Where would you go?

Is 2022 that different from 1922? Imagine you wanted to escape England today, where would you go? Of course, it all depends on why you wanted to escape. If it was to get away from the political and economic situation – and it feels as bad as it has ever been at the moment – America or New Zealand could be possibilities. But if it was to get away from the English-speaking world, from appalling reviews and vitriol for an unacclaimed book? Perhaps France or Spain? But if again it was to put some distance between you and your friends and relatives? Perhaps some tropical island. How about Tahiti? French speaking, long way away?

October 1922

One Hundred years ago Robert Keable was aboard the SS Bendigo on his way to Australia. He had left Southampton on September 7^th, 1922, with his wife Sybil; dropped her off in Cape Town and was continuing on alone. Meanwhile Jolie Buck was travelling in the same direction on the SS Omar, which had left England two weeks later. Within two months the two of them, Jolie having by then changed her surname to Keable, would be together in Tahiti. Were they running away or just off on honeymoon?

Why did Robert want to run away?

I have often wondered whether Robert’s first trip to Tahiti was a much-needed holiday or a planned escape? In my book Utterly Immoral I detail how disenchanted Robert had become with England. The political and economic situation, and the weather. He was certainly keen to escape these.

He was also keen to escape the vilification he had received for writing Simon Called Peter. When the novel came out it was greeted with damning reviews and much scorn. By the autumn of 1922 the English papers were leaving Robert alone, but the America ones were going into overdrive. The Hall-Mills murders were front page news and Simon Called Peter was being blamed for the affair between the murdered couple. Newspapers were suggesting Robert Keable was a purveyor of pornography and that his novel was being used by unscrupulous men as an ‘aid to seduction’. But in his cabin on SS Bendigo Robert would have been oblivious to this.

The more I think about it the more I am sure that both public criticism, and the situation in England were factors in his flight but the main reason was a desire to escape family and former friends.

Robert’s family

For Robert’s parents the publication of Simon Called Peter and the resulting scandal must have been excruciating. His father was a parish priest in Pavenham, Bedfordshire, having recently moved from Croydon. He and his wife were very devout Low Church Anglicans who would have disapproved of all the drinking and visits to the theatre in the novel, let alone the visits to prostitutes and pre-marital sex. The fact that their son, until a year before a distinguished priest and missionary, had written the novel would have been heart breaking. Even worse he had left the church and was seeking to separate from his wife.

To their credit Robert’s parents did not disown their son, but Robert’s cousins and other relations seem to have. They could not understand how Robert could have willingly hurt his parents so much, with the publication of his novel. His parents were already suffering from the death of their second son Henry, who died in Malta a few weeks before the end of the war. One of Robert’s cousins, Benjamin, who had lost a leg during the war, wrote of Robert’s attempt to ‘buy’ his affection, by offering to give him a car. An offer he was pleased to reject.

Not only had Robert ‘lost’ most of his family but his old friends had also started to ostracise him. Perhaps not surprisingly many of his friends had joined the church. His early life in Croydon had been centred on his father’s church. At Cambridge University, although reading history, his closest friends were religious including AC Benson and RH Benson. Through them he met many clergymen. And for two years he trained at what is now Westcott House, where he became very close to his fellow ordinands. Once Robert had decided to leave the church, and started advocating free love, his former church friends turned their back on him. When, in 1959, James Douglas wrote to Robert’s old friends none had kept in touch with him after Simon Called Peter came out.

It was then that Robert started a new life, in Dunstable, teaching in the Grammar school for a year. But while his wife Sybil made friends easily with the members of staff and their wives, Robert kept himself to himself. When he and his wife started to prepare for a separation the school community clearly sided with Sybil.

Robert’s newfound literary fame did open up plenty of new opportunities to meet and befriend people but I am sure the loss of so many old friends and relations encouraged him to leave the country.

Jolie’s desire to avoid scandal

For Jolie the desire to leave the country must have been even greater than for Robert. She came from a well-connected family. On her father’s side she was a distant relative of the Stucley family who owned Hartland Abbey, and on her mother’s side to the Beresford family. But her mother was an impoverished gentlewoman. Widowed at 35 with four young children and a half share of an army pension, she lived mainly on the charity of friends and relations. Jolie’s sister and her brothers were sponsored through school. Jolie was terrified that a scandal in the family would ruin her mother, end the support for her brothers and make it impossible for her sister to marry well. It would have been bad enough if it became known that Jolie had taken Robert away from his wife. Far worse if it came out that she had been the inspiration for Julie in Simon Called Peter.

Tahiti

So, I believe that Robert and Jolie always planned to escape England for good. Their first stop was always going to be Tahiti but, if that hadn’t worked out, I believe they would have kept searching for the perfect island hideout. As it turned out they fell in love with Tahiti and soon started to build their own house there. If tragedy had not befallen them, I am sure they would have continued to live there for many years.

Even today it does not look like a bad decision.