Following the Footsteps of Lawrence Robert Darroch

From Rananim June 1994, Vol 2, No 2

Lawrence spent two and a half days in Sydney before going down to Thirroul by the 2 pm train on Monday, May 29, 1922. What did he do during that time?

It's an important question, for it is likely that it was in Sydney, not Thirroul, that Lawrence encountered the contacts who were to provide him with the information for the secret army plot of Kangaroo. And as he started the novel within days of settling into Wyewurk, it is highly likely 'that those Sydney contacts were the result of one or more key encounters between his arrival at the P and O wharf early on Saturday, May 27, and the quitting of his "more or less expensive boarding-house" about 1 pm the following Monday.

It's also a timely question, for not only will this issue of Rananim coincide with Lawrence's arrival in Sydney 72 years ago, but it also marks the occasion of our Society's first seminar, "In the Footsteps of Lawrence", to be held on Sunday, May 29, at Collaroy - where some of us maintain he spent some time that first Sunday in 1922.

At the outset, however, it should be made clear that Lawrence's Sydney movements between May 27 and May 29 are the subject of topical dispute. Joe Davis, in his book D.H. Lawrence at Thirrout (1989), puts forward a scenario that is very different to the one tentatively advanced in my own D.H. Lawrence in Australia (1981). Others, particularly Bruce Steele' (whose much-awaited Cambridge University Press edition of Kangaroo is due out in a matter of weeks), have also questioned that 1981 "provisional reconstruction". These doubts, about what has subsequently become known as "the Darroch Thesis", have been echoed more recently by a number of other critics (eg, Professor A.P. Riemer, Stephanie Trigg' and David Ellis').

And it must again be pointed out that all attempts to reconstruct Lawrence's movements in Australia are, as I conceded in a previous article ('The Barber of Thirrou1", Rananim #2), bedevilled by the problem of sources and their reliability. Of course, it is my contention that the most extensive source is Kangaroo itself, it largely being, I believe, a fictionalised "diary" of Lawrence's time in NSW. Yet, as Davis and others have quite rightly pointed out, it is not one that can be too-freely lent on. It can, however, become surprisingly informative when correlated with other sources, such as Lawrence's letters and diary, Frieda's autobiography, and the other scant first-hand records, principally the Australian reminiscences to be found in Nehls's Composite Biography (cf. the "Barber" article mentioned above).

But there is another area of potential correlation which can allow the novel to be used as a source for deducing Lawrence's Sydney and Thirroul activities. If, for example, Lawrence has his alter-ego Somers doing something fictionally, and this activity reveals knowledge that Lawrence could neither have invented nor found out about second- hand, then we might deduce that this part of the novel was probably taken from reality, and that the activity in question happened to, or was observed by, Lawrence himself.

Using this technique we can, for instance, deduce that Somers' trip to Manly and beyond, described in chapter two, actually occurred. The detail of the "fictional" trip tallies so closely with actuality that it could scarcely have been invented, nor derived from a second-hand source. Specifically, his mention of a house name, Tres Bon, almost certainly places him at the corner of Ocean and Malcolm streets, Narrabeen, on Sunday, May 28, 1922 - for a house bearing that name stands there today. Using aids such as this it should be possible to extend our primary-source picture nf Lawrence's movements in Sydney and Thirroul, building up a hierarchy of likelihood, comprising what is certain, what is highly probable, what probable, down to the merely speculative.

Lawrence's boat from Perth, the Malwa, docked at the P&0 wharf, near the bottom of Macquarie Street, at around 6.40 am (according to the shipping report in the Daily Telegraph). It was raining, the sky was dark, a light southerly was blowing, and the temperature was about 47 degrees F.

When he came on deck after breakfast and the ship had stopped, it was pouring with rain, the P. & O. wharf looked black and dismal, empty. It might almost have been an abandoned city. He walked round to the starboard side, to look towards the imposing hillock of the city and the Circular Quay. Black, all black and unutterably dismal in the pouring rain, even the green grass of the Botanical Gardens, and the bits of battlement of the Conservatorium. Unspeakably forlorn. Yet over it all, spanning the harbour, the most magnificent great rainbow....A huge, brilliant, supernatural rainbow. spanning all Sydney.

Disembarking formalities would have taken the Lawrences between one and two hours, so they would have emerged from Customs and immigration, preceded no doubt by a porter bearing their cabin luggage (two suitcases, a hat-box and two smaller bags, plus, maybe, the side of a Sicilian cart'), around 9 am, to be welcomed to Sydney by David Gerald Hum.

How do we know that Lawrence was met on arrival by Hum? There is no mention or hint of such a meeting in Kangaroo, nor in any other primary source. Yet it is all but certain. For a start, we may take it as as near to certainty as we can get that had Lawrence known anyone in Sydney, that person would have been at the wharf to greet him and Frieda on their arrival. That was common practice and courtesy, particularly for strangers to the city, just as elaborate farewells (with streamers, etc) were also customary. Besides, it was also Lawrence's almost invariable practice (as pointed out in the "Letters of Introduction" article in Rananim #1) to deliberately canvass for such "forward" contacts in places he was planning to go to. We know that on the Osterley between Naples and Colombo he took Hum's address (and it is the only Sydney address in his address book), and we can deduce from his Ceylon and Perth movements that he probably wrote to Hum from Kandy and received a reply on arrival at Fremantle on May 4 (also see "Letters" article cited above). But there is other evidence.

