Some Cipher Mysteries commenters have speculated that Gerald (Jerry) Keane’s job at J. C. Williamson’s might have connected him to the run of “Under The Counter” at Adelaide’s Theatre Royal in November 1948. But is there any actual evidence of this? Keane doesn’t appear in the UTC programme, so why should we think this is so?
From Chief Mechanist to Caretaker…
As commenter Poppins pointed out, Jerry Keane was the Chief Mechanist for J. C. Williamson’s 1937/1938 production of Victoria Regina. He was also the Chief Mechanist for the (Melbourne-based) Borovansky ballet when they went on tour in New Zealand in 1944: so I think we can reasonably presume that he was the Chief Mechanist on tour with the two production companies.
Yet at the time of his accidental death in 1960, Keane was working for J. C. Williamson’s “scenery store situated at 47 Richmond Terrace, RICHMOND as a caretaker and a storeman, and his duties were to see that the premises were secure at night and the Firedoor was closed at night” (as deposed by his fellow theatrical employee Edward James Morgan of 1 Kennedy Street, North Richmond). Which, given that he seems to have started as a caretaker in the Camperdown Mechanics Institute back in 1915, would seem to have Fate bringing him full circle back to where he began.
Maybe the Borovansky Ballet?
So, what was Keane’s job at J. C. Williamson’s in late 1948? We also now know that the Borovansky Ballet were popular with Australian audiences and continued touring for many years after: two productions from this time were Terra Australis (1946) and The Black Swan (1949). So it is entirely possible that he continued in his role as Chief Mechanist with the Borovansky Ballet throughout this period.
Interestingly, the NZ national library has a page listing all the ballet programmes it has for 1947, which (as you’d expect) has numerous performances by the Borovansky Ballet. This includes this lovely cover:
The NLA has plenty of photographs for the Borovansky Ballet, of which this one is my favourite (backstage for Swan Lake, 1947, taken by V. Gadsby):
However, the corresponding NZ page for 1948 has no performances at all by the Borovansky Ballet, but many performances by Ballet Rambert in association with J. C. Williamson’s (from May 1948 to June 1948). The NZ page for 1949 has none at all for either ballet company. Yet even though Ballet Rambert performed in Adelaide in November 1948 (i.e. immediately before “Under the Counter”), I saw no sign of Jerry Keane in the programme for their performance there.
Perhaps some intrepid soul will find something similar to J. C. Williamson’s Salary Book 1933-1943 (first mentioned here by one of the many ghosts of Steve Hurwood), but for 1947-1949?
Maybe “Under The Counter”?
It’s entirely possible that someone will find Jerry Keane mentioned in travel records relating to Cicely Courtneidge’s “Under The Counter” production as it finished its mammoth four-year tour in Adelaide in November 1948. So… what happened?
The performances prior to Adelaide had been in Perth, though some performances that were due to happen in Kalgoorlie after that were unfortunately cancelled “because of the coal strike“. I should perhaps note that the Perth “Workers Star” described the (admittedly fairly lightweight) show as “reactionary twaddle“:
CICELY Courtneidge’s show, Under the Counter, in Perth now, is a dirty piece of boosting for blackmarketeers, and squeezes in a few reactionary cracks at the British Labor Government and the Communists. Stooping to this kind of reactionary twaddle won’t get the big theatre magnates anywhere with Aussie audiences. They obviously found the show very boring, it hardly raised a laugh. The night the Star reviewer went His Majesty’s showed so many empty seats the box office must have made a loss on it.
The main body of the company travelled by train from Perth, arriving on Monday 15th November 1948, just a few hours before the performance. Cicely Courtneidge’s accompanist Robert Probst (who later got into hot water for disparaging the quality of Australian orchestras) flew to Adelaide on Saturday 13th November 1948 to rehearse on the Sunday. (Though Cicely Courtneidge herself may have flown on Friday 12th.)
Courtneidge went shopping on the 22nd to buy some pyjamas to take back for her husband (no, I’m not making it up), and after the show’s run had finished, went to stay at a bookmaker’s house on Palm Beach with her main man Thorley Walters. The Sydney Truth gleefully reported:
When Cicely Courtneidge and Thorley Walters left for home during the week, Palm Beach lost two of its most colorful visitors. Cicely used to prance into the surf in a bright yellow brassiere top with bright royal blue trunks and Thorley had a pair of orange trunks which used to glow in the dark. Cicely was forced to put splits in the sides of her shorts as her avoirdupois increased (she admitted putting on a stone and a half in Australia). As the sun sank to rest below the purple hills at Palm Beach Thorley’s trunks became more of an illuminated address and the sight of his luminous posterior bobbing about in the briny is some thing the locals won’t forget for a long time.
