D.H. Lawrence Society of Australia

Thanks for yours of last Wednesday. Your proposition about the Oatleys and “Edgecumbe" is interesting. According to the Sydney 1949 phone book, Mrs B.M. (“Trixie”) Oatley resided at 33 Beach Road,Collaroy. Trixie's husband is listed as attending Andree's FWD Oatley's funeral (SMH 31/3/19, p10). ("Cecil Oatley [RFA]"). I seem to recall telling you of a house opposite “Hinemoa” called “Dunoon”, (“Hinemoa” was on lot 9 and “Dunoon” on lot 3 opposite). Lot 3 was purchased in October 1919 by Eleanor Collins, wife of Robert Collins, grazier, of Narrawa (175 miles by rail to Goulburn, near Crookwell). I cannot tell what type of building was on lot 3 in 1922. The 1931 electoral roll shows Eleanor Collins residing in “Dunoon”. Perhaps Robert Collins was an invalid convalescing at the Basin too? Note, the house is in his wife's name in Florence Street. The street directories are no help, because these were all holiday houses in 1922. I have found nothing further regarding Taylor (whom I regard as worthy a subject as Scott for his own biog.). I even consulted the list of members of Lodge Neutral Bay No 267 for 1910-1930. No George A Taylor. I believe he lived in the outer suburbs, where he conducted his flying (Penrith) or his wireless experiments (Sutherland). Nothing further on Stoughton Cooley either.

1/6/02 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: I just wrote an editing comment to the item above dated c.31/8/78 in which, to use another Australianism, I poked borak at Steele & Ellis for down-playing Lawrence’s 7/10/22 letter to Seltzer in which he asked, “Do you think the Australian Govt. or the Diggers might resent anything?” I sd in that note that L must have bn referring to his Diggers secret army, not, as Steele & Ellis wd have it, Australian ex-servicemen generally – ie, Steele at least is still denying that L’s “Diggers” is a real secret army. (I do no know what his, or the CUP’s for that matter, current position is on this. I cannot conceive that they are still denying that there was a real secret army in Sydney in 1922. They have probably now moved forward & taken up a position behind Eggert’s “not proven” line.) In any case, the point I have to make here is that L in his 16/1/22 letter to Mountsier also sd: “Ought one to put a tiny forward note, apologising to Australia?” I must be honest here & say that this sentence, coming immediately after the “resent” remark made to Seltzer on 7/10, might tend to support Steele’s interpretation. However, I think it can be read both ways – ie, if, as I maintain, he was referring to a real secret army of Diggers/Maggies, then this “apology” remark wd reflect a residual concern that he hd done something wrong with Kangaroo: revealed something he should nt have (ie, a pang of conscience over his duplicity). But I concede that the more obvious meaning wd be that he might have sd something in K about Australia that might need apologising for, that might reflect poorly on the country. Nevertheless, such a possible interpretation does nothing, I wd argue, take any sting out of the previous remark to Seltzer about “the Australian Government or the Diggers” resenting what he hd written in K. The crucial question is, does his use of the word “Diggers” refer to the KEA or to Australian ex-servicemen generally? Nowhere else does L refer to Australian ex-servicemen as “the Diggers”. The only use he makes of the word is to describe the “front” organisation behind his “Maggies”. Indeed, the dual nature of Callcott/Cooley’s organisation – “the Diggers clubs*” and the “secret organisation” behind them, as Trewhella refers to it (see 29/1/78 & K [Heinemann] pp 160-61) - so reflects Brookes’ APL arrangement (see 15/3/78) as to make it well nigh indisputable that here L is referring to the KEA, & his (admittedly fuzzy) understanding of Rosenthal’s organisation.