Just as Woodward and Bernstein had benefit of their "Deep Throat", so also has the Darroch Thesis had its shadowy "inside" informant. Alas, like W&B, I am not at liberty to reveal his name, though by way of verisimilitude I herewith reproduce a page from a letter he wrote to me in 1977. As with much of this gentleman's information, it is tantalisingly incomplete, and often distorted (he is remembering matters he overheard as a youth in his mother's drawing room well over 30 years previously). Nevertheless, the substance of what he says almost certainly reflects some aspect of actuality, and thus it is likely that there was, once current, and among those in a position to know, knowledge of the fact that Lawrence was indeed met by someone on his arrival in Sydney 6. It seems that such a person could only have been the hatter, Hum.

Yet, in all honesty, the best evidence we have of this meeting is contained in the correlation between Hum and the fictional character Trewhella in Kangaroo. This is not the time to list all the correlations, but the fact - confirmed by his family - that Hum was Cornish by descent, and was physically identical with Trewhella, makes it virtually certain that Lawrence renewed his acquaintance with Hum on the wharf in Sydney - as we would expect him to have done. Indeed, what happened during the subsequent three days can only be satisfactorily explained by Hum having met Lawrence on arrival, and then arranged his Sydney stay.

After an exchange of greetings, Hum probably told Lawrence he had made a reservation at a guest-house further up Macquarie Street. He may also have mentioned other tentative arrangements he had made for the rest of the weekend. But the first thing to be done was to hire a cab from the rank outside the wharf, and load its boot with the Lawrences' luggage.

Yet the cab did not, it seems, take them directly to Mrs Scott's at 125 Macquarie Street. It appears rather that they made a detour, most probably to Hum's office at 38 Carrington Street, there to drop him off (possibly after he pointed out where Cook's was in Martin Place) before the Lawrences took the cab on alone to Macquarie Street.

How could we know this? Again, there is no mention of it in Kangaroo nor in any of the other primary sources (if only Fred Esch had found Hum and interviewed him!). It may, however, be deduced from the fact that Lawrence almost certainly took a taxi ride that Saturday which involved his luggage and which cost him eight shillings:

"But the taxi-drivers! And the man charged you eight shillings on Saturday for what would be two shillings in London!"

This exchange follows the scene where another Sydney taxi-driver quoted Lawrence "Shilling apiece, them bags" for his two "Gladstones" and Frieda's hat-box. Allowing charging for bags at a shilling a piece, a five-shilling ride a few hundred yards up Macquarie Street is too stiff, even for a predatory Sydney taxi-driver. The likelihood is that it was a longer trip, and one, moreover, that ended unaccompanied by anyone local, enabling the opportunist cabbie to "rook" two new chums (eight shillings still being too much for a via-Carrington-Street trip.

This scenario would imply that Lawrence and Frieda, plus luggage, were deposited at Mrs Scott's around 9.30-10 am Saturday (why Mrs Scott's? - because it fits the opening description in Kangaroo: diagonally opposite the Conservatorium, with steps). Checking in, being shown their room, unpacking, and so on, would account for perhaps another hour. After that Lawrence probably went for a walk - up Macquarie Street to Martin Place, then down to Cook's in Challis House, opposite the GPO. We can deduce this because Lawrence had given Cook's as his Sydney mail address, and he would be expecting letters (in fact we know he picked up his mail on Saturday, for he wrote several letters of reply on the Sunday). In 1922, Saturday may have been a morning-only working day, so he may have had to visit Cook's before lunchtime. There he no doubt also inquired about onward travel from Sydney. Given that Hum's office was virtually around the corner in Carrington Street, he may also (and this is rank speculation) have dropped in on him, perhaps to discuss his most pressing need - how to escape Mrs Scott's "more or less expensive boardinghouse" and find cheaper, more long-term accommodation.

That Lawrence was in urgent - nol to say desperate - need of cheap accommodation, and that this imperative would largely have dictated his moment-to-moment concerns on arrival in Sydney, cannot be doubted. We do not know precisely how much money he possessed on arrival, but we do know it was less than 50 pounds (his steamer tickets terminated in Sydney, and he would have to cable his American agent, Mountsier, for more money for onward tickets and other expenses). Mrs Scott's was probably around 15 shillings a day7, so every night spent there would have been a serious drain on his slender reserves8., Yet he would have been well aware that he would have to spend at least a month, more probably longer', in or near Sydney (the earliest ship to America was the Marama, leaving July 6). Where and how he was to live, most immediately until more money arrived, would have dominated his thoughts and actions. And he was not looking for just any accommodation - he had something specific in mind. Not a flat or house in the city or suburbs, but somewhere away from people, preferably on or near a beach, where he and Frieda could be alone, and where perhaps he might write a "romance"10.