Courtneidge flew to Melbourne on 29th November 1948; and later, after a farewell party at Prince’s, she flew to Honolulu on 17th December 1948.
Personally loving all of this theatre history…
Who knows if there will ever be an easy answer as to whether or not Gerald was in Adelaide in 1948. It does look likely though that he is the source of the Keane clothing, laundry bag and possibly the ROK (via his 1941 NZ trip or the 1940s Kiwi Revues at the JC Williamson run Comedy Theatre in Melbourne).
It is puzzling that links were not made back to the Keanes at the time. The lists of Keanes in the Sands and McDougall Directories for both Melbourne and Adelaide aren’t really lengthy…
It’s also a pity the Kalgoorlie shows of Under the Counter didn’t proceed, as a few punters have pointed out the Kalgoorlie and Barrier Miner newspapers often published train passenger manifests…
Poppins: you’ll recall my saying that the ‘Under the Counter’ performance was a one show only affair by the players on their way east. It came by way of the full list of J. C. W. presentations in yon AVT-ANL Archives, and yet your research indictates a longer season through to 27 November. Our modifier, content on non commital to avoid erring on shedules, throws caution to the wind nonetheless by revealing that leading lady Cicely C. went shopping for men’s Pyjamas on 22 Nov. From that we can speculate on her staying on and later being chaperoned by a gent familiar with John Martin’s store downtown. The striped pyjames of course, ended up in J. (Jerry) Keane’s suitcase for safe keeping. Mr. Courtniedge missed out…no doubt!
Haven’t followed all of this quite as closely as I used to – is the suggestion that the suitcase was Jerry’s, and it was left at the station because he left town in a hurry (or by a different means than he arrived) which is why it was left there?
I’m kind of puzzled if Jerry new Carl was in Radelaide at the time, and was kind enough to give him some clothes, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that he never pipes up that the body on the beach is Carl? Or is the suggestion that while the photo was circulating nationally and appearing in papers Keane was off doing his stage stuff overseas (e.g. NZ)?
milongal: I don’t think it’s even half as well-formed as that, alas. All it seems to come down to is a general hope that the suitcase can be connected to Gerald Keane because he was (hopefully) in Adelaide working for J. C. Williamson’s.
Thorley Walters! The OG Tufty Thessinger in Tinker, Tailor. Finally an ACTUAL spy connection.
Boris
It was Thorley what had a part in ‘The Little Drummer girl’ and an Agatha Christie one called ‘Spider Webb’…that would have to be the SM spy connection right?
Haha Nick, that Sydney Truth article’s darn tootin’ hilarious …
Makes this headline amusing, lol:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/27420628
JSanders, interesting theory re the striped jarmies!
Colonel Sanders! Long time, no…
Thorley was also in one of my absolute favourites: Michael J. Bird’s ‘The Lotus Eaters ‘, a real 70s gem featuring the peerless Wanda Ventham (mama, to Benny Cumberbatch) and the long-lamented Ian Hendry (who also aces with menace in Get Carter).
The Lotus Eaters also has a significant spy thread running through the narrative.
Notably, it also features an actor who shares my ‘en clair’ moniker.
Suddenly, I’m finding SM a lot closer to home.
Poppins: why leave it at Pyamas. John Martins was a pretty big department store and like Myers, would have been well stocked with all sorts of top notch evening attire for Cicely’s man back home eg., high quality S.A. Onkaparinga labeled wool weave shawles and dressing gowns, even size eight felt slippers though no socks. My first grey suit was bought at John Martins; made off shore it cost me 70$ from memory and came with a spare pair of duds.
The ROK may have come into Gerald’s possession via the Kiwi Revue Company’s long season at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne. Within this scenario, from Gerald the ROK is taken by Charlie, during a stay at Gerald’s 194 Stewart Street, Brunswick home…
The original Kiwis – a military entertainment company were stationed in Tripoli, Benghazi and Alamein during WWII before moving on to Italy. Tripoli, Benghazi and Alamein became the names of their first Australian shows. I can imagine a short print run of Whitcombe and Tombs’ ROK being sent to troops based on the Middle East, or families sending the same to relatives. As Bob Forrest notes, there were multiple New Zealand print runs of the first edition and advertisements prior to several Christmases.
https://www.bobforrestweb.co.uk/The_Rubaiyat/N_and_Q/Whitcombe_and_Tombs/Whitcombe_and_Tombs.htm
The Kiwi Revue Company’s Australian tour programs are available via Trove:
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3007582742/findingaid#nla-obj-3024530232
As Pete Bowes has noted, the code has the rhythm of a poem with a common letter “A” roughly in the middle of each line. This could also perhaps correspond with lyrics for a song?
