Jottings from the Editors Desk

We had a very interesting and rewarding meeting on February 28th, our third AGM. The film on Batemans, a UK National Trust film, which included quite a lot about RK himself as well as the manor house, was well received, and afterwards those of us who had visited Batemans tried to answer questions about it. Many thanks to Chris Cooper who brought the equipment and arranged the showing.

Our next meeting, on May 23rd, is to be held at Roseville RSL, our usual meeting room was needed by the church, but our subsequent meetings are as normal in the church hall. At the RSL tea/coffee biscuits etc are for sale to individuals by the RSL, so there will be no refreshment charge ($4) by ourselves.

At our August 22nd meeting we are going to play some of Rk’s poems set to music, and have a discussion on each poem. We have recordings by Professor Halliwell and Peter Bellamy. A letter from Dr Alan Cowan, one of our Canberra members, explains how we obtained the Peter Bellamy recordings, which are not now on sale, but we have transcribed his tapes to disc, so we can return his tapes and keep the discs in our collection.

Our secretary, Robyn Scott is now on board, and already being very helpful, with minutes of committee meetings, and designing a letterhead, which, I am ashamed to say, I haven’t yet learnt to put it on my computer!

One of our members, Naren Menon has agreed to give us a talk on Kipling and India. Naren comes from the sub continent and, under pressure, agreed to give us a talk on our first meeting next year Feb 27th 2010.

Susannah’s latest book, on writers of world renown who have had contact with Australia, yes RK is one, will be launched at the Art Gallery of NSW on Sunday 31st May.

Ian’s treasurers report is included in this issue, on that subject if you were away for the AGM you can send your membership fee to Ian direct.

We are printing some cards for distribution giving details of our next few meetings, just to remind you they are:
Saturday May 23 - Dr Holberton
Saturday Aug 22 - Songs and discussion
Saturday Oct 24 - Professor Alexander
Sunday Dec 6th - Christmas lunch
Saturday Feb 27 - 2010 AGM and Naren Menon

The poem we have chosen is one of RK’s last works, and probably not as familiar to Sydneysiders as it would be to Melbournians.

- D.W.

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Lockwood Kipling

Little has been said about Rudyard’s father, Lockwood, who had a very profound influence on Rudyard’s writings, and, indeed was said to have collaborated with his son on providing background colour to several of his stories.

We know of him as an illustrator, author, curator, indeed he appears as virtually himself in Kim, but also he was skilled at decorating, ie interior decorating, he was responsible for a large ballroom at Simla, it helps if you are close to the Governor General of India, he decorated a billiard room at Bagshot in Surrey for the Duke of Connaught, and for Queen Victoria he decorated the Durbar Room at Osborne in the Isle of White, amongst many other projects.

He once earned his living in London as a French teacher, which was undoubtedly helpful when he took young Rudyard with him to the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

His list of illustrations, whilst not complete, is:

• 1891
  Beast and Man in India, his book
  71 illustrations
• 1890?
  Ist Edition Plain Tales from the Hills
  Cover illustration
• 1894
  The Jungle Book
  8 illustrations
• 1894
  Tales of the Punjab Florie Steel
  60 illustrations
• 1895
  The Second Jungle Book
  37 illustrations
• 1896
  The Kipling Birthday Book
  12 illustrations
• 1897
  Outwood Bound (Charles Scribener ed) 45 new illustrations
• 1898
  The Iliad of the East
  7 illustrations
• 1901
  Kim
  10 illustrations
• 1902
  Hand in Hand by Mrs Lockwood Kipling and Trix

I would like to hear from our members of some of Lockwood’s illustrations that I have missed.

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Letters to the Editor...

Dear David

A propos your newsletter, I have four audio-cassette tapes of Peter Bellamy singing Kipling poem arrangements. They are as follows:

1. Soldiers Three, 1990 Barrack Room Ballads etc.
2. Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs, 1989 incl. Gethsemane, The Dutch in the Medway, Recessional etc.
3. Keep on Kipling, 1982 incl. Cuckoo Song, Dayspring Mishandled, The Coiner, Follow Me 'Ome etc.
4. Puck's Songs, 1970 - 1990 incl. Poor Honest men, Minepit Shaw, A Smuggler's Song, A St Helena Lullaby etc.

If you want to borrow any of them, let me know. I don't know if you ever heard them, but Bellamy did a series of four programmes on ABC FM some years ago, called "The Folk Songs of Rudyard Kipling", during which he sang most of these songs. It would have been about 1983, I guess. He died young, didn't he: was it suicide? I rather think so.

