For it soon became clear to me that the Friend whose King's School memoir Yeend was referring to was indeed Robert Moreton Friend, the younger brother of the Walter Friend whom John Ruffels and I had spoken to in 1981, but who had denied any knowledge of Lawrence and secret armies (but who suggested I should write to his brother, Robert, in the country).

In a follow-up letter dated June 15, 1994, Yeend "spelt out [his] problem clearly". He said he would be sacked if he disobeyed the directive he had received [not to reveal what was in the "strong piece of evidence"].

He added:

I also understand your complete frustration. It is agonising to be so near an intellectual coup and yet so far...I will do my best for you to have the Friend family reconsider their position...Give me a month or so so that my approach does not appear to be pursuing the four [Friend descendants] I will seek out.

 

(The four were, apparently, the sons of Walter Friend and of his brothers Robert and Adrian, each of whom had gone to King's. Incidentally, Adrian Friend, the younger brother of Walter and Robert Moreton Friend, was probably the "17-year-old brother" Lawrence mentions in Kangaroo [as being the "shy youth" and fictional brother of Victoria Callcott, aka Dawdie Friend=Maudie Cohen].)

Along the way Yeend dropped a clue about something I already knew about.

On 20/9/94 he wrote, on non-King's-School notepaper: "It would be very useful to know in what zone of war Major WJR Scott served. Similar interest could be taken in General Rosenthal [whose two sons also went to The King's School]."

No doubt the "strong piece of evidence" also revealed that Scott and Rosenthal, after working together in Europe, had linked up again to become the secretary and treasurer of the King and Empire Alliance.

More intriguingly, Yeend enclosed a photocopy of a document he described as a "portion of a letter", and which could have been either part of what I now assumed was RMF's hand-written memoir, or some other document that was associated with it.

It described how a detachment of King's School boys had marched, as a unit, all the way from Parramatta to Victoria Barracks in Sydney to enlist in WW1. One of the boys was Robert's elder brother, Walter "Tootles" Friend.

Yeend went on:

I was given a strong hint last night by one of the Friend family that their problem is they want no publicity and that is where the problem lies. I tried to explain that the chaps in the 1920s were, from their point of view, patriots keeping Communism at bay...I will let you know if anything more eventuates.

 

On September 12 he wrote: "I have, yesterday, played another card in the hope that it falls for you. I'll be in touch..."

A month later came another progress report:

I had a longish talk with Brian Friend [son of Robert Moreton Friend] at a committee meeting recently. His final word went along these lines - well what my father and Uncle Walter did as young chaps can't be held against them for they were young. I also saw Walter Friend's elder son Bill last Saturday - no progress. Still we still have fuel on the fire!

On October 13 Yeend sent a long letter describing some of the unusual traditions at The King's School (including the "tearing ceremony", marking the departure of boys leaving the school). He concluded: "I'll keep trying to help the truth to surface."