(Poppins – I wonder whether the Kiwi Revue Company also had an insurance policy against members marrying Australians? There had been six marriages by the time comedian Ernie Fish met Miss Shirley Carrison of Semaphore, a shop assistant and “mannequin”, whilst he was buying a powder puff at a large city store!)
Not roughly, Jo, precisely.
i think a long time ago (before PB and the ‘A’s) NP was pointing out that some of the lines even look like they’re split in 2 – which does hint at a poetic rhythm (it’s most obvious in the MLIABO line, but you can see a hint of it in the first and last lines (splitting at the A). the MTBIM line seems to split at the P.
The nice thing about this idea is that ‘and’ or ‘as’ are nice coupling words that could appear at such a split, and you can come up with some almost poetic phrases people have previously been fans of “And by and by descends” (or similar), but equally something like “As bad as bad does” for ABABD. Similarly AIAQC is often speculated to be “And I am quite content” (others might have “Quietly Contemplating” or sinilar for QC). And we could try to make “And now even time passes” or “As night enters the past” (ANETP).
TBH I’ve played around with all sorts of things and found it’s easy to find short little phrases that sort of make sense out of some of the letters, but coupling together phrases and keeping it coherent is more difficult….but it doesn’t stop us trying
When roses grow old, and brown and bow down,
When the bold is made plain, and now eternal time passes,
My Love, I am burned out, as I am questioning constantly,
It takes Tamam Shud to stop, and my soul to God.
or maybe MLIABO is better along the lines of “My life is a burdened one” or “My life is a bad omen”
Jo….powder puff to go with the Lily of the Valley talc bought at Marties Rundle Street store and gifted to Laurie Elliott’s sister..so coulda bin Ernie Fish, not Jerry Somerton, nominated by Ina Harvey in 1958, what stayed at her Strathmore Hotel and who “didn’t murder the Kings English” (Kiwi long lost vowel). The plot thckens folks.
You gotta dig Cicely Courtneidge man.
Not only was she in ‘On The Buses’ as a pre-Doris Hare “Mum” but of course she was also in one of my ol’ mate Morrissey’s favo flicks, ‘The L Shaped Room’. So inspired was Mr M that he sampled C C on the intro to the Smiths’ song ‘The Queen is Dead’, singing ‘Take Me Back To Dear old Blighty’:
https://youtu.be/E_Ggz-iAxsA
“Take me back to dear old Blighty!
Put me on the train for London town!
Take me over there,
Drop me ANYWHERE,
Liverpool, Leeds, or Birmingham, well, I don’t care!”
https://youtu.be/eubgWMwSD0k
Hmm! Maybe Birmingham’s goin’ a bit far. And what happened to Moz himself?Know us gnarled ol’ rockers can get a bit ornery sometimes but phewee! Reactionary twaddle indeed.
So this Steve H feller with his gaggle of corpse-chompin’ ghouls was Steve Hurwood eh? Never heard the name myself but good riddance to the varmint! Perhaps he was just a shaft of the ol’ moonlight all the time like that “ghost” of Federichi that Poppins’ friend Charlie White laid in that theatre when he was on the job at 2 am. Poor Fed had fallen through a trapdoor “in a cloud of red smoke” when he was playin’ Mephistopheles one night. To add insult to injury they “stripped off his red tights” back in his dressing room. No wonder he popped his clogs. Ow! Musta died of embarrassment! Nick Baby you sure laid that Steve H’s ghost.
A bit here about J. C. Williamson’s backstage workers (from 36:45) if this ain’t bin linked fer your delectation before:
https://youtu.be/QONAuO8oBhM?t=2205
Jo..pretty sure it was Kenny Rogers of First Edition fame but no matter, I recall GC making mention of a verse cock-up in one or maybe more in the WT/C&F pocket rubies that I suggested may have ended up as Red Cross give aways to diggers on active service in WW2; I can recall making mention of something similar re post war BCOF lads in Japan 46/48 which no body picked up on. PS. I do know Bob Forrest, I invented him..sorta!
@ Milongal – I reckon we should look at the Kiwis repertoire for clues:
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3007582742/findingaid#nla-obj-3024530232
@Nick, I’ve not been following the blogs closely for a while, but for shits and giggles put the code , minus the strikeouts, into chatgpt.
