THE DAILY EXPRESS

London, England

16 July 1958

(page 3)

THE WORLD OF WILLIAM HICKEY.

I suppose that yesterday, with all its vastly important international happening, was one of the most vital days of our times. It was a day worth fine focus documentation, a day that fathers will tell their sons about in the years to come. “Yes,” they will say, “I remember the day the Americans went into the Middle East. I well remember what I was doing that day . . .” Well, this is what I was doing, this is what was happening in William Hickey’s world yesterday:

It was warm and overcast, and the girls looked pretty and cool in their short summer dresses. It was a day for office workers to sigh for holidays and the sea.

Kipling’s Stolen Kiss

It was the day on which I saw some wonderful letters from two great Englishmen, men who would be appalled by the present state of affairs in the Middle East. . . . Rudyard Kipling and T. E. Lawrence—Lawrence of Arabia.

These letters have never been published before, but now they are to be sold at Christies, those from Kipling by Earl Baldwin and those from Lawrence by “a lady.”

Kipling wrote to his aunt, Mrs. Louisa Baldwin, painting a Kiplingesque picture of his life in India.

In one he tells of his homesickness: “I would give all the world to be cavorting over the Downs with you again. Homesickness is bad enough when you are within 200 miles of any ‘haven where you would be’ but to get it in all its beauty you must be 7,000 miles away from anywhere, and then you realise what it is to be properly, completely, and thoroughly homesick.

In another he tells the delightful story of his adventure with an Afghan prisoner who tried to enlist Kipling’s aid in obtaining his release by trying to bribe him with money, a Kashmiri girl, and several horses.

Kipling lost his temper but admits: “I am afraid I kissed the damsel when the Khan’s broad back was turned.”

Lawrence wrote his letters to Mrs. Sydney Smith when he was serving in the R.A.F. after his days of greatness in the desert. “Service life is all growing roots and tearing them up. Every time I reach a new station I vow that I will not put down roots to save pain—but the things grow in the dark, all unknowing.”

The sale also includes a big private collection of the often sordid works of black magician Aleister (“The Great Beast”) Crowley.