I retire in 9 days' time after 57 1/2 years of medical practice. Next year my wife and I shall spend six months based in Scotland to do European trips. We shall attend the Annual Luncheon of the Kipling Society in May and I have submitted a paper on "Kipling and the Antarctic" which I hope to read to the Society late next year (if they accept it).

Kindest regards
Alan cowan

Dear David,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

In gratitude, here’s an item for possible publication in the next Newsletter. I sent the information about Brygandyne and the Sovereign to John Radcliffe and he has added it to the notes on the text of “The Wrong Thing” in the New Readers Guide.

“The Wrong Thing” is my favourite story from “Rewards and Fairies.” It contains a delightful portrait of skinflint King Henry VII, who confers knighthood on Hal o’ the Draft not for his craftsmanship but because he saves him 30 pounds, and who performs the ceremony with three-quarters of a rusty sword. (Henry certainly had a reputation for avarice. It doesn’t come into the story, but he employed as his Chancellor Henry Morton, who is mainly remembered as the originator of “Morton’s Fork” as a means of collecting taxes: if you live in luxury and clearly spend a lot of money, you can obviously spare some for the king; if you live frugally you must have substantial savings and can afford to give some to the king.)

In the story, Hal is approached by “a man called Brygandyne - Bob Brygandyne - Clerk of the King’s Ships” “to draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scrollwork for the bows of one of the King’s Ships - the Sovereign was her name.”

I’ve just been reading “Great Harry’s Navy” by Geoffrey Moorhouse, and one sentence struck me: “The work at Portsmouth was supervised by Robert Brigandine, ‘yeoman of the Crown’ and newly appointed Clerk of the King’s Ships”.

The work in question was the building of the first dry dock, designed specifically for the repair of two large carracks, one of which was the “Sovereign”.

So both Bob Brygandyne and the Sovereign really existed. Brigandine (chose whichever spelling you prefer!) continued to hold the post of Clerk of the King’s Ships into the reign of Henry VIII. The phrase in quotes, ‘yeoman of the Crown’, is also interesting. Bob Brygandyne appears again in Kipling’s poem “King Henry VII and the Shipwrights” which follows the story: “All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good.”

Kipling certainly did his homework.

Regards
Philip Holberton

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Swastika's used by Kipling

Swastika is a symbol derived from the World Tree, originally a wheel with four spokes , with torches attached to the ends of the spokes. Von Daniken would undoubtedly have had a field day ascribing extraterrestrial influence!

There are good and bad versions, the good version rotates in a clockwise direction, whilst the bad version goes anticlockwise.

Lockwood Kipling, in Beast & Man in India, refers to the swastika as similar to the hermetic cross of Freemasonry, traceable from Troy to China.

Kiplings books originally had the good swastika, often with the Elephant head of Ganesh, but after 1930, due in part to the confusion with the bad swastika chosen by the Nazi Party, and which was placed in error on some American Editions of Kipling, the swastika was dropped from his books.

The word swastika is supposedly derived from the Sanskrit svast, meaning well faring, and tiku, a mark or token, and is sometimes spelt svastika.

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Special Event

Dear Friends – All of you who love the works of 18th and 19th century literature

It is a truth universally acknowledged … that a bit of fun mixed with
an act of goodwill makes for a pleasant way to spend the day.

We are holding a special event on Sunday, 14 June at 3pm at the Chatswood RSL. It is aimed exclusively at our network of societies… the Jane Austen Society of Australia, the Sydney Passengers Sherlock Holmes Society, the Rudyard Kipling Society, the Australian Bronte Association, the NSW Dickens Society and the Byron Society - so it should be fabulous fun.

‘Throw the Book at MS’ is a quiz event based on books and authors. It has, in just three years, raised some $25,000 for MS research and it has also provided a fun challenge to hundreds of book lovers with all questions literary.

Would you be interested in attending? And to get together a table for your society and encourage your members to come along? The cost is $45 per head and this includes afternoon tea and scones (most of the price goes directly to MS Research Australia). There will also be a cash bar and some nibblies. There will be tables for 8 to 10 people. I can guarantee that each society’s ‘author’ will have an equal number of questions.

It will most definitely be a really enjoyable Sunday afternoon. More importantly, please consider supporting MS Research; Australian scientists are really doing excellent work and feel free to visit www.msra.org.au to find out more.

For more information, or to book, please email throw.the.book@hotmail.com or call Johanna Dwyer on 02 9360 4128 or, go to the website: www.f5m.org.au/f5m-throw-the-book.html So please call your friends, brush up on your 18th and 19th century literature and come along. Please let me know if you are interested in participating in this special literary event.

With best wishes,
Susannah Fullerton
(President, Jane Austen Society of Australia)

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A Kipling Poem

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