It returned a solution based on the basis of a Baconian cipher. It proposes plaintext
HELLO WORLD
TODAY IS MONDAY
X
PLEASE SEND HELP
1/12/48 was a Monday?
@Nick , perhaps unsurprisingly I can’t get it to replicate the solution. After asking some generic SM questions, I re-entered the query with the code text and it went very coy. Not enough context, too many ways of encoding As and Bs etc.
I’d love to think that – like with humans – the first, almost instinctive, answer (unfiltered, from the gut?) is the one worth hanging on to.
I’m annoyed I didn’t get a screenshot of it.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/somerton-man?mibextid=Zxz2cZ
An interesting article by Derek Abbott.
Some quick pick ups:
– Gerald Keane is attributed as the source (photographer?) of the photo of Charlie, Roy, Eliza & Richard Webb. In this close up version of the image it looks as though Roy is standing beside his mother and Charlie is behind his parents. Pete Bowes- I think we have found your missing three inches, one mystery solved!
– Dorothy’s name is misspelled for some reason? As Robinson.
– The hair analysis indicates a sudden drop in lead exposure in the month prior to Charlie’s death. A change of occupation or a period of unemployment?
– Jack Hargreaves is a great grandson of Gwen Keane (Dickinson). (A generation younger than I’d thought).
Bob Dylan
Well done that man. Your back stage prep for a ‘Night at the Tivoli’ run leaves the recent stills in the pale. Going on presence of an ancient Sir Frank Tait, I’d reckon mid fiftyish. Big fella with the round ears, bald pate, wool vest, heart to sword tie stripes and rolled up journeyman’s sleeves, what our dames are apt to plug for, don’t have that Ke(y)anesian aura about him imo. What do you say my good man?.. Yeah, “answer is blowin’ in the wind”..right on..ask a stupid flocken question!
Hey Bob Dylan, good on ya, what a great piece of footage ….. seeing all the behind the scene stuff, it’s magnificent !
Jo, six marriages, lol … there was even a Rambert marriage coincidentally on the same page as the “Cicely told Jack not to fly here” article, haha
Lovely poem Milongal, it’s very good.
Nice memories Sanders, re that first grey $70 suit from John Martins (had never heard of that shop before.) We need a clearer image of those pajamas, they do appear to be striped, h’mm …. and she wasn’t posting those ones, she said she was taking them back for her Jack.
Another amusing item re the numerous parcels husband Jack was receiving:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/16135546
… heck, one of the parcels was just addressed as “Bound for Britain, Jack Hulbert London”, then there’s a photo 4 days later of him getting said parcel, it’s amazing.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/24157379
Umm, Colonel – what is Mr Forrest’s backstory then? Is he part of your Inner Sanctum, pre ladies’ golf tournament, mob? And no more “bitch on heat” comments please! They seem to end up repetitiously making their way into Bob Dylan’s lyrics, a bit tedious when I’m resolutely giving men a pause…
Jo: Bob Forrest happens to be the recognised world authority on all things related to ROK theory and he has (or had) an extensive, all encompassing web page on the subject which I researched and reported on some years back. My interest at that time was with reference to Alf Boxall’s dual language (Malay-English) version by A. W. Hamilton with illustrations by E.G. Stirling. You may find my tedious “Inner Sanctum” back story worth reading up on, if you’ve got the time or inclination.
Jo: “bitch on heat’ ain’t one of mine, unless I used it in a non sexist manner but, I do recall Peter Bowes making use of the term in a sick swipe at the “Colonel once or twice. Speaking of sick, your reference to “men a pause” [sic] is some sort of ritualistic feminine passage of rights thing I take it. Umm?
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/somerton-man-fund-raising-concert-tickets-539413870407
Somerton Man the Musical – live link tickets still available for this weekend, New York time…
Doah, it’s Charlie again … more popular than the baby Jesus this fellow…. here he is with the Borovansky Ballet, June 1946, alas, no sign of Jerry Keane.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/26692357
Sanders, the temptation is strong to say “I’m Mary Poppins and I’m here to help”, but hey ……
Mary Poppins…as you like it, let’s have some madeira m’dear. Think of me as the yella fella on the Dargie tube come to you for enlightenment. So fear not I ain’t no nasty kaditcha man after yer soul or worse.
No worries, okay then, so I found where that quote was for you, I just typed “Cypher Mysteries” and those three words in Google, and bingo, there was a hit for that phrase, February 5, 2023 at 6:44 am.
@Poppins (just in case you didn’t already know) you can force google to just search a particular domain by adding “site:” e.g. “site:ciphermysteries.com” – although I suppose if your search worked out it’s a moot point….