2/6/02 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: In writing the above, I had cause to read all of Seltzer’s letters to L[awrence] over this 1922-23 period, & this entailed reading my just-acquired copy of the recently-published (ie, 2000) edition of vol 8 of the [Un]Collected Letters, containing Lawrence letters hitherto unpublished, but dating back to that period. And in two of these new letters (DHL-Seltzer 16/1/23 & Seltzer-DHL 26/1/23) fresh information emerges that obliges me to amend my explanation of how the variant endings to Kangaroo came about (see “Not the End of the Story”, Rananim 9/1 & DHLR 26 1-3). In the first letter, L says to Seltzer: “You haven’t told me what you think of Kangaroo.” And in the second letter, Seltzer replies: “Congratulations on KANGAROO! It is superb….” Now, there can be little doubt that the first quote implies that Seltzer had only recently had an opportunity to read [the typescript of] K. And the second quote just as obviously implies that he had only just read it. Therefore I am probably wrong in saying, as I did in my ”Not the End” article, that Mountsier must have given Seltzer his setting copy of K before Christmas 1922. (I hd said, in refutation of Steele’s Introduction & his explanation of how the variant endings came about, that Mountsier wd have given Seltzer the U.S. setting text soon after the collation was complete, which was around 23/11/22. [Steele, on the other hand, in his Introduction proper, sd Mountsier brought the two setting texts to Del Monte around Christmas 1922, & that it was a few days later that the decision to cut the texts was made.]) It is now probable that it was indeed Mountsier – not Seltzer, as I had supposed – who brought the U.S. (but nt the UK*) setting text to Del Monte. However, that does not change or afftect the gravamen of my argument that the original cutting decision was made in Taos by L back in October (& nt, as Steele wd have it - at least in his Introduction proper - at Del Monte around 1/1/23), & also that it was Mountsier’s confusion over L’s instruction of where the cut was to be made (created by the variant TS1R paginations & the missing TS1R p 466 in Mountsier’s copy of TS1R) that caused the texts to be cut in the wrong place (at “broken attachments, broken”, instead of L’s intended ending [“It was four days…”]). Yet that leaves me to provide an explanation for why Mountsier did not, as L had clearly instructed him to do, give the U.S. setting text (TS2) to Seltzer “as soon as possible”. (L wrote to Seltzer on 19/11/22: “I hope Mountsier has given you Kangaroo.”) I think the explanation lies in the breakdown in relations between Mountsier & Seltzer after September 1922 (see, eg, Letters vol 8 p 58, footnote #5: “Seltzer had been at ‘daggers drawn” with Mountsier since at least September 1922 [iv. 298].”). He probably disobeyed L’s instructions because he did not want to go and see Seltzer in New York in November 1922. They were not on speaking terms, apparently. (I was unaware of, or had not remembered, the poor state of relations between Mountsier & Seltzer in the months running up to L’s break with Mountsier in early 1923.) And Mountsier was to go to Del Monte in a few weeks, anyway, where Seltzer was also due (for it is unlikely that Seltzer would not have read a text which he was going to Del Monte, in part, to discuss with Lawrence). So Mountsier no doubt brought the U.S. text with him to Del Monte, & it was there, on the evening of 31/1/22, that Mountsier’s cutting error was discovered, Seltzer departing the next morning, New Year’s Day 1923, carrying with him the intended Kangaroo U.S. setting text (ending “broken attachments, broken”), & L promising to copy out from his retained (single) copy of TS1R the missing words – the infamous “last page”, containing the correct (“It was four days…”.) ending, which Seltzer subsequently received & incorporated, but whose printers later re-deleted, & which Secker also received, sometime after 10/2/23, but who then did print it, thus bequeathing to posterity the much-vexed variant endings, on which, in large part, as Warren Roberts hd sd, the whole CUP exercise was predicated, & which the CUP, courtesy of Bruce Steele, has seen fit to incorrectly perpetuate (& refuse, as of my encounter with their new Publisher in Taos in 1998, to correct in their “definitive” Complete Works edition). Something of an irony, I think.

Regarding the Friends and Craig Street. If there is one question you have asked me more than any other, it is this one. If I had the time I could dig out the dates of those replies and refer you to them. This will be my fourth, I think. Lucy Friend owned all the lots on the western side of Craig Street and round the corner in Surfers Parade. The house 'Wyuna' must have been the Friend's holiday bunker in Thirroul. Lucy Friend sold [it] in August, 1921. The purchaser, Arthur Woodhill of Burwood, sold [it] to Mr Ible in April, 1922. He ran his milk-vending business from 'Wyuna". I have never been able to discover if there truly was a 'Wyewurrie' in Craig Street. I doubt it. (I quoted the somewhat spurious legend 'Wywurk' was flanked by 'Wyewurrie' and 'Cheerup' in a Good Weekend par on house names, many years ago). I think I picked the story up in a [Illawarra]Mercury or Sydney Press article photocopy in some long ago library search. The house on 'Wyewurk's' north was 'Cheerup' but the gate sign said 'Chirrup'- which I like better. Next to that, on south-east corner of Craig Street and Surfers Parade, was 'Ripples'. J[oe] D[avis’]s book will probably tell you. I think JD originally told you the Friends owned or stayed in 'Wyewurk', [no, Wyewurrie] but he said that early on. A bit of local oral legend. Doubt it. I think your diary says the Friends (mistakenly) thought their family owned 'Wyewurk'. A thought has just occurred to me as to where the confusion might have arisen. 'Chirrup', or 'Ripples', and 'Wyuna' were conscious copies of 'Wyewurk's' design. Their owners consulted the Irons family - or the Southwoods, about the layout of this ideal holiday house.

