HENRY WILLIAMSON wrote his fine book Tarka the Otter in 1927. It made him both rich and famous, but there was another, much darker, side to this man for Williamson was a fascist, an admirer of Hitler and an enthusiastic supporter of Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts.

His writings between the wars were an odd mixture of wonderful descriptions of nature and paeans of praises of German national socialism. He was one of the first join Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

Williamson attended Adolf Hitler’s notorious Nuremberg rallies and met Hitler himself. Those meetings would lead to his greatest act of treason.

He and Hitler actually plotted who would run Britain after the successful invasion and occupation of these islands by the “master race.”

Hitler had a man in mind to be the British Fuhrer, the nazi ruler of Britain, and that man was Williamson’s friend TE Lawrence, the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. 

Lawrence, Williamson, and Mosley were all supporters of nazi Germany and fascist Italy as a bulwark against Soviet communism.

Williamson wanted Lawrence and Hitler to meet. The press got wind of the idea and besieged Lawrence’s remote cottage at Clouds Hill, Dorset.

On May 13 1935, Lawrence received a letter from Williamson. It proposed the meeting with Hitler. Lawrence wheeled out his massive motorcycle and set off for Bovington army camp. 

Lawrence wanted to agree to the meeting and, as his cottage had no telephone, he would send a telegram from the camp telling Williamson so.

On his way to the camp something curious happened. Lawrence lost control of the bike which left the road. The incident was certainly fatal for Lawrence — but was it really an accident?

A number of witnesses saw it: two delivery boys on bicycles, an army corporal walking by and the occupants of the black van that ran Lawrence off the road.

After the crash that black van raced off. Almost immediately an army truck arrived to take Lawrence to the camp hospital where he was held under top security.

D-notices silenced the newspapers and the War Office took charge of all communications. Special Branch officers sat by his bedside; no visitors were allowed. Lawrence’s cottage was raided and many books and private papers taken.

After army intelligence had interrogated the two boys for several hours, their story had changed. Now the boys denied ever seeing a black van.

Six days later Lawrence died and two days later an inquest was held under top security. It lasted just two hours and the convenient verdict was accidental death.

Williamson never got over the fact that his hero Hitler didn’t get to occupy Britain. Nor did Lawrence of Arabia become our very own British Fuhrer.

Henry Williamson, suffering from senile dementia, died in Ealing on August 13 1977 on the same day they were filming the death of Tarka. His screenplay for the film had been rejected and the film was made without him.