NB: I’ve often found it effective with trove – google seems to get better results than the search provided by trove.
Thanks Milongal, that’s very helpful, will do that in future. Do you, or anyone else following along here, know how to search The Australian Women’s Weekly archives for words, rather than going through individual copies? Search words don’t seem to show up in Trove magazine search, I’ve tested it with some names, it drives me nuts, we could be missing things in magazines. Thanking you in advance.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/title/112
Poppins: sorry neither your search mode, nor Milongal’s works for me. What bingo “three word hit” would you be referring to?
@ Poppins
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/ask-a-librarian/the-treasure-that-is-trove/
Alex Gionfriddo at the State Library of Victoria might be able to help with hints for magazine searches. You might even be able to simply add a question via their latest blog post, link above.
I even wonder whether they are dipping into Ciphermysteries as there is an article on Clarence Weber and the Physical Culture movement, from about the same time that we were interested in it over here! (And our bridge playing friend Norman McCance of course was originally a wrestling commentator and reporter!).
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/physical-culture-in-melbourne-with-weber-and-rice/
Did anyone else think of the ROK code after seeing this part of the film put up by Bob Dylan, at 39.40? It caught my interest, h’mm ….
https://imgur.com/1vBVyvu
Thanks Jo, I’ll give that a try, goodo.
Lol, no worries, Sanders, we’ll leave it at that, hey, lest there be another Winnie the Pooh incident ….
Poppins… so, no need for anyone to know the truth behind what you say did or didn’t go down on said date at stated time but not place. Don’t mean nothing no how so yeah, we can agree to leave it at that.
@nick ChatGPT has now restored chat history, so I have it’s original response that includes its solution proposal before it got all coy and played safe with the usual “too short” thing.
In case you’re interested.
A nice photo onstage from Under the Counter
https://imgur.com/85c9bnt
An interesting article on the Tait’s. Jerry could have worked at the Comedy Theatre, we don’t know exactly where he was employed in the ’40’s …. wish I could pop up to Canberra and spend the day fossicking through those boxes … if anyone can narrow the search down to a 25 page segment I’ll fetch it online, just need to find right pages though. Anyone in Canberra following along 🙂
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/27307971
Here’s a random idea!
I believe that the code may be theatre related (I’m now thinking more so than Freemasons!!). I’ve been casting a quick eye over the Kiwi’s repertoire. If it was related to the Kiwis it would articulate with their “Alamein” show which played in Melbourne at the Comedy Theatre from 1946-8. It doesn’t seem at a first glance to map out against any of the songs from the 1925 popular opera “The Vagabond King” (One of the first items on Kiwi’s show program is “Gems from the Vagabond King”).
I am wondering if it could be a mnemonic for a Maori song/s as the next item on their program is “Songs from the Maori Battalion” The prominence of Ws, Ms and possibly Bs maps against Maori song patterns as does the TT. The Q would not be Maori but there was a popular WWII song “The Maori Boy’s Question”
Someone less familiar with Maori could have been in need to a quick mnemonic aide! (I’d need one for sure!).
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful Hector St Claire-esque, twist to the story if all this were so!
Sorry JS – I can’t see Pokarekare Ana in there!
hehe Jo you might be on the right track.
another random idea might the tamsm shud slip been in the trousers all along since Carl was borrowing all the other items?
Interesting idea Jo, h’mm, need to find one of their songbooks, must be one out there. The Benghazi show, mentioned before, might be worth a at look too.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/20460477
This program, on p.15, has The Kiwis Benghazi program that commences on Saturday January 10, 1948.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3051721510/view
Some interesting goodies here, might be some clues among it all, you never know.
https://www.theatreheritage.org.au/viola-tait-ebook-download
At a glance I can’t find anything in the JCW Kiwis programs that maps against the code and I think the absence of the letter k works against it being a Māori mnemonic… feeling a bit stuck here with “My life is all but over and I am quite calm” and so on currently being the most plausible fit, however my instinct tells me that original poetry is usually written longhand!
I was midway through writing this and it disappeared (and ctrl Z wasn’t bringing it back) – so apologies if a similar post appears twice
@Jo – It’s a good point about original poetry. I sort of assumed it’s something written as a reminder to yourself rather than something you want to persist or survive (or even be repeatable beyond the one ‘performance’ ) – but in that case it seems rather an odd way to remind yourself (a handful of words would be more effective). But it also pokes a hole in most poetry people come up with – because things like “My life is all but over and I am quite content, it’s time to move to SA, Moseley St Glenelg” is an internal sentence to yourself, not something you’d be trying to remember to say to someone else (and if you want to tell someone you’ve decided to move to Glenelg, why do you need to remind yourself the specific wording – and why would you be so specific about Moseley St etc).
