Jottings from the Editors Desk

I have been told one should always start off with an unusual word, so my prolegomena is to explain that an unusual word flatters ones readers, in that it assumes they instantly comprehend it without recourse to a dictionary, and gives, in this case, an illusion of scholarship to the editor (totally untrue I hasten to add).

Our last two meetings had just over 30 members to each, but we are going to do better. It is a fine line between a subject which has a universal appeal and a good speaker. Most speakers are specialists, and despite being very good speakers have a specialist appeal, and, of course, we are looking at the byeways in RK’s life. I hope we are managing this successfully, talking of managing, we would like a secretary and perhaps a social secretary, if you know of anyone please volunteer them! We have had two very different and interesting meetings in the past three months, and the meeting at which Professor Halliwell and his
accompanist will play on October 25th should round off a truly memorable quarter. I do not have to remind you that Professor Halliwell has already produced some CD’s of Kiplings songs, and we hope he will bring some to the meeting on Saturday, October 25th.

The afternoon tea served after Heleanor’s meeting was very good indeed, and put the teas constructed by your president to shame. Perhaps we could get individual members to bring a plate while I do the tea, coffee and washing up? We could try this out for Professor Halliwells meeting.

In case you missed the announcement of our Christmas banquet on November 9th, I have reprinted Ian’s flyer. You have time to give Ian or Kristen your money at the meeting on Saturday October 25th with Professor Halliwell.

We have now got JASA’s dates for 2009, and our tentative dates do not clash. Here they are for your diary.
28th February including AGM
23rd May
25th August
24th October
Christmas lunch tentatively 6th or 13th December

As soon as we have confirmed speakers you will know.

The poem in this newsletter, the Recessional, has been described by his critics as the immortal
exception to the rest of his verse, unadorned as a Greek statue. ”The feeling and the expression
absolutely fuse, it depends on nouns and verbs” ‘The tumult and the shouting dies
‘The captains and the kings depart’ In the first seven lines there are only two descriptive
adjectives.

Here we are only looking at the lyrical/musical side of the poem, totally ignoring the underlying
message Kipling was transmitting to a ‘ people drunk with glory ‘

- D.W.

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THE RUDYARD KIPLING SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
Christmas Banquet Lunch

(Please download the PDF version of this newsletter for more details)

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O Beloved Kids Report Report on June meeting.

The meeting was chaired by David Watts, ably supported by Susannah Fullerton.

The fact that the current book was a reissue of an earlier volume published in 1983 was emphasised when one of our members produced a copy of the first printing at the meeting.

RK’s family background and upbringing were discussed in an endeavour to describe the curious dichotomy between the daemon driven writer and the father and childrens writer who was able to devote so much energy, and derive so much pleasure from his children.

The source books used, were, in the main, Charles Carringtons Kipling,Lord Birkenheads Kipling, Harry Ricketts Kipling, Angus Wilsons Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling, and the Kipling Society journals.

Susannah’s first poem was Merrow Down, leading to the question of what Elsie thought of the last verse, “the daughter that was all to him” as it referred to Josephine!

As a change of pace Susannah next read “I keep six honest serving men” from the start of “The Elephants Child”, a very apt description of some small children.

We discussed the letters at length, regretted the absence of letters from Oct1910 to Oct 1911, and Oct 1913 to Oct1914, covering the deaths of both RK’s parents, Johns move to Wellington, his baptism in the Church of England, his efforts to enlist as a private in the army and his eventual enlistment in the Irish Guards.

Susannah read “The Childrens Song” Land of our Birth, remembered by many of us from our own schooldays,and as a change of pace, the emotionally charged “The Return of the Children” which was new to many of us.

Many of RK’s illustrations in the book, not only of travel scenes, but of Elsie swimming, unkindly labelled a striped whale, and John bundled up in winters clothes, were shown on the screen, ably managed by Carolyn. The scope of these illustrations again emphasised the wide variety of RK’s skills and interests. As someone said at the meeting “Does nothing fail to interest him?”

The book “O Beloved Kids” has remarkably few errors. One which does stand out is that on the dust cover it refers to John Kipling being killed a few weeks before his 18th birthday, and on page 13 noted that John was killed a few weeks after his 18th birthday.

Besides a most enjoyable read, the book shows RK in a very different light to the daemon driven wordsmith, who, with his prolific output, and the research necessary to maintain it, one would wrongly assume to have little time or energy for childrens matters.

It also gave us a fresh picture of life at Batemans, middle class travel, and life in England in the period 1906 to 1915.

One of the features of the meeting was the number of members who joined in the lively discussion on the book.

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KIM by Heleanor Feltham Report on our August meeting.

Until we heard Heleanor talk we had not fully realised how cognizant she was on not only Kipling and Kim but also on the political structure of RK’s time in India, and the importance of the ancient trade routes. There was a famous quotation , an American intelligence officer in 1943 was asking if the Silk road through China was it still in existence, and was told, it had been running for over 1000 years, and a little thing like World War 2 was not going to stop it!

We traced the Grand Trunk Road, and its importance in Trade, we looked at the Russians at that time and their efforts in what is Afghanistan, with pictures of the nobility, we looked at likely models for Mahbub Ali, Col Crichton, the Lama,the wealthy old lady Kim met on the Grand Trunk Road, and of course the curiosity shop in Simla, the model for its owner and his reputed background, and the social problems and awareness of the middle to late nineteenth century.

We spent some time on the religions, mainly Buddhist, of the time, and how the Lama fitted in,the source of his wealth from the lamaseries in Tibet, and how they got their wealth, how trade was organised.

We traced the path of orphan children of partly British parents, how they were catered for, the division between white, halfcaste and coloured. The importance of the horse in Indian culture, how the horse trader, ie Mahbub Ali, worked, the effect of the rail system on the horse transport system. We spent little time on how Kim was written, though Lockwood’s drawings were shown, but a lot of the talk on the background against which Kim was written, it was a most interesting, indeed, fascinating talk, starting with a picture of the great gun Zam Zamah, why it was important, through the advent of the British East India Society until the eventual take over by the Crown.

The talk ran for much longer than our average, and our members were reluctant for Heleanor to finish, truly a memorable meeting.

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A Kipling Poem

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