John – I sd I wd look at my records re Wyewurrie, etc. The only reference to the name I can find is in an article in Walkabout dated 1/8/57 (which is very early – I don’t think I have anything earlier that this on Wyewurk) by Beverly Longworth Lee (whom I do not know). Its “hook” (as we say in jourmalism) was the “recent” Royal Tour by HM, & I quote the intro: “During the recent Royal tour of Australia, Queen Elizabeth paused in her journey…to admire the panorama that spreads out below The [Sublime Point] Lookout. The Queen is reported to have said the view was one of the most breath-taking she had ever seen.” (Well, she wd, wdn’t she?) The article, which is probably the one you can recall, went on to imply that Ms Lee had visited Wyewurk, for she mentions the crockery and furnishings inside. She then says: “Behind the walls of the house, that still stands between its neighbours, “Chirrup” and “Wyewurrie”, the great English author wrote…”. I think this pretty well implies that she actually saw, or heard from a reliable source, that the place next door to Wyewurk was, either then or previously, Wyewurrie. The fact that Joe’s Mrs Smith also used that name wd tend to confirm that identification, despite your (and my) fruitless researches to the contrary. Edgar Beale’s info ditto. But that is not the point. The point is: could the Friends have hd some closer relationship with Craig Street other than the “statistical” fact that Lucy May Friend owned the other side of the street up to 1921? There is a body of evidence that wd imply that the answer is yes. What is that evidence? (And it’s reasonably important to establish the truth here, for it wd illuminate how L found out about Wyewurk, & the circumstances of his taking up residence there, not to mention his relationship with the Friends & how he found out about the secret army.) The major evidence comes from Yeend, which means from “behind the closed door”. He sd originally to Andrew [Moore] that Wright [Walter Friends’ bro-in-law] hd told him that one of the Friends gave the key of Wyewurk to L. A little later Yeend told me, or Andrew, that one of the Friends hd owned Wyewurk. (Incidentally, when I was chasing the Scriveners, one relative recalled that the Scriveners used to go down to Thirroul & stay in a place owned by the Friends, & I seem to recall they implied it was Wyewurk.) Then there is the “circumstantial” evidence, outlined in my “Barber of Thirroul” article [Rananim 2.1], that implies that it hd to be a Friend who knew Wyewurk hd bn vacated the previous day (Saturday), took L&F down to Thirroul, got the key from Lucy Callcott, showed the Lawrence’s the still-warm Wyewurk, & negotiated their immediate occupancy. This female Friend, I strongly believe, was either Dawdie Friend or the wife of Robert Moreton Friend. Finally, there is the evidence of the novel, which we know is fact turned into “fiction”. This implies that the house next door to Cooee (ie, next door to Wyewurk) was at least occupied by the Callcotts (probably Robert Moreton Friend & his wife). All this implies a closer Friend relationship or intimacy with the environs of 3 Craig Street than wd come from the “historic” link via Lucy May Friend’s property dealings. One extra point. The names of the various houses involved, on both sides of Craig street, seemed to have chopped & changed down through the years. The original name of 3 Craig Street was not Wyewurk. (Was it “Idle Here” or something similar?) Indeed, the whole of Thirroul was a seething mass of similar names & name changes – Sans Souci, Take-it-Eazee, Linga Longa, Rest Well, Bide-a-Wee, etc. I have a note that says the original name of 1 Craig Street (I don’t know if it’s 1, or lot1) was “Ocean View”. (All of the above is a bit heavy, research-wise, so I’ll conclude in a lighter vein. L hd used the name of his Thirroul residence before, in 1918, in a letter to Katherine Mansield, in which he sd: “I’m supposed to be doing that little European history, and earning my living, but I hate it like poison, and have struck. Why work?” Also, it will amuse you to learn that in the will of Thomas Irons [who hd owned Wyewurk up to 1919] there is a list of the cars his motor-firm Taylors was working on at the time of his death. They included not only the Friends’ two Austins, a limo for Sam Hordern, a Buick for T.B. Nossiter, and a Coey for Dalgetys [probably Sir Henry Braddon]! And you will know, of course, that in 1922 there was a make of car [or motor-cycle] called a Callcott! Pip, pip.)

