 |
 |
Can anyone help me, please? Carrie's diaries for 1898 record that, on their visit to South Africa in the (European) spring, John Lockwood Kipling (the pater) accompanied them. In 1899, they did not go to the Cape, but took their diasastrous trip to New York. The next time they went south was in early December 1900, when the Rees Extracts state that, at Southampton "Pater meets us and goes to see about his and his family's passages". The implication is that Mr and Mrs Kipling (Snr) went with them - but there is no further mention of the Kipling parents in South Africa. He might, of course, merely have come to see them off, using the opportunity to make arrangements for his own voyage somewhere else at a later date. And in December 1901, on their way to Southampton to join the /Kinfauns Castle/, something similar happened again Rees records that "We make an early start, travelling by saloon to Southampton. Pater meets us at Eastleigh. Start on SS /kinfauns/ at 5p.m." Again, was the pater going with them, or merely coming to see them off? I would like to know, did the pater go with them on either or both of these trips? Carrie's diaries make no mention of him during their stay at the Cape in early 1901 and 1902, though she did when he was with them in 1898. I incline to the view that he was merely coming to see them off (it was not a very difficult railway journey from Tisbury to Eastleigh), but I'm not sure why Carrie included the bit about the pater going to see about "his and his family's passages" /Alastair Wilson/ ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the RUDYARD-KIPLING list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=RUDYARD-KIPLING&A=1