Yet whatever discussion there may have been with Hum about this need for urgent, longer-term accommodation, and whatever plan was arrived at to seek out such accommodation, it did not, paradoxically, involve any immediate action, for on that first Saturday afternoon in Sydney Lawrence apparently had nothing more pressing to do than casually stroll through Sydney town:

Somers wandered disconsolate through the streets of Sydney, forced to admit that there were fine streets, like Birmingham for example; that the parks were well-kept; that the harbour, with all the two-decker brown ferry-boats sliding continuously from the Circular Quay, was an extraordinary place.

 

Of course, had there been no immediate need to find some alternative to Mrs Scott's, such an exploratory meander after lunch on Saturday would have been a fairly natural thing for two newcomers to Sydney to have done. One of the city's main parks, the Palace Gardens, was opposite their guest-house, and being part of the Botanical Gardens would indeed have appeared "well-kept". The crenellated Conservatorium, outside the nearby gates of Government House, obviously attracted his passing attention, for he mentions it more than once. Hereabouts, that particular Saturday afternoon, there was quite a deal of activity. There was an impressive new statue - of the late king, Edward VII - on display, unveiled with much pomp just three days previously, on Empire Day. Surging about it, and stretching up and down Macquarie Street, were hundreds of Boy Scouts, attending a gathering at Government House:

The day was Saturday. Early in the afternoon Harriett went to the little front gate because she heard a band; or the rudiments of a band. Nothing would have kept her indoors when she heard a trumpet, not six wild Somerses. It was some very spanking Boy Scouts marching out.

Their walk that Saturday afternoon apparently extended to Sussex Street - neither then, nor now, one of Sydney's more salubrious thoroughfares, nor one of its more obvious tourist attractions:

In Martin Place he longed for Westminster, in Sussex Street he almost wept for Covent Garden and St Martin's Lane, at the Circular Quay he pined for London Bridge.

We get the link with Westminster (Parliament House was at the top of Martin Place) and London Bridge (water and commuters), but what connection between Sussex Street and Covent Garden could Lawrence have been thinking of? This can only be a reference to the Haymarket end of Sussex Street, where the fruit and vegetable markets were to be found. An odd place to choose to go, and quite a trek from Macquarie Street. I.t might be, however, that this Saturday stroll also took in a visit to an address near the markets, an address that Lawrence may have been given in Perth. For the other major institution to be found off the Haymarket end of Sussex Street was the Trades Hall, where Jock Garden reigned (see "Was Willie Struthers My Uncle Jock?", Rananim #2).

This perambulation probably occupied much of the afternoon of that first Saturday, ending with a return to Mrs Scott's, and there perhaps opening some of the accumulated mail picked up from Cook's earlier in the day, prior to dinner and an early night (Lawrence was an early-riser). Note, however, that what the excursion did not include was any apparent effort to look for accommodation, Lawrence's greatest immediate need. This can only be explained by Hum having already arranged a separate, accommodation-oriented excursion for the next day, as per the novel.

Yet it must be pointed out that others disagree with the above version of events, Joe Davis in particular putting forward a very different programme for that Saturday, involving Lawrence taking a ferry trip to Neutral Bay, with some exploration of accommodation possibilities around Murdoch Street and Wycombe Road, a further tram trip on to Mosman, more exploration there of possible places to let, culminating in a late-afternoon visit to the zoo at Taronga Park, returning to the city by an evening ferry. But I must say, with due respect to Joe (whose Thirroul research is invaluable), that I find this amount of Saturday activity, bordering on the frenetic, very unlikely indeed, especially with nothing in the novel

tO SUppOrt 1L However, everyone agrees that on Sunday Lawrence went to Manly, and with accommodation firmly in mind. Yet even here there is little sign of urgency. Instead of starting early, and thus maximising his house-hunting options, Lawrence apparently caught quite a late ferry to Manly, arriving just before lunch. Indeed, Lawrence wrote two or three letters that Sunday, possibly devoting part of the morning to this task. At Manly he and Frieda strolled up the Corso, the seaside streetscape reminding them of Margate:

It was Sunday, and a lovely sunny day of Australian winter. Manly is the bathing suburb of Sydney - one of them. You pass quite close to the wide harbour gate, The Heads, on the ferry steamer. Then you land on the wbarf, and walk up the street...with seaside shops and restaurants, till you come out on a promenade at the end, and there is the wide Pacific rolling in on the yellow sand: the wide fierce sea, tbat makes all the built-over land dwindle into non-existence.

In the novel Somers and Harriett buy some food from one of the seaside shops and repair to the beach for an alfresco lunch. But Harriett "was chilled", so they go into one of the restaurants for "a cup of soup". There Harriett manages to mislay her yellow silk scarf, and when they go back for it, it has disappeared. Here Lawrence attempts his second" rendition of the Australian accent, or rather the broad end of it, describing it as "cheeky Cockney Australian". He quotes the eating-house waitress as saying she "hedn't seen" the scarf and that the "next people who kyme arfter must 'ev tyken it". Oddly, or perhaps significantly, Lawrence makes only one further attempt to convey the Australian accent - fleetingly, in the "Bits" chapter - implying either that he gave up the effort, or that he subsequently mixed mainly with people who did not normally speak broad Australian (which would seem to exclude such people as motor mechanics - see below).