13/6/02 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: I am now correcting/editing some articles we scanned in from back issues of Rananim for the website (we did not keep them electronically, unfortunately, though from now on we will have them intact from the last two issues forward). The one I'm doing now - "What's in a Name?", the second part of the "Nomenclature" series (Rananim 5/2) - is very "dirty", and in need of a lot of subbing. However, in going over it I came to the part that tried to analyse where the name "Fred Wilmot" came from. I remarked that he appears in two manifestations in the novel. First he is Alfred John, [WJ] Trewhella's dead brother and first husband of Rose Trewhella (she married her late husband's younger brother, William James, or Jaz). Then he changes to Victoria Callcott's older brother, "Fred Wilmot", Jack Callcott's "best mate". In this second manifestation he is a mining engineer on the South Coast. Very odd and confusing, and plainly some reflection of reality and Lawrence's ham-fisted effort to disguise what was obviously "sensitive" and in need of camouflage. I originally thought he may have been based on the brother of AAK [Andree Adelaide Oatley, nee Kaeppel], Carl Oatley (the family "wastrel"). This was for two reasons, mainly. First, like the fictional Alfred John, he does not appear in the novel, except in name (and Carl Oatley was in Melbourne in 1922). Second, he went to school with Jack Scott, and was probably his "best mate". But that was before the Friends hove into view. Now it seems far more likely that some Friend is mixed up in the fictional Alfred John Trewhella and Fred Wilmot, Jack Callcott's best mate. Who might he be? The names "Alfred John" and "Fred Wilmot" should give us some clue (for, as pointed out in the "Nomenclature" series, Lawrence's names almost always have meaningful echoes embedded in them). But you can seldom argue from the name to the real "departure point". At best, they provide confirmation (ie, "Ah - so that's the link!"). So the starting point has to be: Who are the likely suspects? This in complicated by Lawrence's tendency to deal in amalgams - combining bits of real people to make up his characters*. One also wonders why Lawrence put this shadowy character in at all. He doesn't contribute anything to the plot in either manifestation. On the other hand, his persistence is interesting, and probably indicative. He intrudes, most probably, because he is intimately connected with another character, to whom he is (almost inextricably) attached in some way. (Or else he is the ghost of someone whose characteristics have been "strip-mined" by Lawrence.) It is highly probable that he is someone's brother. And the brother of a female "original", too. One strong possibility is that he is the brother of the "real" elements Lawrence borrowed for the character Victoria Callcott. At present, there are two prime suspects. First, Walter Friend. Second, George Sutherland. In this entry I will not go into why these are the two main candidates, though it would be obvious from the mentions of their names above (and especially Yeend's chortle [see 29/5/02 above]: "…you're on the right track…Sutherland leads straight to Walter Friend"). So my next job, when I can spare the time, is to devote some thought and research to the task of unmasking the enigmatic "Fred Wilmot". (*I should try to coin a term for these "amalgam" elements, or bits of people. Something catchier than "ingredient people". If anyone has a suggestion, please email me.)

2/7/02 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: Wendy has replied. Her father's name was, disappointingly, Kelly. He was some sort of boarding-house keeper, and was certainly around Thirroul and its environs (but mainly Wollongong and Austinmer) in 1922. Yet she repeats her claim that her father walked on the beach with Lawrence and had long talks with him. I would place no credence in this claim were it not for the fact that she says she still has in her possession a copy of Kangaroo in which her father had highlighted certain passages. She also mentions the "two ladies" who lived next door to Wyewurk and who also knew Lawrence when he was in Thirroul. I am seeking more information from her about the marked passages and from Ruffels re where Kelly might have lived in 1922. If he was in Thirroul, this might add to the credence of the claim.

