As part of the research for Utterly Immoral, my book on Robert Keable, I visited Tahiti in 2016. One of the aims of the trip was to try and meet the children of anyone who would have known Robert Keable back in the 1920s, when he lived on the island. As I have detailed in my post of July 2^nd, 2022, I did manage to meet the son of Charles Nordhoff and the daughter of James Norman Hall, the novelists who most famously wrote the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy. However, I had a list of other people w…

In my book Utterly Immoral I cover Robert Keable’s time in France as a chaplain with the South African Native Labour Contingent. The SANLC was one of the labour corps paid for by the British Government to provide support labour during the First World War. Volunteers from India, China, Egypt, southern Africa, and other parts of the British Empire travelled to France. The men Robert Keable accompanied were based in Le Havre where they unloaded the ships delivering the supplies needed by an …

Whilst writing my book, Utterly Immoral about Robert Keable and his scandalous novel Simon Called Peter, I concentrated my research on the author himself and his closest friends and relatives. What I have not done, until now, is to try to find his other relations, the children and grandchildren and possibly even great grandchildren of his cousins.

If anyone reading this believes they are related to Robert Keable, however tangentially, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to use my…

My father, Tony Keable-Elliott, was the first person Dr Hugh Cecil was keen to talk to, when he began to research the life of Robert Keable for a chapter in his book, The Flower of Battle. There were two reasons for this. First he wanted to find out what Tony knew and, second to ask permission to write about Tony's father. For Hugh Cecil, Tony’s permission was essential and I am sure he would not have continued with his research without it.

I can fully understan…

In my book, Utterly Immoral, I cover the places Robert Keable lived in his extraordinary life, from Croydon to Tahiti via Cambridge, Bradford, Zanzibar, Basutoland, Le Havre and Dunstable. Robert Keable was actually born in Clapham and only moved to Croydon when he was about 10. He remained very fond of Croydon and wrote about it in his novel Peradventure. (see post on June 25^th)  

Robert Keable also referred to Croydon in his novel Lighten Our Darkness (published as Anne Decides in Ame…

In my book, Utterly Immoral, I look at Robert Keable’s time as a chaplain to the South African Native Contingent, a group of black labourers who volunteered to travel to France to support the war effort during the First World War. I cover the efforts he made to recruit for the contingent, his experience in France and the appalling treatment the black labourers suffered. And I also look at the affair he had with a 19-year-old lorry driver.

But how did he see his role as a chaplain?

R…

In my book Utterly Immoral I explain how Robert Keable met and married, (or as we might say today – co-habited with) Princess Ina, the Helen of Troy of Tahiti. But who was Princess Ina, and what happened to her after Robert Keable died?

First things first, I need to explain why Ina Salmon was a princess. This is a little complicated so you may want to skip this bit and move on to after Ina was born!

Before Ina was born

In 1842 Ina’s great grandfather Alexander Salmon, the s…

Meeting the children of James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff 

While researching Robert Keable’s time in Tahiti for my book Utterly Immoral I came across an amazing cast of characters, including the British writer Alec Waugh, the artist Robert Lee Eskeridge, novelist Zane Grey and the Tahitian ‘Helen of Troy’, Princess Ina Salmon.

Two others, surely the most famous Americans living on Tahiti at that time, were the writers Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Alr…

Utterly Immoral is the first full biography of Robert Keable. However, three writers and academics (Dr James Douglas, Dr Hugh Cecil and Dr Tim Couzens) all started work on writing or co-writing full biographies, and for different reasons did not complete their work. I have written about Dr James Douglas and Dr Hugh Cecil in previous blogs, so next up is Tim Couzens.

My father, Tony Keable-Elliott (Robert Keable’s son), was originally introduced to Tim by Hugh Cecil. In 1996 Hugh and Ti…

Utterly Immoral is the first full biography of Robert Keable. However, three writers and academics (Dr James Douglas, Dr Hugh Cecil and Dr Tim Couzens) all started work on writing, or co-writing, full biographies, and for different reasons did not complete their work. I wrote about Dr James Douglas in a previous blog so next up is Hugh Cecil.

Hugh Cecil first contacted my father, Tony Keable-Elliott (Robert Keable’s first son) in December 1985 to explain he was writing a book on t…

Whilst researching the chapter on Tahiti for my book Utterly Immoral, I came across two letters that Jolie Keable had written to Wuffy, (the nickname for the mother-in-law of her good friend Rita Elliott). I posted the first letter a few days ago so here is the second, sent on March 21^st, 1923. By then Robert and Jolie were well settled into their life in Tahiti. Robert had a number of writing projects on the go and Jolie was running the house.

My Dear Wuffy,

I was hoping I should have h…

Utterly Immoral is the first full biography of Robert Keable. However, three writers and academics (Dr James Douglas, Dr Hugh Cecil and Dr Tim Couzens) all started work on writing or co-writing full biographies, and for different reasons did not complete their work. The first of these was the Church of Scotland Minister, journalist, editor, educator, and author, Dr James Douglas.

In November 2001 James Douglas plucked up courage to contact my father, Tony Keable-Elliott (Robert Keable&rsquo…