After lunch, the Lawrences caught the tram north along what is now called the peninsular - that stretch of coast from Manly to Palm Beach (though in 1922 the tram terminated at Narrabeen). Even today is it a long trip, and in 1922 it would have been very out-of-the-way, and through sparsely-populated suburbs: Harbord, Brookvale, Dee Why, Collaroy and Narrabeen:

They sat on the tram-car and ran for miles along the coast with ragged bush loused over with thousands of small promiscuous bungalows, built of everything from patchwork of kerosene tin upgo fine red brick and stucco...Not far off the Pacific boomed. But fifty yards inland started these bits of swamp...

This part of the excursion could hardly have been Lawrence's idea.

He was going into unknown, unpromising territory. Besides, it was already the afternoon of his second day in Sydney, and he still had no place to live. Nor, apparently, had he even started looking for accommodation. That afternoon there are only two possibilities: Lawrence was either travelling randomly - which is nonsensical - or under instructions. And the instructions seem to have involved a rendezvous at or near the end of this tram-ride.

The trip from Manly would have taken the best part of three-quarters of an hour. So the Lawrences probably got off the tram at Narrabeen some time between 2 pm and 3 pm. This is significant, for it implies that the speculated rendezvous was set for mid-to-late afternoon, which is a curious time to nominate, especially for someone looking for urgent accommodation - unless the rendezvous was for afternoon tea, and the accommodation was close by.

As we now know that Lawrence went to Narrabeen that Sunday afternoon (for not only is his description exact, but he mentions local house names), we can assume that most, if not all, of the relevant passages in Kangaroo are abstracted from reality. The "happy couple" detrammed beside the terminus shelter (which still stands), walked past the "fly-blown" shops (where they partook of "a drink of sticky aerated waters"), observed the lagoon "where the sea had got in and couldn't get out", then progressed along a "wide sand-road" (probably Lagoon Street) that featured a display of tin and weatherboard shacks, turning right into Malcolm Street, at the end of which was a "ridge of sand" (with Tres Bon on one comer), to the right of which was "the pure, long-rolling Pacific", and in front of which was "the salt pool where the sea had ebbed in", opposite "a state reserve" (which still exists today).

Here also is the first evidence of house-hunting, or at least house-looking, Lawrence having Harriett feeling she "absolutely must live by the sea", and the fictional pair looking along the way at the various shacks and bungalows "4 sale" ana "2 let". But clearly these "forlorn chicken-houses" with their "aura of rusty tin cans" did not appeal to Lawrence, for Somers "would have died rather than have put himself into one of those cottages". It seems that thts was not what he was looking for, nor had come so far to see. Yet whatever it was they had come to see, they appeared to be in no hurry to see it, for their activities that late afternoon at Narrabeen, if the fiction is anything to go by (as in this case it is), reflect studied leisure, verging on sloth. They buy pears and sit on the sand peeling and eating them (implying some time had passed since lunch, with no immediate prospect of further sustenance). They observe a man in a boat on the lagoon. Two men run past to join two women paddling in the surf over the spit of sand. A blond young man walks by with two girls. Lawrence, not for the last time, marvels at the Australian male's "huge massive legs", remarking: "They seemed to run to leg, these people". Three boys cavort in the warm sand "like real young animals, mindless as opossums, lunging about". Lawrence begins to wonder what underpins the scene in front of him:

This was Sunday afternoon, but with none of the surfeited dreariness of English Sunday afternoons. It was still a raw loose world. All Sydney would be out by the sea or in the bush...And to-morrow they'd all be working away, with just as little meaning...Even the rush for money had no real pip in it....When all is said and done, even money is not much good where there is no geauine culture....It has no real magic in Australia.

Swingeing observations from someone who was only into his third week in Australia (though admittedly written in his fourth week). Yet, as John Douglas Pringle remarked, citing this passage, Lawrence's impressions can be uncannily accurate, though it should also be remembered that in Kangaroo Lawrence often revises first impressions. However, the passage in its entirety probably reflects what Lawrence had planned for his Australian "romance", had not a more exciting plot partly intervened. It seems he was going to follow the advice he had offered to Mollie Skinner at Darlington a week or so previously. He was, it seems, going to "splash down reality" and intersperse it with a commentary of his own. It was going to be part-travelogue, part-critique, dressed up as fiction. "Poor Richard Lovatt wearied himself to death struggling with the problem of himself, and calling it Australia."

Finally Lawrence and Frieda decided it was time to get moving again. In the novel Harriett sits up and dusts the sand from her coat, and Lovatt does likewise. They walk back past some cottages and see a car standing "on the sand of the road near the gate of the end house". This turns out to belong to "Jack Callcott's sister". Jack himself is, quite coincidentally, also at Narrabeen - after having also been, quite coincidentally, at 50 Murdoch Street, and having previously, coincidentally, encountered Somers in Macquarie Street on Saturday in the (unbelievable) guise of a motor mechanic in blue overalls. Clearly Lawrence is here attempting to disguise something - no doubt the identity of "Jack Callcott", and probably also the reason why the Lawrences were at Narrabeen. The disguise appears to be quite heavy, not to say clumsy, so the novel's account of the rest of Sunday cannot be much relied on. Other means must be found to discover what happened.