20/2/03 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: Went down to Canberra this week to attend an Open Source in Government seminar. While there, I took the opportunity to look up Wendy Brazil, who came to the Commonwealth Club for drinks with her husband Norman. She brought with her not one but two annotated copies of Kangaroo, which had belonged to her father. I had a quick glance at the copies (a pocket 1950 Heinemann and a 1954 reprint Penguin - much the same text, however). Nothing of immediate note (and later examination - she let me take them away - confirmed that there was nothing dramatic or especially significant in the annotations). I questioned her closely, and although nothing resembling proof of her statement that Lawrence met and talked with her father Ron Kelly on the beach below Wyewurk in 1922 emerged, there seems to be some basis for the claim. She was not making it up - her father did tell her - and it also seemed unlikely that he would have made it up. So, on balance, I think it is likely to be so. However, as later examination also confirmed, there is nothing I could find in the annotations that would indicate that Lawrence used in Kangaroo material gathered in any conversations with Kelly. (For a fuller account of this - plus the very useful "discovery" about "who put the comma in" - see the two articles I have written in Rananim 11.1 (accessible elsewhere on this site).

18/3/03 www.cybersydney.com.au/dhl: Finished Rananim 11.1 last week and posted it out on Friday. Best issue yet, I think (but I always think that). However, I made a bit of a boo-boo with my "Who Put A Comma In?" feature. On the other hand, the error rendered the point I was making - that the CUP and Bruce Steele had got the "Kelly correction" passage wrong - even stronger, if anything. I had remarked in the article that "For the life of me, however, I cannot see why Lawrence left out the question-mark," adding that I thought Steele should have put it in (and then going on to suggest what the correct text* was, which reinstated the omitted question-mark). But of course I was wrong. Lawrence did put the question-mark in - on the galley proofs, just as he had also inserted the comma at the proof stage. In a footnote to the previous [text] paragraph I had remarked that Lawrence's final proof corrections - which must establish the final and correct text - could be deduced by comparing Seltzer's setting text (Berg 3) with the Seltzer edition (ending apart). And by comparing these two texts (ie, "Alone, what sort of alone. Physically…" [Seltzer setting text, Berg 3] and "Alone, what sort of alone? Physically…" [Seltzer 1923 edition]) we can deduce that the question-mark was indeed inserted by Lawrence as a galley-proof correction, and thus must stand as the correct and final text. (It is, to say the least, slightly worrying that the CUP, through its chosen editor Bruce Steele, has omitted these two of Lawrence's final proof corrections - the comma and the question-mark - in the one paragraph. I have not analysed the rest of the CUP text on this matter, but one wonders how many more of Lawrence's final proof corrections have not been included in the CUP text of Kangaroo: a question one almost dares not contemplate, even though Steele implies in his introduction to the CUP Kangaroo [p. xlvii - "Lawrence's corrections can be readily identified from a comparison of TSII and A1", ie Seltzer's setting text and the Seltzer edition], that he has taken these proof changes into account.)

20/5/04 Bondi: Some interesting developments. First, I was contacted last week by a Wendy Carlisle from the ABC. She is a researcher or assistant producer on a projected new ABC TV programme, provisionally entitled "The History Detectives". (I think AM put her in touch with me.) It is scheduled to go out at 7.30 on Sunday nights - prime time. She wanted to explore the possibility of doing a segment on the DT, etc. I said I was amenable, if they were serious. She was somewhat trepidatious, as her boss was Michael Cathcart, a Melbourne-based historian who wrote "Defending the National Tuckshop" (an expose of the Victorian League of National Security) which I apparently rubbished in a review (in Quadrant, I think). I remember him, for I attended in London a talk he gave on secret armies in Australia at the Institute of Australian Studies. He made fun of the phenomenon (reflecting his book title) and I thought him rather juvenile, or at least under-graduate, and probably said as much. Nevertheless, she came out to Bondi to see me, and we talked about such a possible segment (I tried to mollify Cathcart in the process). I showed her the Yeend letters - by way of the proof she sought - and we photocopied them for her to take away and digest. And there it stands (though she apparently was to see AM today). I will see what happens, but if it works the way I hope it might, I might be able to use this - immanent prospect of exposure and scandal - to prise the proof I need out of Kings, etc.

20/5/04 Bondi: Meanwhile (for this deserves a separate entry) I had been re-reading my notes (in preparation for the possible programme) and I came across the entry dated 8/5/89 in which I speculated what might have happened at The Basin that crucial first Sunday, May 28. A penny (or cent) dropped, and I now think I know (after all these years and effort - and frustration) what happened, and how it all came about.

