 |
 |
Rather on the basis of buses coming along in threes, I think I may have overstated the case that RK never showed the remotest interest in joining the army - only to read in the current edition of /KJ/ which came through my letterbox yesterday, that Kipling had his rooms in Embankment Gardens decorated with army prints. I still don't think he'd ever had any interest in joining, but he /did/ admire the army and its doings - hence /Soldiers Three, /and much else. /Alastair Wilson/ On 09/03/2017 07:29, john wrote: > > Thank you for making that clear. This back cover simply adds another > myth, while the novel itself thrives on the usual stereotypes and > misunderstandings about Kipling. > > John Seriot > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* Alastair Wilson <[log in to unmask]> > *Sent:* 08 March 2017 21:20 > *To:* john; [log in to unmask] > *Subject:* Re: 'Kipling's Choice' by Gert Spillebeen > With reference to John Seriot's message, I suspect that the writer of > the back cover blurb of the Houghton Miflin edition was confusing > Kipling with his son John. > Although Kipling was at what would have been described as an 'Army > School', with a majority of boys, themselves the sons of Army > officers, being destined for Sandhurst or Woolwich, his eyesight was > always going to precude his being accepted for the Army, and although > he did at least some of his classes with the 'Army' class (see /Stalky > & Co/), he never even sat the Civil Service Commissioners' exam for > the army, leaving school before he was old enough to have sat it > anyway. Nor is there any suggestion that he had the remotest interest > in joining the army at any stage of his life - if anything, before he > went to Westward Ho!, it might have been the Navy which caught his > imagination based on his walks through Portsmouth dockyard with old > Captain Holloway. > John, on the other hand had expressed a desire to join the army > while at Wellington, and had spent the summer term 1914, at a > crammer's in Bournemoth, preparing for the Army exam. Preparation for > John to Join the army had started in April 1913, when Kipling visited > John's housemaster at Wellington to discuss the matter (Carrington > extracts of Carrie's diaries for May 2 1913). A simillar source (19 > May `13) records that they went to Aldershot for a preliminary medical > , which John failed, on eyesight grounds - all of which sounds like > the H-M blurb. > /Alastair Wilson/ > > On 08/03/2017 19:12, john wrote: >> >> I have recently read /Kipling's Choice /and I am rather surprised to >> find at least twoinaccuracies: >> >> - p.62, we read that Captain Alexander (who actually served with the >> Irish Guards in WWI) 'would later be promoted to field marshall and >> "Duke of Tunis"'; he was in fact made 'Earl of Tunis' after WWII >> >> - p. 119, the date given is 'Saturday, September 25, 1915' and we >> read that 'Field-Marshal Haig is watching the smoke wafting from his >> cigarette at the same predawn moment'; in 1915, though, Haig was not >> yet Field-Marshal - he was promoted, I think, in 1917. >> >> Also, on the back cover of the 2005 Houghton Mifflin Company edition >> (English translation), we read that 'As a young man, the author >> Rudyard Kipling was devastated when his military application was >> rejected because of his poor eyesight'. I have not been able to trace >> any reference to such an application in four of the biographies of >> Kipling I have consulted (Carrington, Wilson, Birkenhead, Lycett) - >> but I may well have missed something. Harry Ricketts (1999) only >> mentions that 'it was becoming increasingly obvious that...his >> eyesight debarred Rud from a career in the Services' (1881, before he >> left Westward Ho!). >> >> I hope it helps. >> >> John Seriot >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* To exchange information and views on the life and work of >> Rudyard Kipling <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Elaine >> Dyke <[log in to unmask]> >> *Sent:* 08 March 2017 16:37 >> *To:* [log in to unmask] >> *Subject:* 'Kipling's Choice' by Gert Spillebeen >> I am about to start the second year of an English MA with the Open >> University and have decided to write about Kipling's life in Sussex >> and his involvement with the Irish Guards. I have just read the novel >> 'Kipling's Choice' by Geert Spillebeen and was wondering if anyone >> can tell me how much of this is factual i.e. the correspondence >> between him and his family, and the correspondence from Sergeant's >> Kinneally and Cochrane. I realise that the portrayal of John's death >> is fictional, but a lot of the other information given seems very >> real i.e. only 2 men surviving out of 900 King's Own Scottish >> Borderers at Loos. >> Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated. >> Thanking you >> Elaine Dyke > >