From what we now know (see below) it seems very likely that Hum's afternoon-tea rendezvous with Lawrence was to be at Hinemoa, in Florence Avenue, Collaroy Basin. This is one suburb south of Narrabeen, and would have required the Lawrences either to walk back along Pittwater Road, or catch a tram back about 10 stops. The Lawrences were keen walkers, and they had time on their hands, so the walk is the more likely possibility. This is reinforced by Lawrence's mention of several house names that he could have observed in Pittwater Road between Narrabeen and Collaroy, such as Stella Maris. But by whatever route, it seems that he and Frieda reached the gate of Hinemoa around 4 pm on Sunday, in time for afternoon tea.

How do we know this? The time fits in with the previous (now fairly established) scenario. We have every reason to believe that Lawrence had travelled up to Narrabeen in search of accommodation. He arrived there sometime after 2 pm, yet loitered about. The probability is that he was filling in time - no doubt at a polite distance from his actual destination - waiting to keep an invitation to afternoon tea. And, of course, in the novel Somers and Harriett do have afternoon tea. The house the Somerses fictionally go to - St Columb - is extensively described in the novel. Its size and quality do not fit Narrabeen, which then largely comprised working-class shacks. The nearest place to Narrabeen with houses like St Columb was Collaroy, where Hinemoa was.

But why Hinemoa? Because we can place Jack Scott there in 1922. Without any question, the main Australian character in the novel, Jack Callcott, is based on Scott 12. Lawrence would have had to have come across Scott within days of his arrival in Sydney, for he was writing about him by the following weekend. And we know Scott could have been at Florence Avenue, Collaroy, that Sunday - for in May 1922 his future wife, Andree Adelaide Oatley, was renting all or part of Hinemoa. She had moved there from Gordon earlier that year13.

Her son - Scott's stepson - Peter Oatley recalled in an interview in 1976 that as soon as they moved to Hmemoa (because of Peter's frail health), Scott, a long-time family friend, came visiting regularly (Mrs Oatley was a very eligible widow, and Scott a notorious womanise.). Moreover, Mrs Oatley's family - tne Kaeppels - had earlier connections with the Basin area, buying several lots when the area was subdivided prior to 1919. As well, Mrs OatIey's first husband, Major F.D.W. Oatley, had been convalescing at the Basin around 1919-20 when he caught a chill while bathing in the ocean and died, in fact succumbing in the Kaeppel private hospital in Elizabeth Bay, near where Scott grew up. Scott went to school with Andree's brother, Carl Kaeppel, and it is probably he who is described in Kangaroo as Jack Callcott's best mate, and wife's brother, "Fred Wilmot". But before we have Scott meeting Lawrence at Hinemoa, we have to place Hum there, for up to this point, so far as we know, he is Lawrence's only contact in Sydney . What was Hum's connection with Collaroy and Hinemoa?

There is no doubt he spent time at the Basin. His son recalls regular school holidays spent at "Fisherman's Beach", which is another name for the area. He can actually recall one house they rented in the late 1920s, probably in Seaview Parade (one street away from Hinemoa). The private schools were still on vacation that weekend of May 27-28, so Hum's family might have been staying in one of the rented holiday houses at the Basin. Indeed, the Basin would have had a number of places to rent at cheap "winter rates", ideal for Lawrence. It was renowned for its healthy environment, again ideal for the ailing Lawrence. And it was reasonably remote, and on a beach (the "Basin" actually being a circular lagoon, fringed by a small beach).

But did Hum know either Scott or Mrs Oatley? There is no known connection. Yet they all were of the same social class, and came from similar North Shore environments. It may have been that the connection was via school, for the Hums' children and Mrs Oatley's children went to private schools. As well, Hum may have been a member of Scott's organisation, either the front organisation and/or the secret army behind it. He was a leading Sydney business figure, with particularly strong links with the Chinese community, and thus a likely contact for anyone interested in alien activity (as Scott and military intelligence were). He was a hatter, and, believe it or not, a supply of bowler hats was one of the equipment necessities of secret armies between the wars (they were stuffed with paper and employed as makeshift helmets). Most importantly, Hum owned a large car, the essential prerequisite for secret army membership in 1922 (it would not be an exaggeration to say that any "loyal" middle-class male with a car was a likely secret army recruit in 1920-22). He was related to, and a close confidant of, Howard Ashton, editor of one of the main conservative papers, who was later, and possibly then, engaged in secret army activities. Finally, Hum holidayed at the Basin, which the Oatleys and Scott frequented. So it is possible that Hum knew Scott and Mrs Oatley closely enough to arrange a meeting with his star visitor from England.

Yet if Hum was not staying at Hinemoa but rather nearby, why would he have invited Lawrence to Mrs Oatley's, rather than his own, rented accommodation? We do not know. Mrs Oatley was a graduate in English and Scott was an avid book collector, so if Hum had mentioned Lawrence to them, they would have been interested in meeting such a prominent literary figure". It may be that Hum had a long-standing invitation to the Oatley's, and invited Lawrence along. Or it may be that Scott was looking for an editor or writer for his King and Empire magazine, and fancied the literary visitor as a possible candidate. We do not know. What we do have very good reason to know, however, is that the house that Lawrence calls in the novel "St Columb", where the Somerses have afternoon tea, is unquestionably Hinemoa.

