HE DH Lawrence Society of Australia had much to celebrate
on Sunday May 27in the Rose Garden Pavilion in Sydney's
Royal Botanic Gardens.
First of all
it was the 90th anniversary of the arrival in Sydney of
Lawrence and Frieda.
Secondly, it
was the 20th anniversary of the founding of the DH Lawrence
Society of Australia - in the Rose Garden Pavilion in 1992.
A special anniversary
cake was cut by outgoing President John Lacey, and in-coming
President Rob Darroch offered a toast to DH Lawrence. Those
present - more than 20 Lawrence "fans" - raised
their glasses to the toast.
Artist Garry
Shead, a patron of the Society, drew a special sketch of
the occasion (see picture, right).
A three-minute-long
AGM was then held where John Lacey expressed his regrets
in having to resign due to continuous ill-health and Sandra
Darroch thanked him for his 13 years of presidency, during
which he took the Society on annual Harboor cruises on the
historic VIP steam yacht, Lady Hopetoun, and a number
of memorable steam train trips to Thirroul and other places
of Lawrentian interest (see John Lacey's speech, page 2).
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Outgoing
President, John Lacey, cutting the Anniversary cake
with Garry Shead and new committee member, Robert
Whitelaw, looking on
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Rob Darroch
was elected the new President and Robert Whitelaw was elected
to join the committee. Sandra Darroch remains Secretary
and editor and publisher of Rananim, and Clif Barker,
who was away in Berlin, stays on asTreasurer.
Sandra Darroch,
on behalf of Treasurer Clif Barker, reported that the Society's
finances were in good shape and that future talks and other
events would be organised. She called for donations to help
the Society, and Cerridwen Lee generously made a contribution.
Then followed
a reading of the five entries in our Literary
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Garry
Shead's drawing of the
event, depicting Sandra
& Rob Darroch & John Lacey, with Paul Delprat
and a
kangaroo behind them
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Competition
to write the Missing Chapter that was excised from Lawrence's
notebooks
when he wrote
Kangaroo.
Rob Douglass
was unfortunately away and unable to read his entry, titled
"Chinatown", about an intriguing encounter Lawrence
had with some mysterious Chinese during a trip up to Sydney
from Thirroul. Rob Darroch read it on Rob Douglass's behalf.
Next, Sandra
Darroch read her entry titled "Batten Down the Hatches"
in which she told of how she had come upon the missing chapter
which had been excised by Frieda because she was angry at
what Lawrence had written about her in the chapter.
Third to be
read was Lindsay Foyle's evocative chapter about Lawrence's
visit to Sydney and a meeting with the family of Norman
Lindsay.
Fourth was "Daemon",
Rob Darroch's deeply-researched analysis of the correspondence
Lawrence had recently received from England at the time
of writing the missing chapter, and the influence one of
the letters had had on him and the excised chapter.
Finally
Paul Delprat told of how Lawrence met Paul's ancestor, the
artist Julian Ashton. He illustrated his chapter "A
Fellow Artist", with a drawing (see page 7).
The five entries
were then voted on by those present and the winner was declared
to be Paul Delprat, who was presented by Rob Darroch with
a bottle of single-malt Scotch whisky.
SEE MORE PHOTOGRAPHS
OF THE
EVENT ON PAGE 8.
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