If it weren’t for the regularity of the code my first thoughts were that it might be someone trying to solve a cryptic crossword (or similar puzzle) and they’re jotting down letters they still have available in a potential anagram. I also considered the idea that someone has been writing on a piece (or pieces) of paper that just happen to be on top of this page (there’s some confusion about whether the original is faint pencil marking or just indentations). In this case there could be multiple texts that appear, and the ones that we see are just the ones that SAPol decided were important (so they could come from several different layers – and could be totally misinterpreted). This might account for some of the peculiar lettering differences (there are several distinct styles of ‘A’ and ‘T’, there’s inconsistencies in loops on ‘P’/’D’/’B’, both the ‘G’s appear to be formed in different ways, and the ‘S’ are distinct but slightly different (speaking of ‘S’ I think ‘C’ in ‘…QC’ is an incomplete ‘S’) and the ‘M’ aren’t all the same either, and the shape of the ‘O’s (cue 2 Ronnies: “Oh I thought you meant ‘ose, not ‘oes….”) compared to the ‘Q’.
Some of it might be down to letters being on different angles (perhaps because the paper they may have been written on isn’t always on exactly the same angle), or perhaps because they’re written by different hands (compare the almost SAMSTAG on the last line with the PANETP and try to convince yourself they’re written by the same person – or at least in the same session).
A third idea that had occurred to me (which makes the code page totally irrelevant) was that it happened later. There was some mention (I can’t remember how cromulent the source was) at one stage that the booklet had been found when someone’s kids were missing with it in the back of the car. What if they had played some game that involved scribbling letters on the back (e.g. Hangman)?
Of course all of those ideas are shot out of the water a little by the presence of the (IMO) crossed out MLIAOI (I think it’s crossed out not only because of it’s similarity to MLIABO, but because the length of the line is signifcantly shorter). I’ve sort of wondered whether the first 2 lines are questions (or questioning) – and starting with a ‘W’ is handy for that, and the last two (with a line clearly separating them from the questions) are the answers. Perhaps the original intent was QA, QA but he’s changed his mind and done QQ,AA. Extrapolating that further the responses starting with M and I respectively would hint that they might be personal questions me/my/I…. Then if we really want to get carried away it might explain some of the writing differences – the questions are transcribed from elsewhere while the answers are from the writer’s mind. It’s been speculated elsewhere (by myself included) that they could be some sort of Masonic challenges – or part of an initiation ceremony where there’s known questions that you prepare answers for…. or something else.
Of course a lot of the discrepancies come from the fact that an analyst has lifted this text and potentially interpreted/guessed bits of it (the C/S I alluded to before is a good example, as are the odd-shaped ‘S’ – in one case with an extra stroke). This means there’s an extra medium of unreliability that may have inadvertently scrambled any text more. The analyst is also assuming it’s exclusively Latin characters – so some characters might be misinterpreted from other scripts. And maybe some of them are actually numbers rather than letters (perhaps the distinct shapes of the ‘A’s hint that some of them are actualy ‘4’ – and the curious shape of the 2 ‘S’ on the bottom line are almost upside down ‘5’.
Part of our problem is many people assume everything is deliberate rather than incidental (and I get sucked into that too). I’ve seen theories in places about SM that would seem to assume someone knew exactly how these 70 years would play out. Some of the evidence seems to contradict other evidence – but a lot of that contradiction disappears when you consider not everything is relevant or deliberate. Coincidences aren’t unheard of, and while it’s implausible that there’s a shedload of coincidence, it’s possible that a couple of things are coincident. When you think about it, we also have very little to work on. A lot of people’s conclusions are formed from newspaper articles from the time or more recent documentaries. But even today journalists are unreliable – they assume, embellish and dramatise. They’re also desperate to get the story out first (how many hoaxes have been propogated by news media desperately trying to be first to report something?), and things like the confusion around ‘two rubaiyats’ is likely a journalist getting confused (in case you missed it, there’s an article the same day the Rubaiyat is handed in to police about a second one being handed in too). Even ignoring people having their own agendas, there’s also possible corruption of the facts. Suppose, for example, that the Rubaiyat handed in was someone having a lark (I don’t like that the Rubaiyat handed in was torn, but the TS slip was carefully trimmed – it’s not impossible, but it complicates the usefulness of the TS slip), but once the police decided it was the right one it was hard to walk that prank back….I forget the exact point of this paragraph other than (1) Not everything is deliberate (or directly related) (2) Not all sources are reliable.
