognised him like that:
https://www.rahs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Somerton-Man-body-cast.jpg
They may have last seen him as a blond slim man with expensive tastes in clothes whereas they may have seen the older guy with dyed dark-hair with mismatched clothes and could see him as nothing like Carl.
I wonder why the news reports from the day didn’t mention his strange feet and oversized hands? May have helped identify him more than death mask photos which seem to be the main identifying suggestion from the papers.
Sher’s Red Point Tools should have sacked the marketing director as an obvious product would have been SHER HOME LOCKS.
There may be a reason for Carl’s 7pm sleeps as he may have been travelling to other cities as a drill demonstrator/sales person. In the Pyjama Girl case Tony said Linda tried to keep him awake so he would sleep late and that was why he snapped. Perhaps Dorothy had ideas that they would be famous and live a luxury life-style hence saying they lived in Domain road. They were living an upper-middle-class fantasy life with working-class income. Perhaps Dorothy was pestering Carl at night hence the separation of sleeping in 1946. She stopped working as if she was expecting a baby so perhaps that was where things went wrong with Dorothy and Carl. Alternatively, the baby was born and became Brenda. When she lost baby Lockyer things went wrong in her 2nd marriage. Was she having children taken away from her by a social services equivalent because she was deemed a neglectful mother?
It is interesting that she referred to a cat that was potentially being neglected by Carl when she went away on holiday. A cat named Brenda, perhaps?
We never saw the details of Dorothy’s settlement with Carl. She was getting her £1 and 10 shillings. It seems a small amount for her to live on assuming he was getting about £10/week. Perhaps her earnings were £6 and 10 shillings.
@David Morgan
There certainly were a few Rubaiyats knocking around according to this article from the ’tiser (27 July ’49 – the day after Jestyn was shown the bust):
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36678021?searchTerm=Taman%20Shud&searchLimits=
Not only was there the copy with the torn page:
“The book handed to the police was found in the back seat of an Adelaide businessman’s car in Jetty road. Glenelg shortly before the body was discovered
at Somerton on December 1. The words ‘Taman Shud” had been torn from the last page of the book.”
But also:
“An amazing coincidence was revealed yesterday when another Adelaide businessman called at police head-quarters with a copy of the “Rubaiyat” which he had found in his motor car at Glenelg about the time the body was found. This book was a different edition.”
So at least two Rubaiyats were found in motor cars! Perhaps there was a rabid Rubaiyat nut throwing various copies into people’s cars all around Adelaide. There is still a debate as to whether the “torn” copy was found by Chemist Freeman or Doctor Hendrickson.
The article also has some interesting points to make about Jestyn’s involvement. It states that ” a woman who had given an Australian Army lieutenant a copy of the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” which she believed could be identical with the book found in a motor car at Glenelg last year.” Certainly however the copy she gave to Alf wasn’t “identical” or anywhere close.
The code was written in pencil, as was the phone number. “Police located the woman from a telephone number, also written in pencil on the back the book.” But “After seeing a plaster cast of the head and shoulders of the dead man. the woman said that she could not say whether the dead man was the lieutenant she had known. It was pointed out yesterday that the features of the dead man had altered materially before the cast was made.”
One of Derek’s students from his original 2009 code investigation (Denley Bihari) expanded on the writing in a comment on a YouTube video: “It was written in pencil and it was very faint. The picture shown in my video was a copy that had been traced over with some sort of dark pen. Derek (our professor) thinks that it was traced over on a negative and then developed into a positive photo as some of the lines are more clear on a negative shot.”
See: https://youtu.be/YrjOvbk6QVI
There is another video on YouTube that shows Derek and the students “finding” the hair on the bust in the police museum in 2009:
https://youtu.be/GIUP-wVw60k?t=465
One of the queries I have posted but nobody has replied to is that although it is said that wasn’t until the 2014 60 Minutes doc that Jestyn’s real name was revealed that’s simply not true. Paul Lawson mentions her name in a 13 year old video on YouTube and his diary entry for 26 July 1949 – available to view on Derek’s University of Adelaide page – clearly states “(Det Sgt Leane with Mrs Thompson [sic] to view bust cast of Somerton Body)”.
