Most of you will be aware that Wyewurk is a no-go zone for visitors interested in seeing the house where D.H. Lawrence wrote Kangaroo in 1922. The present owner, estate agent Michael Morath, and a previous occupant, a dentist who rented the bungalow from the postwar era to around 1984 , have both vigorously refused to allow visiting Lawrence enthusiasts into Wyewurk.

Our first attempt to do something about saving Wyewurk was back in 1976 when I broached the subject to the Minister for Planning, Paul Landa, at a private dinner party. I had just returned from a trip to Thirroul where we had been allowed by the dentist’s wife to enter the garden - but not the house. It was very quiet, with the sea shining through the Norfolk Island pines, and the grass on the little headland was springy.

It was exactly as Lawrence described it:

At that dinner party I tried to get Paul Landa to see the importance of preserving Wyewurk. But he had other matters on his mind, such as preserving the Myall Lakes, which he talked about at length. Someone at the table quipped: "Are you going to walk on them?" We subsequently made a formal submission to Landa, but nothing came of it.

My next visit to Wyewurk was in 1984 when, out on a visit from London, I went down to Thirroul. I knocked on the door but nobody answered. I peered through the window and could see very little furniture apart from a large wooden table - the jarrah table on which Lawrence wrote Kangaroo on. The house appeared to be no longer occupied by the dentist and his wife. We later learned that Wyewurk had been up for sale and had been bought from an elderly relative of the Southwell family, who had owned the house since 1919. The purchaser was a local estate agent, Michael Morath. The house had never been advertised on the open market. The price Morath paid is said to be around $150,000.

My third visit to Wyewurk was much less peaceful. It was 1985 and our colleague John Ruffels had rung Michael Morath to ask if he would waive his normal anti-visitor stance in the light of the fact that we had come all the way from London to see the house, and that my husband Robert Darroch was the author of a book on D.H. Lawrence in Australia. Alas, Morath said no. We were not welcome.

Nevertheless, we decided to go down to Thirroul, having a bush picnic together with with some English friends and Paul Delprat, the painter.

When we reached Thirroul and were walking along the beach under the cliff on which Wyewurk is perched, Paul and I rashly decided not to be deterred by Morath’s refusal to let us see the house.

So we climbed up the low cliff to the house from the reserve on the beach. Rob held back, not wanting to intrude, but Paul and I, with some difficulty, hauled ourselves up the cliff and finally found ourselves on a grassy area at the bottom of the Wyewurk garden.

A man was mowing the lawn with a very noisy motor mower. He looked up but didn’t turn off the mower, so I called out to him: "Are you the owner of Wyewurk?" He refused to say anything, so I continued: "We have come all the way from London to see Wyewurk. My husband has written a book about D.H. Lawrence in Australia. Could we possibly see the house?"

Mr Morath, for it was indeed Michael Morath, then turned his back and went on mowing. We went back down to the beach, somewhat crestfallen. Not long after this incident, events began to move on the Wyewurk front.

To put you in the picture: in the 1970s and early 1980s, a small group of people interested in Lawrence studies began to coalesce in Australia. They included Paul Eggert, Robert Darroch, Andrew Moore, Ray Southall, Joe Davis, John Ruffels, myself, Bruce Steele, John Lacey, Margaret Jones, and a number of others. From time-to-time we would meet at book launches or other events. But there was no DHL Society as such at that time.

Our next attempt to do something about preserving Wyewurk bore fruit. Back in London in 1985, Rob Darroch had written to his old friend and journalistic colleague, Bob Carr, who had recently assumed the job of Minister for Planning after the untimely death of Paul Landa.

The result was very positive and in July 1987 Bob Carr had an Interim Conservation Order placed on the bungalow, which meant that it put an emergency stop on any development. Let me stress here that we never wanted to throw the new owner out. We simply wanted to ensure that nothing was done to substantially change the house, which was virtually intact, and almost exactly as Lawrence described it in 1922. But how right we were to fear that the new owner would want to make drastic changes - despite his initial protestations that both he and his wife had studied Lawrence at university and were determined to preseve his memory at Thirroul!

