Wishing Everyone a Peaceful & Relaxed Christmas &
A Healthy, Happy & Enjoyable 2025!
Some Light Reading Links:
1. Jetty Road Businesses
2. Moseley Street Businesses & People
4. Sands & McDougal Street Directory 1949
5. Sands & McDougal Street Directory 1950
The above are a selection of downloads to share especially for the serious researcher. If you're new to the case, these may be hard to understand but download them for later use as you learn more about the Somerton Man. The Adelaide Street Maps link has maps of many Adelaide suburbs as they were in 1948. Sand & McDougal Street Directory 1949 & 1950 are opened on the correct pages, P222 & 235 respectively of the now online street directory
You will note that the 1948 Directory does not show Freeman's Chemist being located at 24a Jetty Road and the book was said to have been found in November 1948. There's a logical reason for that which doesn't map to the Jetty Road Business locations with 1948 in the file name. The Jetty Road link with the map is correct, those are the businesses that were there in 1948 however, the time between a business taking on a premises and registering for the next version of the Directory means that Freeman's Chemist missed the cut-off time for getting an entry into the 1948 Directory and had to wait until the following year, 1949 before the details were updated.
Above, you can see a tie that looks almost RAF but is not, in fact. It's also close to the one that the Somerton Man was wearing when he was found on Somerton Beach. Note the colours and the right-to-left sweep of the pattern. It's difficult to know whether the stripe is white or gray, lighting can play tricks. The tie was apparently made in Australia.
The pants are the most interesting. They're 1940s-style. If you look closely at the inner pockets view on the right, you will be able to see a concealed/ secret or hidden pocket on the inside of the waistband. Compare it to the pocket on the left side, and it will become clear. If you look at the image on the left you do not see an opening on the outside of the pants
It was in a secret pocket like this one that the torn slip, rolled up tight and pushed down, was found.
These particular pants have a zip fly and not buttons.
These are just a couple of the items that you can find on this Adelaide website:
https://www.chaosbazaarvintage.com.au/product-category/1940s-vintage-clothing/mens-1940s-vintage-clothing/bottoms-mens-1940s-vintage-clothing/page/3/
Overseas followers will find the vintage clothing at the shop is extremely well priced.
Re the comment below, this image shows 5 passenger aircraft a week arriving from London into Sydney . Two were Constellaions into Mascot and 3 were Sunderland Flying Boats into Rose Bay,
Watching another blog, some guy suggesting that the SM was on a Pan Am flight. It doesn't add up, I think he was basing it on the style of clothing he had on. Fact is that everything the man had on or had in his pockets was available in Australia, the UK and wherever else. Includes the double breasted 'American' jacket and the aluminium combs. American gents clothes were in Australia in the 1920s and as for Aluminum
ReplyDeleteLinks, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/222739668?
searchTerm=American%20style%20%22mens%20double%20breasted%20sports%20coat%22
and this one https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/191260455?searchTerm=%22Aluminium%20combs%22
All you have to do is search on Trove, there's heaps of information and you can track down some catalogues.
Pete. There are 71 pairs of 1940s made pants on display in that online shop. About half of them had fob pockets but for the sake of the discussion let’s agree on 30. Of that number about half of those 30 fob pockets had buttons on them, about 15. I haven’t counted them. Here’s the important number. Of the 71 pairs of pants only one of them had a fob pocket on the inside of the waistband as described to me by Gerry zfeltus in one our numerous discussions. To be fair about it, there would have been hundreds of thousands of men’s pants made and sold in Australia in the 1940s. It would be reasonable to assume say 7000 pairs would have had fob pockets on the inside of the waistband.. so we have 7000 secret, hidden fob pockets.Not that common but a good few of them around. Why not check out the adverts on that pag? They refer to some of them as ‘hidden’ pockets. Merry Christmas !
ReplyDeleteJS, here’s a clip announcing that Mr. Freeman was the man who handed in the Rubaiyat:
ReplyDeleteI have established that the person who owned the car in which the relevant copy of the Rubaiyat was located and his wife are both deceased. Their next of kin have recently given me permission to release identities and details relevant to the ‘Unknown Man’ investigation. John Freeman, in December, 1948, was a Chemist, and resided with his wife in premises attached to their Chemist shop, at 24A Jetty Road, Glenelg. Their family car, a small Hillman Minx was more often than not parked in Jetty Road, outside their shop/residence.
It spells out that Mr Freeman and his wife lived in premises attached to their shop in December of 1948.
It was a quote from Gerry Feltus and it was published as part of a post by Nick Pelling made on 8th October 2018. That post had 130 comments and 4 of the first 5 were made by a John Sanders. Using your detective skills you should be able to work out that the statement I had made that the the map showing the variousness addresses and businesses in Jetty Road Glenelg was correct.
Merry Christmas
John. What is it that you have done in your past that has made you so ashamed that you had to develop this persona/mask which you now use to hide the real you? I see you for who and what you are John.
ReplyDeletehot,warm, cold. It’s Boy Scout stuff.
ReplyDelete