Further to Will Stevens comments, I think that looking at 1914 with today's 
attitudes, or even 1940 as Diana Briscoe's note shows, is likely to be most 
misleading. My father, just qualified as a schoolmaster, rushed to join up 
in September 1914 along with a number of his college friends, not to have 
done so was to him unthinkable.

In Volume 4 of Professor Pinney's invaluable collection of Kipling's letters 
there is a letter to Stanley Baldwin dated 20 November 1918, only weeks 
after John's death, asking Baldwin to reconsider his ban on his son Oliver, 
John's cousin, from enlisting before he was 17½.  Kipling's  reason for 
writing - because Oliver had confided to him that although under age, he 
wanted to join up and, since he was well built and could, and had already 
been, mistaken for an older man who had avoided joining up, he was seriously 
upset.

Kipling goes on to recommend to Baldwin the same course of action that he 
had taken with John, that is, to allow him to join at 17 so that he would 
get a full year's training before being old enough to be sent overseas at 
18, which might keep him out of the trenches for 16 - 18 months when, with 
luck, it might all be over. The alternative - put up with being called a 
slacker and then join at 17½, receive the minimum amount of training and end 
up in the trenches less able to cope with it.  While it had not worked out 
that way with John, he still considered it the best course.

John's situation was slightly different in that he wore glasses and, a 
little older than Oliver, he wanted to join up at a time when the medical 
standards, still related to pre-war conditions, said that recruits had to be 
able to see to shoot without glasses.  That was all that was required and 
within a few months this was relaxed and spectacle wearers were accepted. 
When conscription came in in 1916, John would have been called up anyway. 
If Kipling did anything other than to see that his son was accepted into a 
regiment that, because of his connections, would do its best to look after 
him, then it might have been to get the spectacle wearing overlooked.  How 
bad John's sight was, I have not found out, but it was good enough for him 
to drive a car from October 1914.

In Elliot L. Gilbert's 'O Beloved Kids', a selection of Kipling's letters to 
John and Elsie, Gilbert writes that 'few of John's letters have survived. 
Still, the young man's most often expressed ambition was the desire he 
appears to have shared with nearly all his fellow officers to see action in 
France as soon as possible'.  With his father's permission, he achieved his 
desire, was allowed to go to France just before he was 18 and then was 
killed at 18 and six weeks.

As Kipling wrote to his old school friend Dunsterville '..he had his hearts 
desire.'

Then what of the Epitaph of War?  I firmly believe that Kipling was 
referring to those who failed to accept the necessity for National Service, 
long promoted by Lord Roberts and the National Service League and supported 
by Kipling, to provide a force and a trained reserve for the defence of the 
British Isles.  Their refusal to accept that National Service was necessary 
had deceived the young men of the country and left them unprepared and 
untrained for the war that they, the young, and not their fathers, had 
inevitably to fight.

Roger Ayers

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DC Briscoe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: ...because our fathers lied?.


> There is nothing new about fathers pulling strings for their sons to get
> into the forces then, before or since!
>
> My father was colour-blind but got into the RAF in 1943 because his father
> (a senior consultant at Kings) sent him to a very eminent optician who
> tested him by asking "Would you agree that the top light is red?" and 
> "Would
> you agree that the bottom light is green?". When my father said yes to 
> both,
> he was passed for pilot training. At the end of this story, my father 
> always
> remarked that he would only fly with a second pilot who was not
> colour-blind!
>
> Yours ever
> Diana
>
>
>
> On 15/11/07 9:17 AM, "Will Stevens" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> A very interesting point, and one which I certainly hadn't thought of
>> before. When he says 'fathers', he may well have been including himself 
>> as
>> the father of a lad who had been killed.
>>
>> He may indeed have been thinking of possible misbehaviour, or undue
>> influence, which he exerted to get John into the army, but might he not 
>> also
>> have been thinking about his public contribution to war propaganda in
>> general? As I understand it, the speech which he was shown delivering in 
>> 'My
>> Boy Jack' was a fair sample of what he actually did both before and after
>> the outbreak of war.
>