Even though Rudyard Kipling died 70 years ago, listeners to Plain Tales from the Hills are sure to gain the beloved storyteller some new followers. I’m certainly joining the fan club. Never engrossed by ‘Gunga Din’, ‘If’ or ‘the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River’, I was astounded how quickly I became hooked on these stories — I’ve listened to the majority more than once.
This is early Kipling — he was only 23 when commissioned to write them for the Civil and Military Gazette, a local English-language newspaper for the British in northern India. He certainly evokes the full spectrum of emotions — laughter in ‘False Dawn’ when Saumerez (‘a strange man’) proposes marriage to the wrong Miss Copleigh (‘repellent and unattractive’) during a blinding dust storm, thinking her to be her prettier sister. Or by total contrast the poignant ‘Thrown Away’ where an over-sensitive young soldier is parted from his parents for the first time when sent to serve in India. His hitherto sheltered life yields a tragic outcome.
The reader is the ultra-dependable Martin Jarvis, whom surely Kipling would see as the kind of man to take on a couple of tigers singlehanded while recording yet another audiobook. Jarvis reads with such energy and concern that the stories sound as innovative and fresh as I’m sure they did when first penned.
As an avid follower of the turf my particular favourite was ‘The Broken-Link Handicap’, an ingenious tale of a nervy Australian jockey brought to an unscheduled halt by some vocal acro- batics that even Martin Jarvis would struggle to perform. The average time of each of the 24 stories is around ten minutes — ideal for a short, sharp fix of Kipling.
When Kipling died in 1926 the dapper David Niven was a high-spirited 16-year-old student, a bit of a prankster and most certainly a hit with the girls. He had no qualms about introducing Nessie (‘a Piccadilly whore’) to his headmaster at a school picnic — they even shared the same tartan rug.
He was not yet the trim and debonair movie idol who would wow cinema buffs on the silver screen some ten years later and without an inkling that he would become one of the most popular and successful actors of the period regarded as the golden age of Hollywood.
Niven’s immensely enjoyable and frequently hilarious 1971 autobiography The Moon’s a Balloon and the equally agreeable 1975 companion volume Bring on the Empty Horses are now available on CD, read by the author. On the cover we are told the recordings were made in 1975 and 1981 — genesis days for audio books — so to spend four hours in the company of a supreme raconteur is a rare treat.
Thumbing through the original text while listening to these discs, you soon realise the onerous task facing the abridger: so many Niven anecdotes face the chop, but some, I noticed, are embellished. On a visit to a steam bath at the invitation of Douglas Fairbanks the Moon’s a Balloon book tells us, ‘I found myself sitting naked on a marble slab with Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century … opposite sat Charlie Chaplin and Sid Grauman, a famous theatre owner.’ Yet on CD Grauman is cagily replaced by ‘the great Samuel Goldwyn’. It certainly makes for a better story, as without the staunch support of Goldwyn Niven’s star may not have risen to similar heights as Flynn, Bogart or Gable. Goldwyn, a tricky fish at the best of times, both hired and fired Niven — fortunately the bullet arrived when he was already well established.
While The Moon’s a Balloon plots Niven’s course to stardom, Bring on the Empty Horses provides a riveting insight into some of the great actors of the era. His memories of a close friendship with Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart are enthralling — I’m not at all surprised the blurb on the paperback says that this ‘might easily be the best book written about Hollywood’. That goes for the CD too. But it’s not all played for laughs. Niven’s voice falters as he describes the accident responsible for the death of his first wife Primmie. Unlike most people in Tinseltown today Niven gives the impression of being a devoted family man. He subsequently remained married to his second wife Hjordis until his death in 1983. I listened to both volumes back to back and loved every moment. I just wish we were told how he kept that pencil-thin moustache so impeccably trimmed. But that’s another story.
Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling, 24 unabridged stories, read by Martin Jarvis (4 CDs, 5 hours, CSA Word. £15.99); The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven, abridged, read by the author (2 CDs, 2 hours, Headline Audiobooks £14.99); Bring on the Empty Horses by David Niven, abridged, read by the author (2 CDs, 2 hours, Headline Audiobooks, £14.99).
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