Easy reader version: It’s a dogs breakfast; it may be meaningless; but it’s difficult even coming up with a reason for why the code exists. More broadly there’s very little to work on once you strip away historic (and more recent) assumption and journalistic licence.
@ Milongal – I agree with much of what you’ve written. I think much of the value in posts and comments of the last six months or so has been to shine a bit of light on family, social, cultural and working life of the 1920s-40s. It’s been fascinating and reveals a lot about the affordances of digital culture and well kept archives in our own times. I hope the Australian government maintains a strong commitment to Trove!
I was in Melbourne last night & wandered past what was probably the baccarat school. The city was busy but 189 Lonsdale Street was quiet, the lights were out. The heavy door with the stylised letter A, leading to the upper floors is probably old but the A probably belongs to more recent times. It was all securely locked…
https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/q0wp7z/anyone_know_the_history_of_this_spooky_door_on/
PS – as per Poppins, I also liked your poem!
Speculation and perhaps insane conjecture, but hey, maybe the code is related to Under the Counter, so QC could be Quick Change, and that B could be “bow”, “artists bow”, that would explain that final flourish with the pen … or have I finally crossed the line and gone completely mad – I guess it was bound to happen – but I’m gonna work on this new project nonetheless in my spare time ….
Reference to quick 58 second change in Under the Counter:
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3079748423/view
@ Poppins
I don’t think that’s insane at all! I’ve had a quick look for the script for Under the Counter but can’t find one.
The State Library has a programme :
https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma998458353607636&context=L&vid=61SLV_INST:SLV&lang=en&search_scope=slv_local&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=searchProfile&query=any,contains,under%20the%20conter
Its in store and would need to be delivered from Theatre Programs – phone 03 8664 7002 and viewed on site. You can also order digital copies but that can get a bit expensive.
Melbourne Uni has a copy of the sheet music for one of the songs:
Under the counter. Moment I saw you. Vocal score
Again, it is in store and needs to be delivered and viewed on site. I could help with this is ever you wanted to have a look!
@ Poppins, me again – I’ve just noticed that the SLV’s Under the Counter file is linked to the Kiwi Review Company’s Medley (4th show)…
(I need to get onto the imgur app!!)
@Poppins interesting ideas on the QC and AB. (maybe it’s because I live in a time where we’ve been exposed to l33t-speak) I can’t help but think though (much like the poetry idea) that if it’s clues/guidelines written for yourself it would be more messy. Specifically you’d get occasional words not just their initials, if it were about arranging a stage I’d expect to see things like Mv (rather than just M) for move, and if there’s timings b4 (maybe that’s too recent), and occasionally something specific that you need to remember that the initial is inadequate (or there might be multiple items onstage with the same initial so you’d need to differentiate).
In a similar vein, the more I think about it, the less the idea of an acrostic makes much sense, because if the purpose is some sort of mnemonic for yourself I’d expect more than just distinct letters. And I still think it’s curious that there’s big differences about the way some similar letters are formed (especially the ‘A’s) that hint at multiple hands writing it…..
siderant: When I was at Uni I used to write everything the lecturer wrote on the board and developed my own shorthand (thankfully I never read what I’d written, because I think the shorthand might have been a write-only language (like Perl 😛 )). For some fairly obvious concepts I might use initials, but more often it would be shortened words (eg “function” might be f with superscript n – in fact I think I started to take this approach for anything ending in “ion” (and then developed ng superscript for things ending in “ioning” (and just “g” for “ing”)). But I guess my point is the idea of turning something into a 100% acrostic is a little bit unusual because you risk confusing yourself (“Was that ‘T’ Tree? or Table?”).
Jo, if you hover the mouse over this magazine you can kind of put together the story of Under the Counter – “have a biscuit” is my favourite line.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/402193905279
Another bit of hovering required here too for The Moment I Saw You
https://www.ebay.com/itm/153882613851
The songs in the show are:
Everywhere; No-one’s Tried to Kiss Me; The Moment I saw You; Let’s get back to Glamour; Ai Yi Yi …. then the finale appears to be a reprise of The Moment
I Saw You.
Good points Milongal, h’mm, so maybe it’s a bit of a mix, the STG could be for stage. The M or W at the start could be for Mechanist or Wings, still thinking about that – scenes where they have to do stuff.
Hey, if you look at the code in the final line there’s TMTS – if we knocked the top off that third T it could be The Moment I Saw” – the final song.
Poppins – this is brilliant!