Others 15 have speculated that Lawrence's description of St Columb is, in fact, an echo of Wyewurk. But that is a misreading. Besides, Lawrence used Wyewurk twice elsewhere in the novel - basing not only Cooee on it, but Torestin. It would be rather over-milking the cow to use it a third time. The description of St Columb does not fit Wyewurk, except in its beach-house character. St Columb was the end house in a street (unlike Wyewurk, which is in the middle of Craig Street). It had a sideways aspect (which Wyewurk did not). It stood on a bluff of sand (Wyewurk was above a small cliff). It had settles under the windows, and basket chairs (unlike Wyewurk). It did, however, have a large room facing the sea, and verandahs and little rooms opening off. But that is the only similarity - shared, no doubt, by thousands of other beach houses,

But Hinemoa had all these characteristics. It was the end house in Florence Avenue. It stood sideways, its front door facing the street, but all its major rooms and verandahs facing the sea and Basin. Most distinctively (see photo), it stood on a large bluff of sand. It had settles around its living-room bay- type windows, and verandahs and other little rooms opened off the main room. Crucially, it not only faced the sea (Lawrence says St Columb faced both "the lagoon" and the sea) but was built directly above the Basin, which in fact is a natural lagoon, ringed by reefs. But most important of all, as Peter Oatley confirmed in an another interview in 1979, its main room was adorned with medals, letters and other memorabilia of his late father, Major Oatley:

There were many family photographs, and a framed medal and ribbon and letter praising the first Trewhella.

We do not know who else was at afternoon tea in Florence Avenue that Sunday. It is possible the gathering included the builder of Hinemoa, Horrie Hayman, for he was a wood and coal merchant "on the north side", as Lawrence makes Trewhella. Hayman suffered from a peculiar eye complaint, Bell's Palsy, which afflicts sufferers with bloodshot eyes, and Lawrence descnbes Trewhella so. There may also have been other people present.

Yet we have only Lawrence's fictional account of what occurred that afternoon at Hinemoa, and so can only speculate on what actually happened. Lawrence describes the scene:

...the party sat around in the basket chairs and on the settles under the windows...William James [Trewhella] silently but willingly carried round the bread and butter and the cakes.

Six people at least must have been present - Scott and Mrs Oatley, the Hums, and the Lawrences. Yet Lawrence's description implies a larger, "genteel" gathering, so some North Shore or even country neighbours, holidaying at the Basin, might have been present (members of the Friend clan, from both the North Shore and the country, frequented Collaroy Basin, especially in the school holidays). Certainly that would explain what happened subsequently.

In the novel, the hostess, Mrs Trewhella (presumably Mrs Oatley), makes polite conversation, asking the visitors of their impressions of Sydney. Then Callcott (Scott) begins an exchange that sounds realistic, questioning the visiting author about his writing intentions in Australia. Somers admits he writes "essays" about life and democracy - matters of some interest to Scott, the co-founder of the most polem.ical magazine in Australia, the King & Empire. "I'd like to read some," says Callcott (now fully free of his motor mechanic persona). Somers seems reluctant, and says his books would bore the Australian. Callcott replies: "I might rise up to it, you know, if I bring all my mental weight to bear on it." That piece of native sarcasm surely has a ring of authenticity about it. Somers is forced to admit that when "these colonials" speak seriously, they "speak like men".

One subject the novel does not mention being discussed, but was clearly at the forefront of the minds of several people present, was the Lawrences' future accommodation, for that was why they had come to Collaroy Basin. Hum must have previously told Lawrence that at the Basin there was at least one place that he would be interested in renting, as only that "offer" would explain Lawrence's inactivity and apparent lack of concern about where he was to go after Mrs Scott's. Indeed, it is possible that Hum might have suggested the place that he was himself about to quit, the school holidays being over. If not, it must have been some other place close by. Yet Lawrence did not take up this or any other offer of Sydney accommodation, for the very next day he went down to Thirroul, and there rented Wyewurk (see "The Barber of Thirroul" in Rananim#2). We know of no Thirroul connection in the cases of Hum, Mrs Oatley or Scott (and, believe me, I have looked for one) Thus is it likely that someone else present suggested Thirroul (which was a rather similar place to Collaroy Basin, both being beach resorts frequented by well-off, middle-class Sydneysiders). As was pointed out in the "Barber" article, the strong likelihood is that someone accompanied the Lawrences down to Thirroul on the 2 pm train the next day, showed them Wyewurk, and arranged for them to move in immediately.