See:
https://youtu.be/u571rcZHs-I
http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/tamanshud/lawson_diaries.pdf
PS I remember Queen Street in Cardiff before it was pedestrianised. I also remember the days of the Aust ferries before the first Severn Bridge was built. In fact we went across on the ferry at around the same time as the famous Bob Dylan photo was taken in 1966 on our way to a holiday in Gower just after England’s World Cup win – my mother was originally from Swansea.
https://klempner69.smugmug.com/Aust-Ferry-CrossingBob-Dylans-/
From promotional material for Barry Feinstein’s Real Moments: “Feinstein’s photographs of the [Dylan European] 1966 tour…include the image of Dylan standing on the rain-soaked quayside at Aust Ferry Terminal, Bristol, that came to grace the covers of Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home. ‘The Aust Ferry shot with the limo is the picture that Bob likes; it told it all. It has depth, he looked cool and it represented the moment.’ – Barry Feinstein”
I’ve just been in touch with Bob, who made a few comments here a few months ago, and he told me “Like, yeah man, that Aust photo has been analysed to death just like the Webb family group photo. I still see a pigpen through a hole in that hedge dude. Far out babe!”
Stop press. There are still Russian spies (possibly) in Adelaide, according to ASIO:
https://youtu.be/m9XoxcLsfHQ
Wow man. Rats deserting a sinking ship. First Abbott, then Pelling, now Bowes and Sanders have lost interest in Somerton Man.
Tomsbytwo has removed all posts and has a message dated 23 June: ” All done here, you should think about moving on.”
I think Bowes and Dusty are up to summat sinister. Sanders can’t keep his trap shut for more than a few hours without some ulterior motive.
Sad about tbt because I had just posted a luvverly pome there in retaliation for the one The Moderator made up about me, posing as Cynthia Bilderberger-Schwab – you’ll note there is no [parody] after the name and there certainly ain’t no contributor here with a stupid name like that! (Presumably a ref to Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and the Bilderberg Group of which he is a member):
“There was a man from Bristol
His mother called him Steve etc”
Posing as T S Peliot I had composed a brilliant parody titled ‘The Love Song of Orlando M. Pilchard”.
To remind readers of a few lines from the original:
“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?”
“But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.”
Perhaps it is time for us all to give up the ghost.
Steve Hurwood: if I had a tenner for every time Pete Bowes has deleted all his posts, I probably would genuinely have a Mayfair penthouse. The problem seems to be that doing that makes Gordon Cramer’s blog the #1 Australian Somerton Man blog by default, which I guess eats away at Pete until he feels compelled to post again. And the eternal cycle goes on.
I’m still very interested in the Somerton Man, but I like to pick up juicy little threads and fill in lots of the gaps: and nothing much has come past of late.
Strange message from Pete Bowes on Toms by Two – he had a loyal base of (mainly blokey) commenters… and yes, Johnno is uncharacteristically quiet. It can’t be on account of another Lawson anthology & I still haven’t managed to deliver him a copy of “Mother I’m rooted”, by various Australian women poets..,
“All done here, you should think of moving on.”
The moving on one is interesting- I also feel that now there is a real family I don’t want to be intrusive & chase wild theories – although my Hickey hunch is probably one of the wildest. I’d like some kind of resolution & return of Charlie to his family. On the other hand there are plausible unexplored ideas, such as Sharon’s ideas about Charlie’s possible involvement with horse race doping & fixing, they definitely have teeth, with a bit between them!
Steve – are you a serious poet or are you simply simply driving our dear moderator around the prickly pear?
Jo: I can see how Pete Bowes might want to rejig his blog now and again. I mean, Gordon Cramer gave the SM world microwriting and Fedosimov, so it’s a fiercely contested marketplace of ideas out there.
@ Nick – I still have an instinct for the Hickey story, a few things don’t add up but over all it has the air of a sad hidden history that might throw a bit of light on those times. I won’t have time to hunt down old scripts for a little while to search for anything that resembles a mnemonic for the “code” but it’s still on the agenda! I also feel a bit intimidated about chasing them up as this case has become notorious for drawing a kooky crowd! And Australia is notorious for oligopolies! Just ask B1 & B2!
Past grievances forgotten, I doubt if anyone seriously interested in the remaining and unknown aspects of this mystery is convinced that with the questioned identification of the Somerton Man as being Carl Webb means all is solved.
I don’t.