The key is linking what Yeend said (when the door creaked open for a brief moment) about what happened that Sunday afternoon ("Again, why does it have to be Walter Friend? - his father and brothers had equal claim [or words to that effect]" And: "If I were you I would look at Beach Road [rather than Florence or Seaview.") with what we are pretty certain happened re Hum and Hinemoa. Now, the point here is that we know, or can be pretty sure, of some things, which I will go on to enumerate. The problem is connecting them up into a credible, indeed almost-certainly-true, explanation. So, this is what I now believe happened:

Hum met L at the wharf. He installed him in Macquarie Street. Hum's family were staying up at Collaroy (school holidays), even perhaps in Hinemoa (or at least nearby in Seaview Pde). L urgently needed cheap accommodation, preferably by the sea. Hum had invited him up for tea on Saunday afternoon and to see the accommodation possibilities nearby. Ferry, tram up to Narrabeen, then to The Basin and Hinemoa. At tea were Robert Morton Friend (who was staying in rented holiday accommodation in Beach Road, around the corner from Hinemoa), and probably Dawdie Friend (his elder sister) and Jack Scott, plus AAO and family (and Hum, etc). At tea the possibility of Wyewurk was mentioned by RMF/Dawdie. At dusk, RMF, who had the Friend family car, offered to drive L&F back to the city. They went round to Beach Road to pick up the car. Then back down Pittwater Road and across the Spit. Probably dropped Scott off at Wycombe Rd on the way to Milson Point. Then across on the ferry. RMF drops the Ls off at their Macquarie Street hotel, and takes the Friend car to Taylor's Garage in Grosvenor Street (or wherever). Next day they meet at the station and RMF and Dawdie take them down to Thirroul and install them in W. Later in the week, L comes up for his trunks, meets up with RMF, who takes him to Mosman Bay to meet Scott. Chat overlooking the wharf as per book. L stays night with Scott at 112 (tub-top lookout, etc). Next weekend Scott comes down to T and begins to tell him about the secret army. The rest is history.

I will be quite surprised if this is not what happened. It fits in with all we know and with K. (Callcott being an amalgam of RMF and Scott.) Maybe I don't need the Kings confession after all! (No - I do, for we need proof.)

10/9/04 BONDI: I just had a call from Wendy Carlisle of Rewind

she said that they are going to air with a program "about secret armies"

specifically about "the secret army that came out of the first world war"

"going up to the New Guard and the de Groot affair"

(this is the only contact I have had with her since she came here a few months ago and tried to find out what I had

and I gave her copies of the Yeend letters)

she said the "Lawrence" material would be included as a literary intelude

and would canvass the possibility that Lawrence was "prescient"

(ie, the orthodox interpretation)

she said "they" (and I think this meant she) had looked into the matter

but had come up with nothing conclusive

but they had interviewed Joe Davis

and discovered that Joe had found something "interesting"

(I think she implied almost "sensational")

(remember, the primary aim of the series is for the program to do its own research and make its own discoveries, not report others' research)

Joe, she said, had found out that the barber's (George Laughlin's) family had a book with annotations in it!!!!

of course, one's mind begins to boggle

alas, it is not even Frieda's Not I But the wind

(which the lovely Wendy neither knew about nor knew what it was - "What is it?" - so much for ABC research)

it turns out, according to her, that it is a "second edition" of Kangaroo

which George made marginal notes in

one does not want to take the shine off a reported Joe find

so I will not speculate what the notes say

(they could be interesting, if they are more than "That's me")

the other "discovery" is that they have found a letter or something similar from (this might be Joe) members of the New Guard congratulating de Groot
on his bridge work

but the big news is that she went to see Bill Friend at his flat at the Quay

(she pushed a note under his door and he rang her on his return from the UK)

he rang he back and agreed to see her

(she told me nothing of this at the time - she wanted to make her own "discoveries")

Bill, in his late 70s, was polite

and listened to her interest

he expressed surprise at the content of the Yeend letters

(she had rung Yeend, who has Parkinson's, and he was curt and did not want to talk to her)

he said he knew nothing of any possible connection between the Friend family and DHL

nor that their family had anything to do with secret armies

she mentiobed his brother Brian (Yeend letters) but said there would be no use going to see him because he was "out of this world" (implying ga-ga)