That person (or persons) must also, as explained in the same article, have been very familiar with Thirroul and have known the estate agent, Mrs Callcott, personally. The suspicion must be that such a person or persons were members of the Friend family. Only the Friends, so far as we know, have the required "qualifications": familiar with Thirroul, known locally, can be placed in Collaroy, connected with the Harbour Lights Guild, connected with Scott and his organisation - and, most significantly, subsequently evinced "inside" knowledge of the true background to the writing of Kangaroo (see "What Walter Knew", Rananim #2). So we may, with some confidence, speculate that during that tea party there was, contrary to the "evidence" of the novel, some discussion about the Lawrences' future accommodation. Whether Lawrence did not like what Hum had recommended, or whether a Thirroul alternative sounded so attractive (or less expensive) that Sydney was immediately ditched, we do not know. But some suggestion that Thirroul would provide what Lawrence was looking for must have been made,and fairly promptly taken up by Lawrence. Arrangements for the trip down to Thirroul the following day presumably also must have been discussed. We might deduce that some rearrangement of Monday schedules might also have been necessary, for the late rather than the early train to Thirroul was settled on. As mentioned in the "Barber" article, this in turn implies that Wyewurk was not immediately suggested, and some other interim accommodation pre-arranged in Thirroul, probably with the people who accompanied the Lawrences down in the train. So it must have been a reassured Lawrence and Frieda who, around 5 pm on that Sunday, probably, as the novel suggests, accepted the offer of a lift in a car, rather than face the prospect of a tram and ferry return back to their guest-house in Macquarie Street:

They left at sunset. The west, over the land, was a clear gush of light up from the departed sun. The east, over the Pacific, was a tall concave of rose-coloured clouds, a marvellous high apse. Now the bush had gone dark and spectral again, on the right hand....from time to time, on the left hand, they caught sight of the long green rollers of the Pacific

Who drove Lawrence back is uncertain. The probability is that it was Hum. He had a car that would have, at a squeeze, accommodated the Lawrences, and he was no doubt intent on returning to his home in Stanley Street, Chatswood. The drive described in the novel tallies with such a trip, via Warringah Road and Roseville Bridge. But a Friend would fit equally well (especially as the Friends garaged their cars in a "motor works" place in Clarence Street which had been half-owned by the Irons family, the builders of Wyewurk - cf. "Jack had still to take the car down to the garage in town").

The fictional trip ends at "Murdoch Street", where the Somerses and Callcotts enjoy an elaborate Sunday supper. We know that the Murdoch Street address (number 51) was borrowed by Lawrence from Mrs Jenkins' letter of introduction to Bert Toy. Lawrence's description of this fictional address, with its distinctive "tub-top" lookout, fits the house" that Scott was staying in in May f922 - "Frame", at 112 Wycombe Road, one block west of Murdoch Street (note that Lawrence later slips up, calling it Murdoch Road). But it is unlikely that the elaborate meal described in chapter two could have been either prepared at this 112 rooming-house (where there were almost a dozen other residents) or fitted in to what had already been a pretty busy day. The likelihood is that the meal described was one that took place later in the week, or the following weekend, at Wyewurk. It is similiarly likely that the visit to 112, involving Lawrence observing the view from the tub-top lookout, was also one made later in the week to Scott's place, probably on the occasion of Lawrence returning to Sydney to collect his trunks from the P&0 wharf.

But all this is speculation. In fact we know nothing of Lawrence's movements between his getting into the car at Collaroy at about 5 pm on Sunday, May 28, and his crossing from the Palace Gardens to 125 Macquarie Street at around 12.30 pm the following day - the opening scene in Kangaroo:

A bunch of workmen were lying on the grass of the park beside Macquarie Street, in the dinner hour. It was winter, the end of May, but the sun was warm, and they lay there in their shirt-sleeves, talking.

All we can do, to fill in the gap of more than 18 hours, is to assume that Lawrence and Frieda were either dropped at one of the North Shore wharves, and caught the ferry to the Quay, walking back from there to their guest-house, or (more probably) that Hum or someone else drove them all the way back to 125 Macquarie Street, via the vehicular ferry that crossed the Harbour, near where the Bridge is now". Presumably they then had a light dinner and went to bed.

Monday morning must have been occupied with gathering their chattels together, perhaps posting some letters at the GPO, and maybe making further inquiries at Cook's about onward ships. Further contact with either Hum or Scott is possible, for Scott almost certainly came down to Thirroul the following weekend. But that is guesswork. All we can be certain of is that at lunchtime on Monday, after returning to 125 Macquarie Street following a stroll in the Palace and Botanical Gardens, Lawrence and Frieda emerged from Mrs Scott's, planked down their baggage on the pavement, and tried to engage another taxi, with well-known fictional results.

By 1.30 pm they were at Central Station, preparing to board the 2 pm train to ThirrouL They probably
rendezvoused there with whomsoever it was who took them down to Thirroul and installed them in Wyewurk. By that time Lawrence would have had the germs of a novel in his mind. On the train trip down he was probably already composing the opening chapter.



