dubbed ‘Hell Spider’.
Mrs Miller and her friend may have been unimpressed with the Kiplings, and likewise Rudyard could not bear mingling with the posturing, wealthy residents of the town, but before his unhappy sojourn on the English Riviera came to an abrupt end, Kipling fictionalised his Devon schooldays. Author Eden Phillpotts, famed for his novels set in the locality, sent a copy of his latest book to Kipling, which immediately triggered an idea. Early in 1897, he broached the subject with his editor: ‘The notion of writing a Devonshire tale is new to me but, now I come to think of it, I was educated at Westward Ho! nigh Bideford and for six puppy years talked vernacular with the natives whose apples I stole. What will E.P. give to buy me off?’
The result was Stalky & Co. , based on the adventures of himself and his two closest friends at United Services College, an establishment fondly remembered by Kipling as ‘the school before its time’. Founded to prepare boys for a military or naval career, this was never the intention for Kipling, as the college was chosen solely because his mother was a close friend of the headmaster, Cormwell Price. Despite a miserable initiation period at the school, which he later recalled was ‘primitive in its appointments, and our food would now raise a mutiny in Dartmoor [Prison]’, the budding author flourished when the head realised, ‘I was irretrievably committed to the ink-pot’ and Rudyard was appointed editor of the school magazine. A collection of his poems written at the college was published by his parents living in India and he joyously returned to his family and embarked upon a journalistic career. He also drew inspiration from the land of his birth for his early literary successes. His output was stupendous and he became a marvellous storyteller, standing by the maxim that: ‘A word – should fall in its place like a bell in a full chime’.
Kipling’s revered former headmaster, Cormwell Price, accepted an invitation to spend some time at Rock House, where he heard passages from the new book read to him by the excited author. Kipling’s happiness seemed complete when Caroline learned she was expecting their third child. However, by May 1897 the couple were unable to reconcile themselves with the gloomy atmosphere of Rock House and suddenly decided to execute ‘our flight from Torquay’ to seek refuge with relatives near Brighton. John Kipling, the son conceived in Torquay, was doomed to die in action during the First World War. His father had to live with the guilt of his son’s fate after ‘pulling strings’ to arrange for his enlistment after John had been rejected on medical grounds with extremely poor eyesight. Little wonder that when Rudyard made a pilgrimage to his former Torquay home shortly before his own death, the writer detected ‘the same brooding Spirit of deep, deep Despondency within the open lit rooms’.
14
DR CRIPPEN
Three Act Tragedy
I’ve always wondered if Ethel le Neve was in it with him [Dr Crippen] or not.
Quote from The Labours of Hercules (1947)
The plot of Agatha Christie’s Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952), a murder mystery investigated by Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver, is transparently based on the notorious crime committed by Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was famously brought to justice when wireless was used for the first time in a murder hunt.
In 1900, the American-born dentist and his actress wife, Belle Elmore, had moved to England where Crippen’s US qualifications did not allow him to practice medicine. Therefore, he took various jobs selling patent medicines. Ten years later he killed his domineering wife by administering a lethal dose of poison, then carved up her body and buried the remains in the cellar. The mild-mannered doctor explained Belle’s disappearance by telling enquirers that she had returned to America because of a relative’s illness. Meanwhile, he moved his secretary and mistress, Ethel
Mrs Miller and her friend may have been unimpressed with the Kiplings, and likewise Rudyard could not bear mingling with the posturing, wealthy residents of the town, but before his unhappy sojourn on the English Riviera came to an abrupt end, Kipling fictionalised his Devon schooldays. Author Eden Phillpotts, famed for his novels set in the locality, sent a copy of his latest book to Kipling, which immediately triggered an idea. Early in 1897, he broached the subject with his editor: ‘The notion of writing a Devonshire tale is new to me but, now I come to think of it, I was educated at Westward Ho! nigh Bideford and for six puppy years talked vernacular with the natives whose apples I stole. What will E.P. give to buy me off?’
The result was Stalky & Co. , based on the adventures of himself and his two closest friends at United Services College, an establishment fondly remembered by Kipling as ‘the school before its time’. Founded to prepare boys for a military or naval career, this was never the intention for Kipling, as the college was chosen solely because his mother was a close friend of the headmaster, Cormwell Price. Despite a miserable initiation period at the school, which he later recalled was ‘primitive in its appointments, and our food would now raise a mutiny in Dartmoor [Prison]’, the budding author flourished when the head realised, ‘I was irretrievably committed to the ink-pot’ and Rudyard was appointed editor of the school magazine. A collection of his poems written at the college was published by his parents living in India and he joyously returned to his family and embarked upon a journalistic career. He also drew inspiration from the land of his birth for his early literary successes. His output was stupendous and he became a marvellous storyteller, standing by the maxim that: ‘A word – should fall in its place like a bell in a full chime’.
Kipling’s revered former headmaster, Cormwell Price, accepted an invitation to spend some time at Rock House, where he heard passages from the new book read to him by the excited author. Kipling’s happiness seemed complete when Caroline learned she was expecting their third child. However, by May 1897 the couple were unable to reconcile themselves with the gloomy atmosphere of Rock House and suddenly decided to execute ‘our flight from Torquay’ to seek refuge with relatives near Brighton. John Kipling, the son conceived in Torquay, was doomed to die in action during the First World War. His father had to live with the guilt of his son’s fate after ‘pulling strings’ to arrange for his enlistment after John had been rejected on medical grounds with extremely poor eyesight. Little wonder that when Rudyard made a pilgrimage to his former Torquay home shortly before his own death, the writer detected ‘the same brooding Spirit of deep, deep Despondency within the open lit rooms’.
14
DR CRIPPEN
Three Act Tragedy
I’ve always wondered if Ethel le Neve was in it with him [Dr Crippen] or not.
Quote from The Labours of Hercules (1947)
The plot of Agatha Christie’s Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952), a murder mystery investigated by Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver, is transparently based on the notorious crime committed by Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was famously brought to justice when wireless was used for the first time in a murder hunt.
In 1900, the American-born dentist and his actress wife, Belle Elmore, had moved to England where Crippen’s US qualifications did not allow him to practice medicine. Therefore, he took various jobs selling patent medicines. Ten years later he killed his domineering wife by administering a lethal dose of poison, then carved up her body and buried the remains in the cellar. The mild-mannered doctor explained Belle’s disappearance by telling enquirers that she had returned to America because of a relative’s illness. Meanwhile, he moved his secretary and mistress, Ethel
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