In the meantime, John Ruffels, who was also helping Joe Davis with his work on Lawrence in Thirroul, had learned from Joe about the extensive presence of the Friend family in the town. One Friend, Lucy May Friend, once owned an entire block of the street, Craig Street, opposite "Wyewurk".

Quite independently of me, Ruffels also contacted, by telephone, Walter Friend in Beach Road, Collaroy, but had been sent away with a flea in his ear. "Oh, no, not this again," Mr Friend said to Ruffels, before replacing the receiver.

An added reason for my interest in the Friend family was the fact that their Sydney hardware firm, WS Friend & Co, had advertised in every issue of King and Empire.

But at this (early) point in the research, it seemed to us that the Friends, like Scrivener, were probably another dead-end. We could see no secret-army connection between them and Lawrence.

However, it was not long after this that a link did emerge.

(Some years later - in 1989 in fact - we bought a bungalow in that part of Collaroy, which was called The Basin, for no better reason that we liked the area, and where in my younger days I used to play a lot of golf at Long Reef, which The Basin adjoined. We lived in The Basin for more than a decade, and our proximity to "Hinemoa" and Beach Road proved to be essential to the final dénouement of The Quest for Cooley.)