(which I do not believe he is)

but he volunteered to go to Kings and have a look in "the Friend papers" and see if there was anothing there

(she did not mention the RM Friend memoir, even though there was a copy of some it its pages in the Yeend letters)

he rang her back some time later and told her he could find nothing in the papers about Lawrence or secret armies

so they decided to drop that line of "research"

OK bulls in china shops, etc

and maybe the memoir was destroyed earlier

or maybe it's still there?

thank God I have nothing to do with the program

(though I will no doubt get a dismissive passing reference)

still, an opportunity wasted

R

Rob,
These are only a couple of musings arising from my first thorough re-reading
of your Online e-diary re the DT.
Firstly, I think each of the latter coded message from Yeend might have been
semaphoring that the clue was in the bunch of boys who marched from TKS to
Vic Barracks to enlist.Why dont you go and check TKS mag. for 1915/16?
Secondly, in your diary you mention that a "Dr Jim Friend" is Fiona F's
father! I'll bet he is the "Jim Friend" in the TRIPS militaria
exhibition.Somewhere in yr diary it says the Friends left Thirroul or
stopped going there, in 1956(?).How & why?
If he was friends with Helen Boge, then he was friends with the people who
lived next door to WYEWURK! Did Jim Friends parents know "Whiskey" Dawson?
The solicitor relative of Mrs Boge who owned No 5 Craig Street?
I think approaching the story from BOTH ends is the answer.
One, through Fiona to her father, citing your previous contact, and second
through Helen Boge and Paul Tuckerman asking for a photocopy of the
displayed images from the TRIPS display.
Just a couple of suggestions, hope they help.Regards, JOHN R.

PS: I apologise for the tatty draft of my DHL/HEIDE story I have sent
Sandra. Hope you can use it. Cut down or otherwise. Did you know about
Nolan's DHL painting STREAMERS (1982)? (Viewable on the EVA BRAUER website
using Adobe).
Andrew

I have just had a call from Hawaii which will interest you

out of the blue a chap called Doug Arnott, who apparently runs a backpacker operation in Honolulu, said he had found, and read, my secret army diary via Google

he thinks he has information that would be of interest

(he knows nothing of your book)

he is emailing me, and I will onsend

his mother was the daughter of Sir Henry Braddon (and the grand-daughter of Sir Edward Braddon, of blot fame)

his elder brother, who lives in Thornleigh, knows something he is about to divulge

he (the brother) went out with Judy Friend

and went to Kings

his father was an Arnott (rural, not biscuit)

who was a Captain in WW2 - on Ambon!

his paternal grandfather, a Colonel Arnott, was in the Light Hourse and close to Macarthur-Onslow

and knew Colonel Davies

his sister is the family geneologist

the names he spouts we all know

he spoke of a fortified rural property in New England, built for secret army purposes

he says that, according to his brother, Sir HB was being prepared to take over as dictator in the 1920-30s

R

Was the family photo taken on the front verandah of their house in The Avenue, Collaroy? When we lived in Onslow Avenue Potts Point I saw Andree almost daily (1948-49) as she lived in Greenknowe Avenue. She was v. Frail trained on Bex. But so full of intellectual energy. She was the first person with whom I had a true intellectual discussion - on flying saucers! When we moved to Vaucluse in 1950 we saw Andree once a week on Sundays. We spent weekends with John at Avalon, Peter at Spencer Street Killara and holidays with Rachel at Moree. I saw Carl only once. He was tragically drunk on a train crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He stood up and shouted, as the sun set "You will never see a greater sight than that. Look at that you narrow minded fools! My grandmother with who I was travelling broke down & cried but would not even acknowledge his presence directly. Jack Scott died before I came to Australia. My grandmother spoke of him with hatred in her voice. The charges did not relate to any secret army but to his stealing money from Andree and his cruelty to her. I asked Andree about this (typical precocious child question). She said that he was "handsome, charming, a rogue and totally amoral" (she then explained what amoral meant).