Endnotes

I. See "Kangaroo: Fiction and Fact", Meridian, May 1991.

2. In the Sydney Morning Herald of 9/I 2/89 ("Jumping to Conclusions about the Right-wing army of Kangaroo") Riemer said: "Darroch's complicated argument hinges on the Somerses' Sydney address, 51 Murdoch Street...[where] Lawrence visited [Jackl Scott...Not so, says Joe Davis." This review. of D.H. Lawrence at Thirroul and the Imprint edilion of Kangaroo, as well as casting doubts on the Darroch Thesis, also raised doubts about the involvement a(Walter Friend in any secret army activity, citing personal information From the Friend family. As mentioned in the previous issue of Rananim ("What Walter Knew"), we now know that Walter "Tootles" Friend was not only a numbered North Shore member of the 1930-32 Old Guard, but confessed as much to his brother-in-law, Wilbur Wright.

3. In the Australian Book Review (February/ March 1990) Trigg, a member of Melbourne University's English Department, wrote that because of Davis's "meticulous reconstruction of Lawrence's movements and contacts in Australia...Robert Darroch's controversial D.H. Lawrence in Australia thus slips into the background".

4. Ellis, the CUP "authorised" biographer of Lawrence's middle years (and whose volume is also due out soon), wrote in the D.H. Lawrence Review ("Lawrence in Australia: The Darroch Controversy", vol 2 I f2 1989): "It would be a long and complicated affair to investigate in detail all of the claims Darroch made in his book, but the after-life of the important ones does not augur well for the rest. (The view from the back garden of Scott's former house is not, I gather, as conclusive as it was first made to appear.)" Information of this evanescent "after-life" appears to have reached him via Davis and SteeIe.

5. cf. CUP Letters #2455 (DHL-Baroness Richthofen [19/2/221].

6. Intriguingly, among the other pieces of information he revealed was that he had heard that "the answer to how Lawrence found out ahout the secret army is to be found in the passenger list of the ship that brought him to Sydney". This would seem to imply that Lawrence had at least two contacts in Sydney a "boat" one and a "wharf' one. Hnwever, I now believe these "two" people were actually the same person - Hum (though I still could be mistaken about this).

7. Hotel accommodation in 1922 ranged between 10 shillings and 30 shillings a day, but Hum was an expert at putting up people in good, inexpensive accommodation (as his family recalls), so a "more or less expensive" place in Macquarie Street would be mid-range, ie, between 15 and 20 shillings.

S. How slender they were is evidenced by the fact, cited by A.D. Forrester in Nehls, that Lawrence had to borrow money from his shipboard acquaintance, Marchbanks, in July, before Mounstier's draft arrived. As well, Lawrence told his mother-in-law [30/5/22] "Sydney town costs too much, so we came dnwn into the cnuntry" and his agent [dittol "it's awfully expensive getting about". (We also know Lawrence had recently complained about the expense of staying a night or so at the Savoy Hotel in Perth.)

9. Precisely what Lawrence's Sydney intentions were at this time is hard to deduce. He told one correspondent that he intended to stay for some time, because Frieda "says she must stay at least three months in or near Sydney" f CUP Letters #2521], and he told Mountsier I#2523) that he had "taken a little house on the edge of the Pacific" where he intended to "write a romance" (which seemingly implies a stay of at least a month or more). A later letter [#2529 to Mable Dodge Stern J implies an intended stay of up to three months.

10. We can deduce this from his time in Perth (where he expressed a wish for something similar), from his normal practice (Cornwall, Taormina, Taos, etc), and from what he ultimately chose (Wyewurk at Thirroul).

11. The first is contained in the novel's opening scene, where "Jack" and "Dug" indulge in a laconic exchange, using words such as "Dunnow", "yer" and "Mebbe". (Note the misspelling of "Doug". It seems likely that either in Perth or Sydney Lawrence ran across someone whose christian name was Douglas.) 12. I don't think anyone would argue this point now. The evidence for it is overwhelming. and is confirmed in many ways, not the least by the former Killara lady who told Dr Andrew Moore (see The Secret Army and the Premier) that Scott was "ribbed" at cards over his portrayal in Kangaroo.

13. How do we know this? Others have disputed it, relying mainly on the evidence of electoral rolls (and phone books). However, the electoral rolls in fact confirm the presence of Mrs Oatley at Hinemoa around this time, as they do Scott's presence at 112 Wycombe Road ( see accompanying " The Evidence of the Rolls")

l4. A contemporary Bulletin article named Lawrence as one of the up-and-coming English novelists.

15. eg Joe Davis, op cit.

16. An error I made in my 198I book has lcd to some confusion about this 112 address ( also see accompanying " The Evidence of the Rolls"0. I said that the South Head lighthouse, mentioned by Lawrence as being in view from " 51 Murdoch Stree" could be seen from Scott's place in Wycombe Road. This, of course, is wrong. I meant the Macquarie Light, which indeed is in view from 112, but from virtually nowhere lese in Mosman. However, had Lawrence looked at night eastwards towards where he imagined the Heads were, that is the flashing light he would have noticed 9 not that he atlks about " lights" on the Harbour), and easily confused the two. That lawrence did indeed go to 112 there can be no question, for not only did Scott live there, but the " tub-top lookout" must have beeb almost unique in Sydney ( see accompanying statement from Norm Dunn).

17. Though in the Ace books edition of Kangaroo they could have crossed the Bridge, for its cover shows a couple cuddling under the SHB, even though it was then but a glimmer in Dr Bradfield's eye.