At William Sher (Red Point Tools) it could be Carl was involved in the alarm siren business and not the drills. If Carl had been the Charles Webb who installed Raycophone systems in cinemas before 1940 it would fit the profile of installing factory alarm systems for the war effort and it may explain the early to bed early to rise starts.
Perhaps Raymond Allsop had invented the alarm sirens that Sher sold.
After the War Raymond Allsop went on to FM radio broadcast technology at ABC and again here we find Leo Keane working as a Sports scriptwriter on the radio with Vernon Lyle. A relative and school colleague of Carl.
Why two ambulances on 1st December?
@ PB – the TBT rejig is really good, the slides, primary source material from the inquest…
Thanks Jo … tried to give it up but couldn’t
This is an interesting read about Beresford Charles Hallett working for Raycophone. What you see is even sound engineers like him had to do national service. So was it only Carl who avoided military service? It makes him a very special person which suggests he wasn’t an ordinary engineer like Beresford. Even Beresford seems to have had to wait until 1942 to be involved in special projects – probably war film-making as a sound engineer.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0356469/bio/
Rose Bay (was correct) – but was Beresford there as an installer?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/223956991?searchTerm=%22raycophone%22%2C%20%22rose%20bay%22
Sound recording engineer (correct):
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/68529251?searchTerm=%22beresford%20hallett%22
military service (correct)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232769622?searchTerm=%22beresford%20charles%20hallett%22
But Raycophone installer?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/21546037?searchTerm=%22raycophone%20installer%22
One interesting direction to search is whether Charles was working on ships with Beresford. Perhaps touring New Zealand with J.C. Williamson as an Engineer to 1940. The RAAF seemed to find out Beresford wasn’t a proper engineer when he was put on admin duties in 1942. On tour with JC Williamson as the real engineer might explain where Carl acquired his RoK.
Beresford Charles Hallet’s NAA record show he worked as a photographer from aged 13 then a silent film projectionist and then talkie Raycophone installer (supposedly). He didn’t have an engineering background like Carl. Even the RAAF moved him to admin so he was not a good engineer though they may have wanted his sound recording skills. Whereas Raymond Allsop was some sort of untrained engineering genius and even he did national service working on submarine systems improving ASDIC I read.
For Carl to avoid national service there had to be some issue otherwise he was above the ability of even Allsop which would have put him at the level of some war-time Einstein.
What was the situation with homosexuals and national service back then?
https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/rZqg0yqtu92o
This is from late 1946, Charles Webb found not guilty on a break and enter, not digital-collection unfortunately .
@SC,
It would be interesting to see the details.
Did he argue he was locked out of his own property (warehouse and home) by Dorothy/landlord/other and so removed all the locks so it couldn’t happen again?
@ Sharon – I think this may be Charles Webb of Adderley Street, West Melbourne- later jailed for attempted rape. I checked the court file for the jail term, I didn’t see this charge at the time, so well found! Maybe Poppins or I could go & view the file at the Public Records Office. I’ve just seen your article on the mysterious 1948 punter, Goddard, on your Facebook site. Interesting!!
Thanks Jo, did you see Richard and Eliza seem to have been caught up with the money lenders with there house too, Florence Bray Podmore, she’s an interesting read!
Thanks Jo, did you see Richard and Eliza seem to have been caught up with the money lenders with their house too, Florence Bray Podmore, she’s an interesting read!
There are over 1000 references on Trove to R.A. Webb (when Victoria is selected to reduce the number of finds).
But there was Ralph Archibald as well as Richard August
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10960142?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
But which is which?
1912 Cronk and Robertson Wedding (Richard and children – did they know the Robertson’s in 1912?)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269955939?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1916 Tennis
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/132730952?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1927 Tennis
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232317242?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1930 Golf (Ralph – Geelong)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/223325638?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
Golf 1931
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/223829052?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
Onion marketing board (might suggest Ralph, Geelong)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/224407989?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1912 Mechanics institute
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65016106?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1913 Free library and working men’s club?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269956722?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1912 Baker – Richard
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269957929?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1912 bakery cart and horses
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269958782?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1915 buying a bakery
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26130657?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1917 Baker – Richard
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/153111927?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1919 selling bakery
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25360393?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
1932 court case ?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201111940?searchTerm=%22r.a.%20webb%22
Russell getting run over by the horse
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269531203?searchTerm=%22R.A.%20Webb%22
Was someone (like Carl) writing these stories up and sending them in to the newspaper or did the journalist chat in the bread shop for scoops?