19/11/08 (BONDI): It is a long time since I wrote a substantive entry in my diary. I note that I recorded a letter from Michael Preston in February last year, but that was for the record, as it revealed nothing of significance. The one before that was also a letter to Andrew about Doug Arnott (1/5/05) and his Braddon/Arnott connections (I went to school at Cranbrook with him). The entry before that (27/4/05) was a note from Ruffels about Thirroul neighbours. The previous one was an exchange about the Old Guard in the Mountains, and of little interest otherwise. Which takes me back to the last substantive entry, dated 10/9/04 (about that appalling ABC Cathcart "history" program, Rewind). That's more than four years ago. So I should say something now, for I think I do have an item of substantive interest. It is strange (as I say in the associated blog - dated 20/11/08) how you can read over something a myriad times and not pick up its significance (see that blog, and the previous week's one). Especially such an important quote as the "horrible paws" one. That it should have read "claws" never occurred to me. But it has now led to something worthy of note in this diary. As I remark in the second blog, it is clear that Lawrence went to see Rosenthal, almost certainly on Saturday night June 24, to get past his Ballam's Ass. (Because of the two - Frieda's and L's - letters dated Tuesday June 20.) So I think we can date the end of the "Sea of Marriage" chapter to the previous weekend - June 17-18. That was where he was stuck (though probably he had been stuck for some time before that, as the chapters "Volcanic Evidence" and "At sea in Marriage" are just padding, with Lawrence scratching around for something to say). Frankly, his plot - such as it was - had stopped with "The Battle of Tongues" (probably based on a visit from Robert Moreton Friend). In any case, he was desperate for information to take the novel forward. However, he did not immediately use the meeting with Rosenthal, and its subsequent nightmare. Or maybe he did, for following the "At Sea in Marriage" chapter is the cut-out section. We don't know what was in this. (Maybe it was an initial account of the Rosenthal meeting which he discarded for one reason or another.) Instead it seems he recycled an earlier meeting with Scott (when Scott first told him details of the secret army structure) plus, probably a visit by RMF and his wife. This formed the chapter "Diggers". The following chapter, "Willie Struthers and Kangaroo" is the chapter wherein he does record the final confrontation with Rosenthal (followed by the Nightmare chapter). But this starts with a visit to "Canberra Hall" to see Willie Struthers (ie, Jock Garden). It is probable that Lawrence did make such a visit. (Struthers' offer to get Somers to write for them is almost certainly Rosenthal's offer earlier recycled). It may well be that such a Canberra Hall meeting took place before that final Saturday night. In the text L says he went to see Struthers the morning before the Saturday night meeting. If he did see Garden before Rosenthal, and mentioned it to Rosenthal that night (as the text says), then that would have been enough to tell Rosenthal that something was very amiss, and could well have sparked his violent reaction, irrespective of L's possible fishing for more information about the secret army.

Bondi (02.01.10): A new decade, and going on for two years since my last entry. But I have a substantive titbit that is worth mentioning. I am constructing the third of our CyberXs (CXs), Cyber South Sydney (CSS), as part of our plan to accelerate our now 13-year-old CyberSydney project. I won't go into that, except to mention that it was in the course of this chore that I came across a quite unexpected item of possible interest, or maybe relevance (though it's probably just coincidence). But even if it leads nowhere, which is almost certainly its fate, it shows that, even at this late date, such items can still crop up. It's worth a smile, or smirk, at the very least. I was inserting the MPRO (ex-July 2004 Yellow Pages) material into Gardeners Road when I came across the address: 337A Gardeners Road (Rosebery). The business listed in MPRO at that address stopped me in my tracks. It was "Cooley & Cooley", and their line of work was "lawyers". Today's is Saturday, but on Monday I will give them a ring and see if anyone of that name was around in 1922 (though surely I or John Ruffels would have picked that up if they had been*). It's worth a call, anyway (and I will add to this entry with the result of the call). Meanwhile, while I am adding, I will mention that we, the DHLA, are still going, if not strong, then at least actively. We visited Garry Shead's studio earlier last year and had a nice picnic there (see report in Rananim). We had our spring picnic at Balmain (five of us) but missed the annual get-together in the Botannic Gardens (not enough interest). However, we have an event coming up that is arousing some interest. It's Andrew's Margaret Jones Memorial lecture at Minh's (where we will have our AGM), and he will refute some lady historians allegation that the Old Guard did not exist (and hence the Darroch Thesis could not be correct). We will reproduce this in Rananim. Oh, yes - I should also add that there is a rumour (from Jonathan Long in London) that there will be a DHL International Conference in Sydney in August. That should be interesting.
*they might have been active in some country area we have not trawled though