Hello Lisa,  thanks for your comments on Kipling & Patterson

According to his Happy Dispatches, Banjo Patterson arrived at Marseilles by 
sea from China on Saturday, October 26th 1901 and was in London in November. 
It seems that he left London [& presumably England] in early December 1901.
His dispatches do not resume until 1914 when he returned to Europe at the 
beginning of the Great War, once again as a war correspondent.

My guess is that his trip in the "One of the newly-invented Lanchester cars"
was in November 1901, he says: "Away we went through the beautiful English
lanes, 
where the leaves swirled after the car, ...' 
I interpret this as autumn leaves, don't you?
 

He makes interesting comment on the Times newspaper and "The Pink'un"
which I presume to be the Financial Times, and its opposition to the 
arrival of the motor car: 

Quote:
Monday, November 26th 1901 — After some correspondence, called at The Times
office to see about some work. Very severe ordeal. Was shown into
waiting-room, then piloted by a haughty menial round the whole building
because the rules don't allow of anyone going straight up any stairs to the
place that he wishes to reach. Those stairs are all defendu. After having
circumnavigated the office, I was shown into another waiting-room. Passed a
tranquil hour in meditation, and was then shown in to Moberley Bell, the
manager, a fine big personable man. I did not see Buckle, the editor. I
suppose he is too busy, keeping his eye on the Sultan of Turkey and the
Kaiser. Perhaps he is like the Pink 'Un editor, who is supposed not to know
his way to the office. 

Wrote some verses for the Pink 'Un, which they printed, and asked me to
call. Here at last, I thought, I will see the real Bohemia. The staff are
supposed to live in an atmosphere of bailiffs and intoxication, and there
are some very smart writers among them — Pitcher and Shifter and others.
Found them a hard-working lot of busy men. Not one of them was drunk, and
none of them said anything specially worthy of publication. They are the
last line of the Old Guard, the guard that never surrenders. And they are
putting up a spirited fight against the introduction of motor cars! — If you
don't believe this look up the files of the Pink 'Un. 

Then John Corlette, owner of the paper, and always referred to as “Master”,
was discovered going to the [P.127] races in a motor car, and the bottom
fell out of the Pink 'Un policy." 

Patterson ended that London visit commenting on a public meeting in support
of General Buller:

"Wednesday, December 4th — Wound up this London trip by attending a public
meeting in Hyde Park in favour of General Buller, who has been recalled from
Africa. First came four mounted police troopers and then a band. If one
starts four mounted police and a band through London there is no trouble in
getting a hundred thousand people to sympathize with anything. Temperance
societies were conspicuous with their banners, though it is a mystery why a
temperance society should wish to demonstrate on Buller's behalf. He has
never been what one could call a distinguished advocate for temperance. The
crowd streamed along, pausing occasionally to cheer for Buller and to hoot
Lord Roberts. The demonstration did not mean anything except that they were
sick of the war. Passing through clubland, a couple of collectors pushed
long bamboo poles up to the first-floor balconies, where sat a prime
assortment of fat, well-fed old colonels, with swag bellies and port-wine
noses. They laughed at the first collecting bag, but were met with a fierce
roar of dislike that made the grin die off their faces, and the purple of
their noses turn to an ashen grey. They hurriedly dumped some coins in the
bag and vanished inside. The crowd were really nasty; it only needed someone
to throw a brick through a window and they would have gutted the building. 

Passing through the crowd I heard a large hairy ruffian say to a very small
man: 

“I've just been givin' a chap a sock in the nose for [P.128] talkin'
nonsense abart Buller. Wot's your opinion abart Buller?” 

His visit to Rudyard Kipling, previously quoted, appears next in his "Happy
Dispatches" that he refers to as his diary, although no date is mentioned. 

The foreward to his dispatches may also be of interest:

Author's Foreword 
THE roads of the world lie open to those who, like Kipling's marine, are
prepared to buy a ham and see life. In the past forty years there have been
opportunities of seeing a good deal, and the writer of these memoirs, though
he may not have seen as much as some people, certainly saw a lot more than
others. The walrus did not eat as many oysters as the carpenter, but he ate
all that he could get. 

A looker-on, they say, sees most of the game; and a writer who is not very
proficient in the game may be able to say something about the players. In
the course of the last four decades, the author has had the luck to see some
of the great men of the world stripped of their official panoply and
sitting, as one might say, in their pyjamas. Such men as Lord Allenby,
Winston Churchill, “Chinese” Morrison, Rudyard Kipling and Lords Roberts,
French and Haig, all had their human side. From notes made at the time, a
series of lightning sketches of those celebrities, and lesser ones, are here
presented. The interest in the subject may compensate for some crudity in
draughtsmanship. 

It should be explained that the author started on his travels unencumbered
by any knowledge of the world, other than what could be gleaned from life in
the [P.vi] Australian bush and in a solicitor's office in Sydney: without
any knowledge of war other than that learnt by watching sham fights in
Australia. Consequently, if anything educational has got into this book it
is only. by accident. The various wars are only utilized as backgrounds for
the great soldiers who stalked across the stage. 
One cannot write about great generals without mentioning wars. 

*********************************************************************** 
Lisa Lewis Wrote:
Dear Ron Clibborn-Dyer, 
Many thanks for the splendid extract from Happy Dispatches. 
It will have an honoured place in my files. 
As for dating Patterson's visit to Rottingdean, the exact answer is 
probably in the Visitors' Books with the Wimpole papers at Sussex 
University. Unfortunately I can't go there and look, and the information 
at hand seems contradictory. 
Andrew Lycett's new biography dates the visit in early November 1901, and 
quotes the episode with the butcher. But Meryl Macdonald, the leading 
authority on Kipling's cars, says in her biography The Long Trail (p. 145) 
that Kipling's first Lanchester was delivered by Frederick Lanchester 
himself in June 1902, and Lycett confirms this a little further on. 
After that she says (p. 149) that Lanchester used to send Kipling 
experimental cars to test, and the car episode with a chauffeur called 
Laurence sounds like one of those. But the Kiplings moved to Bateman's at 
the beginning of September 1902, which doesn't leave much time for 
experimental cars; also it was the summer of Edward VII's coronation, 
planned for July but delayed by the King's illness till August, to which 
the Kiplings were invited. Did Paterson mention this as occurring while 
he was in England, I wonder? 
I also wonder whether (since Happy Dispatches was published in 1934, 
according to Lycett's bibliography) Paterson might have confused two 
visits to the Kiplings - one to Rottingdean, and one to Bateman's? 
But perhaps someone on our mailbase will come up with the real, 
authoritative answer. Lisa 



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