A KIPLINE CAME

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20930, 8 January 1938, Page 9

A KIPLINE CAME

C HILDHOOD MEMORIES "Let tire grown-up people slide. Let's go back to half-past three, Finding starfish by a tide. Always new for you and me. Whispering as you lean more near. Does you love it, sister dear?” These six lines of a hitherto unpublished poem by Kipling “to his little j sister." sent with a gift to her shortly before her wedding, were quoted at a i meeting of the Kipling Society at the Washington Hotel, says the “Daily Telegraph and Morning Post.” Mrs Fleming, sister of Kipling, who quoted the erse, recalled memories of when she and her brother lived with their parents at Lahore, between 1884 and 1887. Kipling himself described this period of his life rs “a time when we were all happy and we knew it.” She said they used to play a Turkish game called “Yodace.” The rule was that you must never accept anything from a person—not even the salt at the dinner table—without saying first. “By my knowledge.” The Kipling family, said Mrs Fleming. played this game for months till it became a nightmare for Mr and Mrs Kipling. “Rudy would go to all sorts of lengths to catch me out.” she added. “He would even stage an accident, ; nd then call me into the room and say: ‘Here, take this.’ hoping I would forget the “By my knowledge.’ ” Mrs Fleming said that she taught her brother tc dance, and on her seventeenth birthday he gave her a gold bangle in memory of it. He was always a little nervous about steering his partner. Mrs Fleming spoke ol’ the unhappiness endured by her brother when, as children, they were sent Home from India to live at Southsea. “I never once lost faith in my brother, and I always knew from the very beginning that he would one day be a genius.” she declared.