In a message dated 26/09/00 9:08:09 PM GMT Daylight Time, relayed by
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] writes:
<< I'm trying to find out whether Rudyard Kipling wrote the first King's
> Christmas Broadcast transmitted by the BBC in 1932. >>
Dear Jill,
It seems fairly certain that RK had a significant hand in the script of the
broadcast.
Both Charles Carrington and Lord Birkenhead had access to Carrie Kipling's
original diaries and in their separate biographies of Rudyard Kipling they
use similar phrases to describe his reaction to the Christmas broadcast of
1932, both quoting the diaries as the source.
Carrington, in his Rudyard Kipling, (Macmillan, london, 1955) says "it was
with quiet satisfaction that he (RK) listened, on the afternoon of Christmas
Day 1932, to King George's words" (page 496) but he implies that RK had
advised his cousin, Stanley Baldwin, on 'forms of words' which Baldwin, as
Prime Minister, had then given as advice to the King.
Birkenhead (Rudyard Kipling, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1978, page 344) confirms
that in 1932 Kipling had the "immense satisfaction of hearing the King use
Kipling's own words in his address to the Empire on Christmas Day" but gives
no hint of how these words were passed to the King.
Since Carrie Kipling's original diaries were destroyed on her instructions
when her daughter, Elsie, died, recent biographers have had to rely on the
extracts made by Carrington and by Douglas Rees for Birkenhead. Andrew
Lycett, RK's latest biographer, (Rudyard Kipling, Weidenfeld 7 Nicholson,
1999) quotes Carrington's version as the source when he says that Kipling
"...received a summons from King George, who wanted help with the Christmas
Day broadcast...". He goes on "Rudyard did as required and was deeply
touched when, on 25 December, he heard his sovereign declaiming his words to
the Empire over the wireless".
More research is needed before it is possible to say just how Kipling came to
help draft the King's speech but, from those who saw and made notes from
Carrie Kipling's diary, it is certain that she knew that much, if not all of
it, was in words that Rudyard had provided.
Yours Sincerely,
Roger Ayers
Membership Secretary,
The Kipling Society
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