By October 20 he had read what Dr Steele had said in his CUP Kangaroo about the identity of Cooley (I had sent him a photocopy of Steele's Introduction). He commented:

Monash was not Lawrence's man...The 'Club' for that is what it was would not embrace a Monash as a Sydney and NSW group...the Independent Schools lot would have wanted one of their own. When the...Old Boys Unions established a Schools Club in the 1920s the WASP element excluded [the two private Catholic schools and the "government" school, Sydney High] even though they were GPS [the eight Greater Public Schools that made up an elite independent school grouping in Sydney]. The remnants of this club survives as The University and Schools Club. Just a thought. No progress on Friend.

 

(I had gone to Sydney High, and the main club I belonged to in Sydney, the Union Club, later merged with the University and Schools Club...just a passing comment, to indicate again what a small place Sydney can be.)

On November 10 he wrote:

I am happy to do all I can to see that the truth is revealed so the correspondence is not 'too burdensome' as you put it. I enclose a potted history of the Schools Club.

I was writing back to him regularly, and sending him material I had written or come across, as well as new issues of Rananim. I mentioned in one letter that I thought that George Sutherland (whom he had earlier mentioned) may have been connected to the firm of Cameron Sutherland that Joshua Trewheellar had worked for. Yeend replied:

Yes you are hot on the trail with Sutherland and it leads you straight to [the] Friends. Walter Friend and George Sutherland were lifelong close friends...GB Sutherland's (1910-19 [his years at King's]) father was an architect...[he] had at least two brothers and perhaps one of these was the Sutherland of Cameron Sutherland...George Sutherland often spoke of his friendship with the Rosenthal family...

 

On March 15, he sent a long letter further explaining his dilemma:

I have thought long and hard about your recent letter and find I have no solution. [I had pleaded with him to give me a few more clues.] While I remain custodian of the School's records I am bound by the ethics of the task. When I am no longer custodian I cannot get my hands on the material to prove your case. Let me put forward a supposed scenario - all supposition of course, but my guesses would be yours with a few refinements.

 

 

Then followed some more "clues". But they did not seem to me to be especially helpful. They did not provide any answer to my crucial question of when and where Lawrence met Robert Moreton Friend, and how that encounter had led Lawrence to Scott's secret army.