Not long after the Interim Conservation Order had been placed on the house, Joe Davis, who lived in Thirroul, learned that Michael Morath, despite the Interim Conservation Order, had submitted plans to Wollongong Council to add a second storey to Wyewurk. In essence, Cape Codding it. Moreover, he was planning to appeal against the Conservation Order.

Joe alerted John Ruffels and the coalition of people now interested in Lawrence, and the Save Wyewurk Emergency Committee was formed. We set to work, alerting Lawrence scholars in Australia, overseas scholars and DHL Societies, writing to the local Press, alerting TV and radio, and writing to the Minister for Local Government, the National Trust, the Heritage Council, etc.

The response was gratifying. Outrage is probably the best word to describe the reaction of most of the respondents, some of whom sent donations which were very useful in maintaining our campaign. It should be noted that almost half the letters of protest came from Thirroul and the South Coast area.

Patrick White wrote, sending a copy, in his own handwriting, of the letter he sent to the Heritage Council protesting against Morath’s plans. The letter said:

Historian Manning Clark agreed to become the Chairman of the Save Wyewurk Emergency Committee. Journalist Tom Fitzgerald also agreed to join the committee, as did literary editor Margaret Jones and most of the people who were later to form the D.H. Lawrence Society of Australia. Professor Dame Leonie Kramer strongly supported the preservation of Wyewurk, as did Tom Shapcott and Ted St John. And the letters continued to pour in. Professor Warren Roberts, of the University of Texas, Lawrence’s bibliographer, wrote, pointing out that the months Lawrence and Frieda spent at Thirroul were one of the more satisfying periods of his life:

An entire class at Bulli Public School wrote letters of protest. Leading overseas Lawrence scholars like Professor L.D. Clark, who sent a donation from his own pocket, were right behind us, as were the DHL Societies of North America and the UK, who also sent donations. We were interviewed on the 7.30 Report, which exposed to the general public the scandal of the Cape-Codding of Wyewurk.

There were, alas, a handful of exceptions. Columnist Jim McClelland wrote saying:

Poet and literary doyenne, Dorothy Green, said:

My admiration for Lawrence as a writer is very qualified and I do not admire Kangaroo at all. My opinion of Lawrence as a man...is not a very high one.

She went on to qualify this a little, saying she admired most of his poetry, and Sons and Lovers, but added that much of his writing was indistinguishable from that of Ethel M. Dell.

And John Pringle (to my surprise, as he has been one of the great champions of Kangaroo) wrote:

He suggested a plaque would be an adequate commemoration.

I wonder if Pringle would have been quite so down on Wyewurk if he had known at that time that it was probably the first example of a Californian bungalow in Australia?

The matter quickly spread out to the wider community - or at least to those who had heard of Lawrence. As Andrew Moore analysed in his excellent paper presented to our Collaroy seminar last May, the Wyewurk saga split the Australian community in an interesting way. To be very brief on this - and I urge you to re-read what Andrew said on the matter (published in Rananim) - one side not only seemed to have a cultural chip on its shoulder, but also felt sorry for poor Mr Morath and his growing family. This element no doubt also asked itself: "What if my house was suddenly discovered to be of heritage value?" Those on the opposing side took a less parochial and longer view of the matter.

Michael Morath, too, launched a campaign, gaining support from fellow estate agents and other local business people. He must also have told the Illawarra Mercury of my visit to him in 1985 when he was mowing the lawn, for the Mercury ran a cartoon (reproduced herewith) in May 1988, depicting me as some kind of Edwardian harpy bashing Mr Morath on the head with a furled umbrella. The caption coming out of my mouth reads: "Mow this lawn? Are you crazy? D.H. Lawrence actually threw a banana peel on this grass in 1922."

I wrote to the editor of the Illawarra Mercury to ask if, in the age-old tradition of people who have been lampooned in a cartoon, I might have the original to frame, but he didn’t deign to answer.

The battle lines drawn, events moved swiftly. The Heritage Council rejected Morath’s two-storey application and said it would appoint an architect to draw up more "sympathetic" plans. The architect produced two plans, both one-storey extensions. The first was a fairly substantial single-storey addition attached to the original house. The second plan was a single-storey "pavilion" which was not directly attached to the house. The Heritage Council turned down the first plan but adopted the pavilion, subject to the owner’s approval.

But the owner did not approve. Michael Morath turned down the pavilion plan and decided to appeal.

The then (Liberal) Minister for Planning (David Hay) decided the only course of action was a Commission of Inquiry.

Our interim Save Wyewurk Emergency Committee (SWEC) then sent out a newsletter advising that all of the people and organisations, world-wide, who had originally protested against the alterations to Wyewurk would be contacted and asked to make submissions to the Commission of Inquiry. The SWEC then insisted, in the light of the 300 or more protesting letters the Heritage Council had received - once again from both Australia and overseas - that the Inquiry be a public one. This was agreed to.

A number of major submissions were drawn up by: the Heritage Council, the National Trust, Ray Southall (then Professor of English at Wollongong University), author Margaret Barbelet, publisher Tom Thompson, Robert Darroch (representing SWEC), and a third generation resident of Thirroul, Joe Davis.

The Commission of Inquiry met at Wollongong Council Chambers on 23 August 1988.

Michael Morath, with his wife and daughter, sat silent as his lawyer got up and, to the astonishment of all, announced that Morath had decided to withdraw his appeal on the "pavilion" plan and would opt instead for the first of the two plans, which the Heritage Council had opposed. He asked for an adjournment of the Inquiry so he could put in an application for the first Heritage Council plan.

The Commissioner agreed to an adjournment and then went to inspect Wyewurk, accompanied by Morath, a representative of the National Trust, and Tony Prescott from the Heritage Council. The next Inquiry was advertised, and Wollongong Council Chambers were once again to be the venue, on 27 April 1989. Meanwhile, we formed The Friends of Wyewurk as a more long-term organisation which would look into the various opportunities, should Wyewurk ever be acquired for the public.

The Committee of Inquiry ultimately resumed. Despite the fact that some Wollongong Council members - particularly Alderman Dave Martin - had been totally pro our cause at the first session of the Inquiry, the attitude of the majority in the Council had hardened against us by the second session.

And even though evidence that Morath himself had at one period approached the Council to buy Wyewurk from him, and despite the fact that many members of the Save Wyewurk Committee, in particular Tom Thompson, had made strenuous submissions on the subject of turning Wyewurk into a centre of creative activity, the Commissioner decided that, in the absence of any alternative plan for Wyewurk, he would rule in Morath’s favour and allow him to extend the premises on a single-storey basis.

The SWEC sent out a final newsletter, deploring the matter.

The Minister for the Arts, Peter Collins, who had been very supportive of our cause from the outset, wrote to Planning Minister Hay on 13 June 1989, also deploring the matter, saying that although he was aware that the proposed extensions to Wyewurk could at a later date be demolished, he noted that the Commissioner had admitted that the "proposed alterations will adversely affect the heritage value of the house."

Collins went on: "It would not appear to be in the long-term public interest to allow any adverse development, even if reversible.

"I would emphasise to you the place which Wyewurk occupies in our literary and cultural heritage and I hope that in the final consideration of this matter, the greatest possible weight will be given to these factors."

But we had lost the battle - or so we thought.

However, Morath, for personal reasons, failed to go ahead and make the approved extensions.

So, miraculously, to this day, Wyewurk remains intact, almost exactly as it was when Lawrence and Frieda stayed there and Lawrence wrote Kangaroo.

Recently Michael Morath applied for, and received, a grant from the Heritage Council to re-tile the roof. He was prevailed upon by the Wollongong Council’s Heritage officer to replace the tiles with ones similar to the originals.

This is good news, because a secure roof means the building will not deteriorate as quickly as it might otherwise.