Christopher Joll - The Speedicut Papers Book 9 (1900–1915): Boxing Icebergs

Also by Christopher Joll

Uniquely British: A Year in the Life of the Household Cav alry

The Speedicut Papers Book 1 (1821-1848): Flashmans Se cret

The Speedicut Papers Book 2 (1848-1857): Love & Other Blood Sp orts

The Speedicut Papers Book 3 (1857-1865): Uncivil Wars

The Speedicut Papers Book 4 (1865-1871): Where Eagles Dare

The Speedicut Papers Book 5 (1871-1879): Suffering Be rtie

The Speedicut Papers Book 6 (1879-1884): Vitai Lam pada

The Speedicut Papers Book 7 (1884-1895): Royal Scan dals

The Speedicut Papers Book 8 (1895-1900): At War with Churc hill

The Speedicut Papers Book 9 (1900-1915): Boxing Iceb ergs

THE SPEEDICUT PAPERS
The Memoirs of Jasper Speedicut
Book 9 (19001915)

Boxing Icebergs

Christopher Joll

AuthorHouse UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: 0800.197.4150

2017 Christopher Joll. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/25/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8022-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8023-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8031-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

For

EWC

A great supporter

After serving time at Oxford University and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Christopher Joll spent his formative years as an officer in The Life Guards, an experience from which he has never really recovered.

On leaving the Army, Joll worked first in investment banking, but the boredom of City life led him to switch careers and become an arms salesman. After ten years of dealing with tin pot dictators in faraway countries, he moved - perhaps appropriately - into public relations where, in this new incarnation, he had to deal with dictators of an altogether different type.

From his earliest days, Joll has written articles, features, short stories and reportage. One such piece of writing led to an early brush with notoriety when an article he had penned anonymously in 1974 for a political journal ended up as front page national news and resulted in a Ministerial inquiry. In 2012 Joll wrote the text for Uniquely British: A Year in the Life of the Household Cavalry , an illustrated account of the Household Cavalry from the Royal Wedding to the Diamond Jubilee. His yet to be published memoires, Anecdotal Evidence , promises to cause considerable consternation in certain quarters should it ever appear in print.

Since leaving the Army in 1975, Joll has been involved in devising and managing charity fund-raising events. This interest started in 1977 with The Silver Jubilee Royal Gifts Exhibition at St Jamess Palace and The Royal Cartoons Exhibition at the Press Club. In subsequent years, he co-produced Jos Carreras & Friends, a one-night Royal Gala Concert at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Serenade for a Princess, a Royal Gala Concert at the Banqueting House, Whitehall; and Concert for a Prince, a Royal Gala Concert staged at Windsor Castle (the first such event to be held there following the post-fire restoration).

More recently, Joll has focused on devising, writing, directing and sometimes producing events primarily for military charities. These include in various different roles the Household Cavalry Pageant (2007); the Chelsea Pageant (2008); the Diamond Jubilee Parade in the Park (2012); the British Military Tournament (2010-2013); the Gurkha Bicentenary Pageant (2015); the Waterloo Bicentenary National Service of Commemoration & Parade at St Pauls Cathedral (2015); the Shakespeare 400 Memorial Concert (2016); The Patrons Lunch (2016), the official London event to mark The Queens 90th Birthday and The Great War Symphony to be premiered in 2018 at the Royal Albert Hall.

With the first publication of The Speedicut Papers in 2013, the reading public was shocked to learn that Brigadier General Sir Harry Flashman VC, one of the greatest heroes of the Victorian age, was nothing more than a Paris-based remittance man and a plagiarising fraud. Almost as shocking was the revelation that, for more than 250 years, there has been a secret organisation at the heart of the British Establishment, called The Brotherhood of the Sons of Thunder, which was ruthlessly interfering in the nations affairs.

These facts were revealed in a cache of letters written over a lifetime by Colonel Sir Jasper Speedicut, Bart to his friend Harry Flashman, which I discovered in 2010 in the basement of the New Walk Museum in Leicester. Taken together, the letters are a comprehensive record of the life and times of Speedicut: soldier, courtier, bi-sexual and reluctant hero.

In this, the ninth volume of The Speedicut Papers and the last written by Jasper Speedicut, the public will once again learn of further previously hidden truths that cast a new light on real historical incidents, set against the major events of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Although the first seven volumes of The Speedicut Papers were originally published in letter format, in response to popular demand I have re-edited the books into a narrative text. As with the previously published work, in the interests of clarity I have also annotated the text with dates and historical or explanatory background material.

CHRISTOPHER JOLL

www.jasperspeedicut.com

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN
ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Any similarity to persons now dead is entirely intenti onal

Jasper Speedicut an officer and a gentleman, usually known as Speed

Harry Flashman a remittance man mostly based in Paris, who is a friend of Speedicut and his controller in The Brotherhood of the Sons of Thunder, usually known as Flashy

Fahran Khazi second son of the late Muhamad Khazi and Speedicuts valet

Charles-Ethelred FitzCharles, 8th Duke of Whitehall brother of Lady Charlotte-Georgina Speedicut and Great Boanerges (GB) of the Brotherhood of the Sons of Thunder

Colonel Sir Claude MacDonald British Minister in Peking

Countess Tamara Obolenskya a Russian aristocrat

The Empress Dowager CiXi the former Yi Concubine and, since 1861, the de facto ruler of China

Lady Charlotte-Georgina Speedicut Speedicuts second wife, sister of the 8th Duke of Whitehall

Frederick Searcy Speedicuts semi-retired private secretary, originally a riding instructor in the 2nd Life Guards

Atash Khazi eldest son of the late Muhamad Khazi and the Speedicuts coachman-cum-chauffeur

Sibella Holland the wife of a stockbroker

Ivan Searcy Speedicuts Russian ex-valet and Frederick Searcys partner

Robert Ross a Canadian journalist of independent means

Oscar Wilde a disgraced playwright and poet, living in Paris

Sir Arthur Bigge Queen Victorias Private Secretary

Dr James Reid Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria

HM Queen Victoria the ageing British monarch

HRH The Prince of Wales Heir Apparent to the British throne, usually known as Bertie

HIM Kaiser Wilhelm II Emperor of Germany

Prince Phillip zu Eulenberg a close friend of the Kaiser

Captain Frederick Ponsonby Assistant Private Secretary to Queen Victoria and later to King Edward VII