Rudyard Kipling and some green connections

Posts about Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle are very popular, so I am always looking for inspiration for more articles. 

After writing about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green, I decided to investigate occurrences of this colour in the life and works of Rudyard Kipling. 

I didn't find anything amazing, but some connections are worth mentioning. The people and places that Kipling has in common with Conan Doyle are particularly interesting.

Roger Lancelyn Green
Writer Roger Lancelyn Green (1918 – 1987) was the father of Richard Lancelyn Green, the previously mentioned authority on Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. He was editor of the Kipling Journal and wrote and edited books about Kipling: 

The school in Green Road
When Rudyard Kipling was staying in the House of Desolation in Southsea, he attended what he called 'a terrible little day-school'. 

Roger Lancelyn Green identified the school as Hope House in  Green Road, the same road that Conan Doyle's house stood opposite. Conan Doyle's younger brother Innes later came to live at this house and became a pupil at Hope House school. 

The Green, Rottingdean
Conan Doyle lived in Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea; Rudyard Kipling stayed with his family at The Elms, The Green, Rottingdean near Brighton for a few years. The large garden and grounds of this house have been preserved, and as Kipling Gardens are now open to the public:

Greenhow Hill

Greenhow Hill is a village in North Yorkshire.

Rudyard Kipling's short story On Greenhow Hill was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1890. It also appeared in Life's Handicap, a collection of Kipling's stories. 

What makes the story of additional interest is that Conan Doyle's editor at the Strand Magazine was Herbert Greenhough Smith; by coincidence the name Greenhough is derived from Greenhow Hill.

The red bull on the green field
Conan Doyle's short story The Green Flag features the old green Irish flag, which is used to rally an Irish regiment in the British Army; an Irish regimental flag with a red bull on a green field is a key element in Kipling's famous novel Kim.

This edition of Kim has the flag on the back cover:

The Wearing of the Green
The Wearing of the Green, a traditional Irish rebel song, is mentioned in Namgay Doola, another of Kipling's stories from Life's Handicap. Kipling also quotes a line from this song in In Ambush, the first of a series of very funny stories in Stalky & Co.

Two well-known green references

This is from The Elephant's Child, one of Kipling's Just So Stories:

“...the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River...” 

The colour green appears in a line from Kipling's poem A St. Helena Lullaby:

Jungle green homage to Rudyard Kipling
Inspired by The Jungle Book, the Montblanc luxury goods company created jungle green ink and a special-edition fountain pen with a jungle green resin barrel in homage to Rudyard Kipling:

The Kipling Suite in Brown's Hotel
Brown's is a luxury hotel in London's Mayfair. Many famous writers have stayed there, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, author of the previously mentioned A Study in Green. 

Rudyard Kipling spent many of his final days living at Brown's and finished writing The Jungle Book there. In 1936, he was found slumped over his desk at the hotel, stricken by a perforated ulcer that soon killed him

The Kipling Suite was created to commemorate his stay; it contains a framed letter from Kipling and costs £6,210 per night. 

The Kipling Suite bedroom with its ornate jungle wallpaper has many green elements: