THE COMPLETE TEXT OF ROBERT DARROCH'S THE HORIBLE PAWS. READ FREE ONLINE

WHEN Lawrence arrived in Sydney on May 27, 1922, he never dreamed he would find himself in the middle of a hotbed of political intrigue

ON their second day after disembarking at Circular Quay in Sydney, Lawrence and Frieda were invited to an afternoon tea party at Narrabeen, a beach on the northern peninsula. They went by ferry to Manly where they enjoyed bowls of soup before taking the tram to Narrabeen Lakes, where Lawrence observed the "thick-legged" Australian men enjoying the mid-winter sun by the lagoon.

Later, Lawrence and Frieda cross a sandy road to afternoon tea at "Billabong", which he describes in Kangaroo as "a house set sideways to the lagoon".

"Billabong", the house on Narrrabeen lagoon which Lawrence visited in 1922. Today, only the palm trees remain

There, he met his shipboard friend Gerald Hum, who introduced him to "Billabong's" owner, George Shultz, a well-off Sydney master butlder, and some other friends, including Jack Scott, second-in-command of the King & Empire Alliance, a front organisation for a post-WW1 secret army commanded by Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, pictured below at an earlier party at "Billabong".

Rosenthal, sitting on grass (foreground), also showing (background) Harriet Rosenthal, Florence Taylor & (partly obscured on right) George Augustine Taylor. Rosenthal is depicted in Kangaroo as Benjamin Cooley. Taylor's extreme-right-wing political ideas were put into Cooley's mouth by Lawrence.

In his new book, The Horrible Paws, Robert Darroch relates how Scott got on well with Lawrence, inviting him to stay at his flat in Neutral Bay. Later Scott visited Lawrence at "Wyewurk" in Thirroul, where Scott revealed some of the details of the secret army he and Rosenthal were organising to thwart the left-wing New South Wales government of the time. Scott, who was portrayed by Lawrence in Kangaroo as Jack Callcott (and also as "Jaz"), introduced Lawrence to Rosenthal, whom he then portrayed as the charistmatic fascist leader Benjamin Cooley in Kangaroo.

This book, published by The Svengali Press, is now available at Amazon as an e-book
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ABOUT THE BOOK

THE HORRIBLE PAWS – DH Lawrence's Australian Nightmare is a controversial account of the 99 days one of the 20th century's greatest writers spent in Australia in 1922 (and where he wrote his eighth major novel, Kangaroo).

It is the product of more than 40 years research by ROBERT DARROCH, an Australian Lawrence expert who is President of the DH Lawrence Society of Australia.  It has been his life's work.

His book's title comes from a quote at the end of Kangaroo – "It was if the silvery freedom suddenly turned, and showed the scaly back of a reptile, and the horrible paws".

The "reptile" was a secret right-wing citizens' militia which Lawrence stumbled on after his arrival in Sydney, and with which he flirted – briefly – before realising (to his consternation) its fascist ramifications.

The "paws" were the bearlike homosexual advances which in real-life he was subjected to in Sydney from one of the secret army's leaders, the "bear-like" Benjamin Cooley (and the "Kangaroo" of the title).

While ostensibly fiction, Kangaroo vividly describes day-by-day (and sometimes hour-by-hour) the hitherto unknown story of what turned out to be the worst experience of Lawrence's short life…a nightmare that haunted him all his remaining days.

THE HORRIBLE PAWS also tells how Robert Darroch uncovered - day-by-day, year-by-year, decade-by-decade - the terrible truth about Lawrence's Australian interlude.  It is a literary whodunit, unique, perhaps, in modern "fiction"...and it started with a murder!

A portrayal in The Bulletin of a well-heeled supporter of the King & Empire Alliance being importuned for cash by a returned soldier (Digger)