Solved! Readers find mystery boy

The mystery boy who featured in a 57-year-old black and white photo found in a book that Michael Hermes of Ainslie purchased at a recent Lifeline Bookfair (Spotted, November 14) has been solved.

The boy, photographed wearing a pair of overalls in a Watson backyard, has been identified as John Butz, previously of Canberra, and now of Brisbane.

The only clue the photo offered as to the boy's identity were the words "John's 1st birthday 19/9/63, Watson ACT" scrawled on the back of the photo. Oh, and his curly hair.

However, that was more than enough for several Canberra sleuths who read about the photo, both on these pages and on my Facebook page, to help find John.

One of these armchair detectives, Richard Holgate of Watson, trawled the National Library of Australia's Trove website to search for a likely suspect. Richard cleverly looked for notices about anyone from Watson celebrating their 21st on 19/9/83, and bingo, he unearthed a message in The Canberra Times of that date.

"I grew up in Watson and if I remember correctly all the kids in his family had really curly hair which the kid in the photo looked to have," reports Richard.

Other readers also recognised John's curly locks, which as you can see, 57 years on John still sports.

"Photos are a dime a dozen these days, but from the early 1960s they are precious," says Michael who is elated that the photo will end up with its rightful owner.

Meanwhile, John reports the book that contained the photo of his 1st birthday must have come from his parents' estate.

"Sadly they passed away 10 years ago," he reports. "Dad was always taking photos and would always write the details on the back. His pet hate was seeing photos with no details of who was in it.

"I'm sure he's looking down now saying "I told you so".

Once the photo is returned to John he plans to proudly frame and display it in his home. "Being my 1st birthday it brings back happy memories of my childhood ... an era when photos were for special occasions and not as common as they are today."

But he'll have to wait a few weeks, for not wanting the photo to go astray in the post, Michael is planning to personally hand the photo to John when he visits Canberra later this summer.

John's lost birthday photo isn't the only item readers have found squirreled away between the pages of second-hand books.

While several readers, including Lisa Thornton, discovered small amounts of money in second-hand books, Anne Christoff Frampton found a squashed cockroach and Jon Mullen found two invitations to the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.

Then there's Nathan Perkins of Holt who found an antique 1889 map of Australia hidden between pages of an old book he purchased at a Bungendore book store.

"The population of Australia was 3 million, there was no Canberra, the Northern Territory was a state and Darwin was still called Palmerston [renamed in 1911]," reports Nathan.

Meanwhile, Tara Cheyne MLA discovered all sorts of memorabilia in a pre-loved science and medicine tome, including an advertisement for a Sydney sanitarium. It must be old as the telephone number on the advert was simply "137 Wahroonga".

However, regular reader of these pages, 'Dvixen', wins the gong for the most items found in just one book. In her copy of Book of Common Prayer, together with The Psalms of David (translated into Gaelic by Patrick Stewart, Edinburgh, 1794), bought at a bookstore in Canada in 1992, she found a spider, a leaf, a clover and a flower. Heck, that's almost enough to start a museum of natural history.

Still on second-hand books, Craig Allen, everyone's favourite newsreader about town, reports a fascinating case of marginalia in a book he purchased 30 years ago at a Brisbane thrift store.

For the uninitiated, marginalia (or apostils) are marks made in the margins of a book and include doodles, scribbles, illustrations and comments. Some book-lovers view leaving such marks as sacrilege, while others, especially book reviewers and some academics, indulge in the custom as part of their everyday work.

Back to Craig's story. The book, On the Barrier Reef: notes from a no-ologists pocket-book (S. Elliott Napier, Angus and Robertson, 1928) "was full of handwritten notes, which the author had initialled AFE", explains Craig. After some expert sleuthing, Craig deduced the initials stood for Albert Fuller Ellis, an 1890s guano miner and chemist.