Hartley Power as Sir Alec Dunne is a bit of a ringer for our Nick! (I’d spotted him before in a JCW magazine!).
“I seem to be sitting on something hard!”
“I’m hungry I tell you!” (in a tango dip position)
“Well have a biscuit!” – Priceless!
I don’t think there is enough to map against the code – I’d expect Let’s get Back to Glamour to be in there as something like LGBG or similar… The Moment I Saw and “quick change” are good pick ups!
I thought I’d see if Spotify had anything from “Under the Counter” and pop it on whilst doing a couple of domestic chores. Well, Under the Counter is also the name of a Japanese punk band whose most popular album seems to be “I know that Panda was Stoned!”
I thought I’d see if Spotify had anything from “Under the Counter” and pop it on whilst doing a couple of domestic chores. Well, Under the Counter is also the name of a Japanese punk band whose most popular album seems to be “I know that Panda was Stoned!”
What would Jo Fox say?
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Where under crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
Have we reached the limits of the archive here? A confounding mystery with bits of history on the run… I hope that the Webbs get an answer soon and are able to take old Charlie back into the fold. Perhaps it’s time he returned to Springvale? (Botanical Cemetery).
Au Revoir.
Thanks Nick for an always interesting blog.
Jo, I’ll probably head interstate at some point this year and will definitely go poking through a couple of those boxes of JCW goodies at the library. I guess the answer to whether Gerald was in Adelaide at the time remains hidden away in someone’s box of memories tucked away in a cupboard or drawer – be it a relative or a JCW employee. Hey, I was at an op shop the other day and came home with an ROK “The Broadway Booklet”, Fitzgerald version, little blue book, it’s very old and it also had a newspaper cutting of Fitzgerald in it …. it set me back $1!
PS: I wonder if Cicely sent Jack a pack of biscuits, inspired by that priceless biscuit scene …. I suspect so.
@ Poppins- what a great find! If anyone can find something it’s you!
I am spending a night in Camperdown this Sunday! I wonder if I’ll run into the ghosts of the Camperdown Players!
Jo, have a good time in Camperdown, maybe you’ll find some time to see some of the Webb/Keane sites …. h’mm, now you’ve gone and got me fascinated with Camperdown again, looking at all the newspaper articles …….. a few of the tunes they belted out for you to whistle as you stroll down Manifold Street, let’s see, Rose of Tralee, Row, Row, Row, All Aboard for Dixie, Bonnie Mary of Argle …. safe travels.
Hey Nick, I stumbled across the moving image of one of your favourite photos from the Borovansky Ballet collection, at 34.17 to 34.31 – haha, wouldn’t it be something if that was Jerry Keane carrying those props at 34.12 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky9i9aRh-Y4
Poppins – you are amazing!
Great find, Poppins!
I had a peek through. Don’t have anything to go on besides pictures of Jerry’s boys, so if one were to tell me that the man who appears at 31:14 is father to both of them, I might be inclined to believe it… though Jerry might of course be someone else in the film, or not present at all. It would be nice if Stuart could give this guess a yea or nay, though I respect that for privacy reasons he may not wish to.
I think the same fellow also appears at 30:11 (interestingly looking more like Jack, whereas at the aforementioned timestamp he instead looks more like Leo to me). In this instance, he responds to the call for lights. If Jerry was with the ballet at that time, could that have been at least part of his role? It might fit with what we know of his career trajectory from “Chief Mechanist” to “Caretaker”. To all of you first-rate researchers, perhaps this angle might be useful…
Could the bald guy at 34:37 be bald Gerald Keane?
https://i.imgur.com/EDfs3Yu.png
In the photo provided by Sharon, Gerald Keane has specs hanging on a chain.
@ Pat – I think I’ve lost perspective on this! I have a different view of Gerald in my mind… but my mind can be a messy place! 🙂
@ Steve – you might like this – indigenous perspectives on Australian ballet history. Our old friend Joanna Priest gets a mention! (There was also a mention of Gerald once doing black face with the Camperdown Entertainers – different sensibilities, different times…!).
Ballerinas in blackface once told Aboriginal stories on stage. This is how far we’ve come.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-23/the-australian-ballet-daniel-riley-alice-topp-new-direction-/102460360
Sorry, here’s the link!
Jo – as so often the sanest and most tolerant reaction is from the Muruwarri-Wiradjuri woman.
I checked with a friend, too. She laughed and said, ‘Well we’re comfortable with dancing in white-painted bodies, so if they feel they have to, why not let white bodies paint black faces?. I think deeper feelings are left in deeper levels, actually, but I love her way of seeing.