Kipling Rudyard

ref. 42265 — regretting that he does "not see the least chance of being able to come up to London in time for your meeting but I do not think it is necessary to assure you of my very keen interest in the object of it. Nobody who has travelled even up and down the line from the colony to Pretoria can fail to see the enormous amount of work that there is to be done and of course away from the line that work is even more urgent." 1 side A4 Bateman's Burwash 6th June The recipient is the Irish poet architectural writer and artist Alys Fane TROTTER née Keatinge 1863-1961 whose husband Alexander Pelham TROTTER 1857-1947 was a major force in electrical engineering in the Cape Colony in southern Africa. For Kipling's friendship with the Trotters from his time at the Cape see Thomas Pinney ed. The Letters of Rudyard Kipling 1990 volume 4 page 393. There is an article about Kipling's involvement with the Trotters by Tanya Barben which includes the paragraph "The Kiplings were quickly absorbed into Cape Town's social scene often through Rhodes's contacts. Alys Fane-Trotter the doyenne of writers about Cape architecture at the time recalled that the 'Kiplings were charming to us and Rudyard would spend the afternoon sitting on our very humble stoep drawing wonderful pictures for the children and telling us first drafts of stories he expected to write". This may be the only surviving letter to Alys. unknown