When growing up, I came across some posters at an outdoor market.
One had Rudyard Kipling’s poem If— on it. This was voted the UK’s favourite poem in a 1995 BBC poll. It starts:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
The poem captures the stoicism and self-discipline valued by the British during Queen Victoria’s reign. Some saw the influence of The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu sacred text, in the poem. As I child, I liked the stoic message.
As it happens, Kipling was born in India. He left when five to be educated in Britain. Near the end of his unhappy schooling, his parents concluded Kipling had no academic ability and he returned to India.
Kipling worked for local newspapers and began establishing himself as a writer. He returned to London six years later. By 1900, he was England’s most famous author. In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
We learnt much of this at Bateman’s, his house in Burwash, East Sussex. He lived there from 1902 until he died in 1936. Despite having no bathroom, running water or electricity, Kipling loved it. He retained the interior and created a garden. He also had the foresight to install an electric turbine to provide power for the house.
Kipling’s sense of humour is on show on a sign for one of the rooms, telling Bateman’s guests how fast and how far to walk! The house also contains original drawings from The Jungle Book.
His son, John, was killed in the First World War. In a poem, he wrote “If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied.” Whether this was aimed at himself or the British government, we don’t know. In this context, he contributed the phrase “Lest we forget”, now often used to remember those who died in war.
The Scout movement was shaped by Kipling in its early years. Some continue to use traditions such as the “Grand Howl”, a ceremonial chant that begins and ends meetings. It first featured in the story of the Mowgli’s Brothers in The Jungle Book.
A biographical panel at the house says that “whilst Kipling’s political legacy is complex, his cultural influence endures”. Hindu words Kipling used in his writings have entered everyday language, such as pukka and blighty. And books such as The Jungle Book and Kim have become classics.