Craig even managed to track down one of AFE's subsequent publications and much to his delight discovered that "a lot of the notes scrawled by him in the 1928 book were later turned into text in his own, later book, Adventuring the Coral Seas (Albert Fuller Ellis, Angus and Robertson 1936)".

To substantiate the story, Craig sent in some examples of AFE's marginalia, which verbatim, become chapter titles and paragraphs in Albert's own book. Amazing.

Given its fast-evaporating waters, you could be excused for thinking these three ANU scientists must have pulled the plug out of Lake George.

However your akubra-clad columnist can confirm the intrepid trio aren't carrying the lake's mythical plug which some claim stops the water draining away, rather they are lugging a tube containing a core sample extracted during a recent drilling operation at the enigmatic lake as part of a research project into its history.

"We reached a depth of 96.5 metres," reports Dr Brad Pillans, a spokesperson for the team, who is confident the samples collected "intersected the oldest sediments in the basin, well beyond 4 million years".

Stay tuned for results in coming months.

Correspondence on cicadas (Sounds of Summer, December 5) continues unabated, and not all of it is related to local species, nor, for that matter, their vociferous calls. While wandering around the Stonehenge Rockholes in western Queensland in 2015, Helen Cross thought it was going to rain. But without a cloud in the sky, it didn't take her long to realise it was simply a number of Desert Double Drummers (Thopha emmotti) answering a call of nature.

"I was just getting wee-ed on by all the cicadas in the trees," laughs Helen, who was readily able to identify the culprits as they were named after natural historian Angus Emmott who was her neighbour when she worked as a park ranger near Longreach.

Closer to home, you might want to remember to keep your mouth closed if looking up to spot a Redeye (Psaltoda moerens), one of the most common cicada species in Canberra. Yes, they wee too. But don't worry, their clear droplets of clear waste fluid are primarily just watery tree sap (xylem). That said, when numbers are high, this can form a constant stream. You have been warned.

Craig Collins of Coombs believes he may have an explanation for the unusual acoustics at Four Mile Creek in the Kosciuszko National Park (Acoustic Mystery, December 5). "With the shape of the river, it makes sense that there might be an amphitheatre effect, and if the air is more humid surrounding the river, sound will travel faster," explains Craig, who even cited a number of scientific studies that delve into the sound propagation in alpine valleys. Fascinating stuff.

And a word of warning for anyone taking a stroll along the Molonglo River near Craig's home in Coombs, where there appears to be a similar amplification effect. "I just listened in on a conversation some people were having the other side of the river, which is at least 300 metres away from my house," he reveals.

Clue: RIP skull mini golf

Degree of difficulty: Easy (don't worry it'll get harder as the summer goes on)

Last week: Congratulations to Andrew Claridge who was first to correctly identify the location of last week's photo as a bunch of cartoon character statues in a cage in the outer perimeter of the grounds of the Bombala Swimming Pool.

Andrew wonders if they are locked up to emphasise the importance of fencing around pools for safety. John Magee would also like to know their purpose. "There they all sit, paint fading and tattered, imprisoned in a cage for who knows how long," bemoans John. "I suspect they are likely to date from mid last century." Enquiries to the pool, the council and local luminaries are yet to uncover their origins. Someone must know.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au The first email sent after 10am, Saturday December 12, 2020, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

I wonder how many readers have been alarmed at the sight of what appears to be a little girl rocking her best Christmas outfit, standing at Scammells Lookout on the Alpine Way between Thredbo and Khancoban. "Her beautifully knitted red cardigan, beret and socks would have helped keep her warm in the wind and rain earlier this week," reports Ann Gibbs-Jordan who would love to know if anyone else has spotted her.

Perhaps she is waiting for Santa to arrive on the roof of Australia and scoot down Hannels Spur, a steep track which is recognised as the greatest vertical change in altitude (1800m!) of any hike in Australia. It's also the route that Strzelecki took as the first European to climb Kosciuszko in 1840.

CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick