The 1935 Heinemann edition of Frieda's "useless" memoir of her life with Lawrence, Not I But the Wind (showing the beard that the barber of Thirroul trimmed regularly)

 

A BIG ADVANTAGE I had in my ongoing research was that I was very familiar with the place in which Lawrence had set his secret-army plot.

I had grown up in Sydney, gone to school and university there, and spent my early journalistic career reporting its news. I was as familiar with my city as Joe Davis was with his Thirroul.

Unlike the Melbourne-based Dr Steele, I knew its society and undercurrents well (as did my wife Sandra, who was also a journalist, as well as a biographer - and who grew up on Sydney's conservative North Shore).

We had already benefited from this familiarity when we met the daughter of one of Jack Scott's stepsons during a social tennis game in Turramurra (on the North Shore) in 1976. She had gone to school with Sandra.

All through the period of our research similar unexpected "connections" and fortuitous events played a significant role.

An important one concerned DG Hum, Lawrence's fellow passenger on the Osterley between Naples and Colombo, and the only local Sydney name in Lawrence's "Australian" address-book.

I was still working overseas when John Ruffels and I learned of the name and address of Hum. Much of the research that followed was carried out by John.

It was Ruffels who tracked down Hum's son, who was living north of Sydney. It was John who put together a biographical picture of David Gerald Hum, commercial traveller (he sold hats, wholesale), of Chatswood, Sydney.

John's investigations soon made it likely that Lawrence had based at least part of the key character, the Cornishman William James ("Jaz") Trewhella, on Hum. Their physical descriptions were identical ("stuggy", etc)...just as the physical appearance of Jack Scott was almost identical to Jack Callcott in the novel.

Hum's wife was named Lillian, and in Kangaroo Trewhella's wife is Rose, which could be a typical Lawrence "flower"-transposition [Lillian=Rose].

The Hums had a daughter, Enid, who was about the same age as Trewhella's daughter Gladys in Kangaroo. (Indeed, Enid must have been the "daughter of a steamer acquaintance" who accompanied Somers to the zoo, as described in the novel. The source of the transposition Enid=Gladys is unknown, though an Eastwood provenance must be suspected.)

It was my belief that on the Osterley, Hum, like Mrs Jenkins, gave Lawrence his name and address in case he and Frieda wished to travel on to Sydney, and to leave for America from there. These two Australian addresses were no doubt offered at the same time, probably just before the Lawrences disembarked at Colombo.

In Kandy, Lawrence, at the same time he wrote to Mrs Jenkins in Perth, probably also wrote to Hum (as mentoined above), telling him that he was taking up his invitation to be helpful should he decide to come on to Sydney.