Gabriel Pronobis

Club Patron November 2014 – Present

At the 2014 – 2015 committee’s first meeting the new Patron was chosen.  The honour goes to long – term member, Gabriel Pronobis. Gabriel has played a great deal of social tennis with the
Club, he has played AYC, participated in Club Championships and in Veterans’ tennis and he has served on the committee at least eleven times – as President, Vice President and committee member. Gabriel was made a Life Member in 1996. He is a very practical person and has done a lot of maintenance work around the Club. Everyone was delighted to see Gabriel back on the court this year after a major knee operation towards the end of 2013.

The committee is delighted to have Gabriel as Patron and, as one committee member said, Franco would have been thrilled!

Franco Cortese

Club Patron September 1999 – October 2014

Franco was born in Ascoli Piceno in Italy and was the third of nine children.  He remembered going with his mother as a child to the restaurant in which she worked and waiting on the tables.  The customers really liked him.  Franco worked in Milan as a tailor and he also spent twelve months working for Christian Dior in Basel in Switzerland.

In June 1952 Franco left Italy.  He felt that he would have better opportunities away from Europe and he and a friend went to register to migrate to the US where Franco had a relative.  Franco and his friend saw a large placard of a person on a tractor working in Queensland.  This placard so impressed Franco and his friend that they changed their minds and registered to migrate to Australia instead.  This sudden change of mind really upset Franco’s father.

Upon arrival in Australia Franco spent some time with about 7000 other migrants at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre.  He then spent three months picking grapes before moving to Adelaide to work in a tailor’s shop.  In Adelaide he also sang in a night club but he felt that he could be doing better so in early 1954 he came to Tasmania with a friend and worked for eleven months in Hydro villages.  He was then able to set up his own tailor’s shop in Hobart.  He bought a van and during the weekend he took Italian clothes to sell to the workers at the Hydro villages.  This enterprise was very popular.  After a few years Franco began working at Garretts and Bidencopes in Hobart.  His next step was to open the shop which many Hobart people associate with Franco – “Franco, Tailor of Distinction”.  Franco had a friend who was closing her own shop and had some furniture which she did not need.  The partner of this lady owned the building in which Franco established his shop.  This person charged Franco no rent for six months and the friend gave Franco the unneeded furniture – in this way Franco established his business and he worked there for 35 years!

Franco met his wife, Mary, in Tasmania.  They were married in 1959 and had three children, Loriana, Adriano and Raimondo.  Franco and Mary enjoyed regularly travelling to Melbourne to spend time with grandchildren.

Franco enjoyed singing and he was a member of the Theatre Royal Light Opera Company.  He was an animal lover and had dogs and a cat as pets.  On one occasion he was given a pigeon.  This bird became very fond of Franco and would walk with him to the bus of a morning.  It would fly after the bus and then return home.  It would also sit with Franco inside the house – it was beautifully house trained – and it even came to tennis, stayed for a while and then flew home.  Franco liked travelling and, among other places, he and Mary visited Egypt, China, Mexico, France and Spain.

Franco first started playing tennis when he was working in Tarraleah.  His association with the Taroona Tennis Club started as a result of his sons playing at the Club.  Franco had a long and active association with the Club.  He first joined the committee in 1985 as a committee member.  He served on the committee for many years and was President, Vice President and committee member.  Franco felt honoured to be made a life member in 1991.  In September 1999 he was made Patron of the Taroona Tennis Club and he held this position until his death.

Franco always enjoyed his involvement with the Club.  On one occasion he referred to it as “a big family” and he was welcoming and friendly to a wide variety of people.  Club members liked to hear the whistle that signalled the fact that Franco was arriving, they enjoyed the occasional singing and the friendly smile.

Benn Rafferty Snr

Club Patron 1990 – September 1999