It’s almost like Richard realised being in the news was free marketing.
@ David – there is definitely something in that idea – that a mention was marketing.
I’m also wondering whether Charlie such a keen footballer. Sharon has discovered that Richard was a patron of Springvale Football Club in 1932. We only hear of Charlie injured and on the resting bench in 1930. Despite searches by Robyn at the historical society & ex player Brian, plus several of us, Charlie can’t be found on the field or in the few player photos from that time…
Perhaps Richard was in the habit of talking to the local reporter or passing on news… The bakery would be part of the community grapevine.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201081257
I think its small town local gossip type thing, I’ve been researching the history of my street and old house, going back to 1920 there are news reports on kids birthday parties and my favourite, who is going away for the holidays, when they plan to leave and return, make it nice and easy for robbers lol.
There was even a Charles Webb near where I am, in Cairns in the late 1940’s, maybe that explains his sun tanned legs from the autopsy report?
DavidMorgan – that’s a cracker, everyone’s wedding gift listed in the newspaper, it’s just magnificent. Someone with access to the family tree ancestry stuff might be able to let us know if the Robertson Cronks are related, that’d be great. Richard provided the two tiered wedding cake …. h’mm, he was bakin’ yummy stuff too besides the daily loaves …
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269959001?searchTerm=shepparton%20robertson%20cronk
That’s interesting about the footy Jo and Sharon. can you put that 1932 info up here, haven’t seen that before, no worries if not possible.
@Poppins,
Was the Webb bread delivery boy later a priest?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/58211162?searchTerm=%22james%20hannan%22%2C%20shepparton
https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/qzAKoyMnJLhu
Here are the sport articles Poppins.
https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/tGSld1UiP0aC
Found these if anyone is interested, the Webb cart photo that’s available online was washed off the road and ended up with a broken wheel, clear photo from the Historical Society and news article.
Leo taking cars for joy rides at 19 and a press release re his radio show. Sorry if they’ve been posted already.
Who was plainclothes constable Webb?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244753322?searchTerm=%22constable%20webb%22
When Sketchcop drew the Somerton Man as a younger man he got his ear exactly right.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xryiZRRzmtVGuWQLcP9yhzEdAGPD2DdH/view?usp=sharing
@DavidMorgan – there were two holy Hannan boys, both became priests. Younger brother George was born in 1916 at Seddon. Looks like James Henry Hannan was born in Gembrook in 1906. His father was Thomas Evans. Probably not the bread boy, however he did end up in a career of breaking bread
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172522103?searchTerm=james%20hannan%20priest
Have we got a age progression from the young carl photo? Possubly ai
It is interesting ‘back in the day’ Abbott observed that the Somerton Man’s ginger hair and association with Keane labels meant he was Irish.
Was twenty-year-old Carl dying his hair blond to avoid the ginger appearance to avoid the suspicion he was not his father’s child?
Think of the constant speculation about Prince Harry because of his ginger hair. Was it like that for Carl?
In the Pyjama girl case, Dr Palmer-Benbow associated the QIN on the laundry as ownership by Quinn – Ginger Quinn. It was assumed by many investigators that Ginger Quinn was the love child of Chief of Police Mackay, presumably scottish Mackay also had ginger hair. Many have speculated that Ginger Quinn and/or his dad ?ginger Mackay killed the Pyjama Girl.
Thinking back to 1905 where was Richard when Carl was born?
If Carl stopped dying his hair blond did he revert to ginger and so he dyed it darker? Perhaps the question is the same with Carl and his parentage which is being kept secret by his DNA with the police.
Dyeing his hair could explain the lead content
Interesting news articles on lead in the workplace from 1951.
Carl being a heavy smoker and working at the tool factory could be the reason for the lead but also his depression and mental health issues.
https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/riIUCrZvV4a9
“…about the end of March 1946, I returned to get some clothes and found Respondent [Carl] in the flat…I found him lying in a wet bed, gazing into space. He could hardly speak and was rambling. I got him out of bed and found he was unable to walk…The smell of ether was so strong that the other tenants complained. I found empty bottles and after a struggle got him to tell me what else he had taken, namely forty Phenobarbital tablets.”
Where ‘lay’ Carl Webb was getting the ether from?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75892639?searchTerm=ether%20drinking#
‘ETHER DRINKER’
Known to doctors and nurses as
the ‘ether drinker,” who has
anaesthetised himself more than 20
times, a 50-year-old man was
taken to Sydney Hospital.
He was found unconscious by
nnllce in a Castlereagh Street
theatre. Police and hospital
authorities say the man Is ad
dicted to anaesthesia, his favorite
habit being to put himself to sleep.
Unless treated immediately he
would sleep for days, doctors say.
When he recovers, he disap
pears if left unattended.
Where he obtains the ether is a
mystery to authorities as lay
people are not allowed to purchase
it.
Doctors say that this case is al
most unique in Sydney, though
medical history contains many re
ferences to similar peculiar addic
tions.
Could Doff the chiropodist/pharmacist have confused ether with chlorodyne?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/263459248?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FB%2Ftitle%2F1492%2F1948%2F04%2F17%2Fpage%2F29518178%2Farticle%2F263459248
“HUSBAND CAME HOME
SMELLING LIKE ETHER”
SYDNEY. Friday. — “Grimness”
of Sydney’s beer strike
was highlighted in P&ddlngton
Police Court today when a man
charged with having assaulted
his wife pleaded guilty and told
the court that he had becii
drinking chlorodyne.
The wife, Jeanette Cassidy, of
Bellevue Hill, told the court that
her husband, Henry William
Cassidy, came home on March
25 with Easter eggs and buns
for the children and- smelling
“like ether.”
He hit her on the head, smashed
the eggs and buns.
“The stuff I had was chlorodyne—army
issue,” said Cassidy.
The SM ordered hlro to enter
into a <40 bond to beep the
peace for six month.
If the 'empty bottles' she found in the flat were labeled 'Ether', would this have been investigated by the police? Could this be the reason why the constable already knew Carl?
The known ether drinker in Sydney was found in a theatre. Another possible link to Carl being friends with theatre people?
'Doctors say that his case is almost
unique in Sydney, though medical
history contains many references to
similar peculiar addictions.'
If this case was 'almost unique in Sidney' according to doctors, well…?
Chiropodists had access to ether.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/141170302?searchTerm=%22ether%22
Exploding Ether
Burns Man
Sydney, July 11.— When a gallon jar
of ether exploded because there was a
gas jet burning nearby when it was
being poured, a man was severely
burned and several girls suffered from
shock. The man was A. T. Stevens,
proprietor of a chiropody business on
the ninth floor or M.U.I.O.O.F. Build
ing. Elizabeth Street.
He was burned on the face and
hands. The ether which was used to
sterilise the feet of patients. was be-
ing poured out by a firl who did not
notice the naked light nearby. There
was a loud explosion and the room
was filled with smoke. Others had to
grope through the smoke to find
Stevens.
An inquest into the death of a boy during surgery in November 1948 showed that the ether used contained excess aldehydes and acetone, although the cause of death was not established.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/263409235?searchTerm=%22ether%22%20%22aldehyde%22
If Carl still had the habit of drinking ether maybe he had been chronically poisoned for years, not by the ether itself but by the contaminants.
Diethyl ether is the molecule of the month:
https://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/diethyl-ether/etherh.htm
@Pat
He was going to bed at 7 and drinking ether or taking painkillers. It suggests he had a sleep disorder and his irrational anger at the card players like someone who can’t sleep. It was suggested in the 1920s to play cards late into the night if you have problems sleeping.
He had stopped working in the bakery and getting up at perhaps 3am so maybe he reaiised if he repeated that pattern he could sleep. Then also his night classes might have messed with his need to sleep and get up early for the bakery.
He may have been up all night trying to crack the Somerton Code. It was how Jess Harkness killed all her patients.
Perhaps Tamam Shud was “I’ve solved it” for Carl.
Wasn’t there a strange story of Lockyer in his Rolls Royce with a plastic tube taking oxygen from the boot of his car or was that some bizarre Covid19 dream?
Lockyer said Dorothy was cruel. Perhaps she finds ether addicts so she only has to supply the ether and they are gone until the morning or forever.
@Pat,
I wonder if he was trying Clements Tonic. It would be interesting to know the ingredients.
https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/4f72b54797f83e0308604f60